Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks WildFire

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Firewall
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Firewall (formerly Cisco Firepower NGFW) is a firewall product that integrates with other Cisco security offerings. It provides Advanced Malware protection, including sandboxing environments and DDoS mitigation. Cisco also offers a Next Generation Intrusion Prevention System, which provides security across cloud environments using techniques like internal network segmentation. The firewall can be managed locally, remotely, and via the cloud. The product is scalable to the scope of…N/A
Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Palo Alto Network’s WildFire is a malware prevention service. It specializes in addressing zero-day threats through dynamic and static analysis, machine learning, and advanced sandbox testing environments.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Features
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Firewall
7.7
81 Ratings
12% below category average
Palo Alto Networks WildFire
-
Ratings
Identification Technologies7.968 Ratings00 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.073 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Inspection7.872 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.478 Ratings00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.065 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.576 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and Logging7.477 Ratings00 Ratings
VPN7.966 Ratings00 Ratings
High Availability8.373 Ratings00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.372 Ratings00 Ratings
Proxy Server6.942 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.6 out of 10
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.6 out of 10
Sumo Logic
Sumo Logic
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(88 ratings)
8.0
(8 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(37 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.9
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks WildFire
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Well suited any edge kind of protection, which is obviously, again, what firewalls really used for. Less suited if you need more detailed protection, more granular, shall I say it's a better word, more granular protection. The ability to filter not just on IPS and ports, but a much deeper look at the packets and do that.
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Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks Wildfire is well suited for pretty much anywhere that you need the latest and greatest network security. It is extremely good at protecting you from the latest malware threats that might pose a potential problem for your network/endpoints. We've been very please since we installed it and I would say cost of the Palo Altos is the only drawback. If money were no object I'd go with a Palo Alto with Wildfire every time. But unfortunately in some smaller branches it just doesn't make financial sense.
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Pros
Cisco
  • It's been a big change for us because like I said, we've been using it about a year, I think. And we went from ASAs to this, so it was a big changeover from being able to do everything in CLI honestly, it's a bit clunky and more time consuming to have to configure things through the Gooey, which has been a pain point for us. But we've tried to automate as much as we can. What it does well is the analysis. The event, not event viewer, but unified event, that's what it is. Handy tool. Also the tunnel troubleshooting the site to site tunnel monitoring or troubleshooting, I can't remember what it's called. It's pretty good too. It's nice how it has some predefined commands in there. I'd say those are probably the things we like about it the most.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • This is could base and easily manageable for our collocation. While working within the could can review in live time potential treats that it has reported from other devices.
  • Worked very well with existing Palo Alto devices.
  • Another huge plus is the simplicity of managing and ease of scalability.
  • Its cost is competitive with similar/like products available.
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Cons
Cisco
  • I have one argument, failover scenario. It's not quite easy. Failover scenario of firewalls. It's sometimes not quite easy to know the issue. But if we open a tech case, a technical case to Cisco, Cisco will help us, it's a little bit con, but we are happy with this product.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • WildFire, like other sandboxes, has to stay up with malware sandbox evasion techniques, which necessitates larger file size limits.
  • More file formats should be able to be submitted and scanned by WildFire, which needs improved initial administration and setup.
  • It's quite pricey, and there's no warning choice for performance on the cloud.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It works really well. We can do most anything we want or need to with it, and you don’t have to have a doctorate or multiple certs to necessarily figure it out. The thing that would probably have to happen to make us switch would be if we just got priced out - Cisco’s more powerful and higher bandwidth models cost a pretty penny.
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Palo Alto Networks
It works very well and takes care of protecting us from threats new and well-known. It's been a game changer in terms of threat detection & prevention.
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Usability
Cisco
Solution is highly effective, offers a lot of features with constant improvements and additions of new features over time. It's relatively easy to get familiar with the system, especially if transitioning from adaptive security appliances. If this is not the case, as for learnability there's a learning curve but once learned it is relatively easy to remember the details about the system even after a period of non-use
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Palo Alto Networks
Easy to use and works well. For the most part it's set it and forget it, but there's also some flexibility for high security environments and those with extra privacy concerns.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
We have had really good success with Cisco Secure Firewall when it comes to availability. Even when we’ve had temporary issues with one appliance or the other, or with the Firewall Management Center, it has stayed up and defended our network diligently. We even had an issue where the licensing got disabled for multiple days, and it kept spinning like a top
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
no slowing down, vpn is working fast
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
Cisco support is not at all suitable for this product, at least. It takes a long for them to help us with our server issues. A lot of the time, the customer support person keeps on redirecting calls to another person. They need to be well versed with the terminologies of the product they are supporting us with. Support needs a lot of improvement. Cisco Fire Linux OS, the operating system behind Cisco Firepower NGFW (formerly Sourcefire), also doesn't receive regular patches. In short, average customer service.
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Palo Alto Networks
PAN support is very good. You can get the reasonable and timely support on any conditions. When the product is already integrated with the PAN firewalls, you can choose the severity levels based on the effect. The customer service/TAC is very helpful, they even have additional recommendations of advises for product usability. Local partners are also assisting the cases and give their expertise.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
very good
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Cisco
was a good training but questions was answered not so good. Training was "Fundamentals of Cisco Firewall Threat Defense and Intrusion Prevention (SFWIPF)".
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco
In the beginning transition from Adaptive Security Appliance to Cisco Secure Firewall did not look like the best choice. Solution was new, there were a lot of bugs and unsupported features and the actual execution in the form of configuration via Firepower Management Center was extremely slow. Compare configuring a feature via CLI on ASA in a manner of seconds (copy/paste) to deployment via FMC to Secure Firewall which took approx. 10 mins (no exaggeration). Today, situation is a bit different, overall solution looks much more stable and faster then it was but there's still room for improvement.
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
I think the Cisco product is probably pretty much equal now. I would love to say that Cisco is way more advanced or whatever, but Palo Alto, they just focus solely really on firewalls. And before Cisco came out with the FTD, the ASAs would only do layer four. So that's one of the reasons why that we purchased the Palo Alto is because they would do layer seven. And when we went to the FTDs, since they do layer seven as well, we just wanted to have different layers of security with our firewalls. So we just put the Palo Altos behind the Ciscos in case that there was anything that the Ciscos didn't catch, the Palo Altos would.
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Palo Alto Networks
We wanted a single device to handle numerous jobs, such as antivirus, antimalware, vulnerability detection, url filtering, etc. Palo Alto provides this, while TippingPoint IPS is a more dedicated product. Caveat: I used TippingPoint over 5 years ago, so things may have changed.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Cisco
was not involved
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Cisco
you can choose up to 50 devices i think thats enough for our organization
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Cisco
was not involved
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Some patching for zero day exploits have resulted in bugs causing downtime, meaning decision between vuln patching or risk of downtime needs to be discussed.
  • Peace of mind that the device will receive continued upgrades and with a quick turnaround.
  • Ability to use TAC for issues.
  • Ease of hiring candidates with experience in product line.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • As we all know the product of Palo Alto is little bit expensive but its performance is far better than any of its competitors. So as I previously mentioned, Palo Alto should not sell WildFire Licence seperately.
  • If the firewall is internet facing then only we should buy WildFire Licence.
  • WildFire Licence is not necessary for internal firewall. If you are planning to buy a firewall for internal network where your traffic is not going towards internet so no need to buy WildFire Licence.
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