Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Firewall
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Firewall delivers comprehensive threat protection for modern, distributed networks. Built to support hybrid workforces and multicloud environments, it enables Zero Trust access, application visibility, and secure remote connectivity. With integration across the Cisco Secure portfolio, including SecureX and Talos threat intelligence, the firewall powers organizations to detect and stop more sophisticated threats. Centralized management simplifies policy enforcement, orchestration,…N/A
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
The VM-Series is a virtualized form of Palo Alto next-generation firewall that can be deployed in a range of cloud environments. The VM-Series natively analyzes all traffic in a single pass to determine the application identity, the content within, and the user identity.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Free Trial
YesNo
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 Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Considered Both Products
Cisco Secure Firewall
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco Firepower NGFW is much more user friendly than its competitors and their customer service is top notch. It was a no brainer in choosing a company that has the backing to help provide a great product and service to its customers. Cisco Firepower NGFW is easy to use, easy …
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series

No answer on this topic

Features
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Firewall
8.0
139 Ratings
8% below category average
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
8.5
8 Ratings
2% below category average
Identification Technologies8.3123 Ratings8.58 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.4125 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Content Inspection8.0122 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.5130 Ratings8.58 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.3113 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.6129 Ratings8.58 Ratings
Reporting and Logging7.7131 Ratings7.58 Ratings
VPN8.0116 Ratings9.07 Ratings
High Availability8.6125 Ratings9.07 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.5121 Ratings9.08 Ratings
Proxy Server7.369 Ratings9.44 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 8.8 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.2 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
(144 ratings)
9.0
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.4
(3 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.3
(79 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.8
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
7.9
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Secure FirewallPalo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
This security solution is well-suited for a complex environment that requires a scalable and secure solution with granular control. It is also recommended that it be implemented with other Cisco security solutions. Requirements are Security-First. It is less appropriate in a small business scenario where advanced configurations are not required. It should be well-trained on this solution.
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Palo Alto Networks
PaloAlto VM-200 is a virtualized firewall with high processing power and network edge protection. The great advantage is being able to implement in a VMware environment without worrying about hardware, rack space, physical network connections and others. It can be easily managed via the web and remotely to create protection, access and reporting rules. The VM-200 firewall can be used by any company, small or large because it has several models available according to the real needs of each one.
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Pros
Cisco
  • It's good at segregating networks and ensuring that you only give the access that you need to give. Especially with medical devices, you want to only give the access that they need and keep them in their own separate areas so that they can't just communicate with the rest of the network. It's also good at the border for keeping attackers out of the network.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • Decrypt internet traffic
  • daily reporting of top internet users
  • classify internet traffic in real-time to allow us to understand the organization needs.
  • Strong AI capabilities
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Cons
Cisco
  • I wish that the deployment of the updates to the sensors from the FMC was faster.
  • Cisco ASA firewall did a great job of authentication and authorization on the local firewall. FTD does not authorize users well in terms that an AAA must be setup to provide the granular tools that the ASA did.
  • Cisco's method of licensing the firewall can be improved. The FMC and the FTD are licensed through the Cisco software manager and there are instances where the devices are licensed but the firewall still displays and error due to licensing.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • High Availability can be improved to allow active-active deployment
  • All command line documentation to provide and support automation
  • It will be nice to have link aggregation just like in the hardware firewall models.
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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
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
i think overall after ALOT of tac cases it works allright now. But still have alot of issues if you use cloud based mangement. fx, if you open 2 windows of access policys, both of the pages, rules starte to jump form side to side. if you then open one more list, its start to jump even faster. if you close the 2 of them, its back to normal. ALSO the extended access lists for VPN, SUCKS. Its the tiniest window when opening the editor, and you are not able to give the rules names, Which means finding and editing rules SUCKS, its a horrible experience, and eveytime we have to we want to yell :P
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Palo Alto Networks
It is very easy to use, even for those with little experience in this particular firewall. Some of the advanced content filtering and content-based policies are difficult to pick up; however, almost all required decoders are built in. Built-in logging and rule testing make rule definition easy, and labels/tags allow filtering, grouping, and categorisation of rules. Updates are easy, and high availability is also reliable.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
would rate Cisco Secure Firewall’s availability a 9 out of 10.
In our production environments at Rackspace, the platform has been consistently reliable. We’ve deployed it in high-availability pairs, and failover works as expected with minimal disruption. Over the past several quarters, we’ve had no major unplanned outages directly attributable to the firewall itself.
The software has been stable
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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
Firewall support is professional just like any other technology Cisco sells. From answering simple questions to bringing out outages affecting a large population of our workforce, Cisco support is always courteous, professional, and communicates with our team to keep our request on their radar. Some of the brightest people I've met are from Cisco support both in IQ and EQ which shows the talent Cisco is able to onboard to their team.
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Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto VM series are best selling and industry's top-selling security product which customers prefer while securing their public cloud environment
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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
Our initial implementation was aided by Cisco's professional services and was excellent. The engineer was very knowledgeable and helped us work through issues while building out our new internet security edge Part of this involved tools to migrate the firewall configuration from old to new.
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Palo Alto Networks
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Secure Firewall works better with the Cisco ecosystem when we can utilize it and feels beefy enough when we utilize it in the data center. The Fortinet we have found are great, small cost boxes for remote offices with a better UI then Cisco Secure Firewalls. The feature set included with the firewalls feels similar from a security point of view.
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Palo Alto Networks
palo alto firewalls are application-oriented systems. They can beat other product which are based on layer 3/4 inspection. Vm series are also quickly available and could be useful in urgent deployment needs . other vendors like Fortinet and cisco could take much more time to provide the VM and in some cases installation and license validation are complicated
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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
  • Positive impact. Cisco is a big player in IT environment. It is future stuff, everything, what you learn today, maybe something can be tomorrow. And yes, it's quite important to learn the new stuff every day. And yes, that's it. Yes, I'm happy with Cisco.
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Palo Alto Networks
  • ROI has been achieved quickly through lack of security incidents.
  • Inline filtering happens at line rate, unline Sourcefire from Cisco.
  • Great incentives from PAN to switch made a difference in the choice to change.
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ScreenShots

Cisco Secure Firewall Screenshots

Screenshot of Cisco Secure 1200 Series Firewall FamilyScreenshot of Cisco Secure 4200 SeriesScreenshot of Cisco Secure 4200 SeriesScreenshot of Cisco Secure Firewall 1200 Stack FamilyScreenshot of Cisco Secure Firewall 200 SeriesScreenshot of Cisco Secure Firewall 200 Series