Cisco Secure Firewall vs. PRTG Network Monitor

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Firewall
Score 7.7 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
PRTG
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
PRTG Network Monitor is the flagship offering from German software company Paessler, for monitoring local and wide area networks (LANs & WANs), servers, websites, apps, and more.
$1,750
perpetual license
Pricing
Cisco Secure FirewallPRTG Network Monitor
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
PRTG 500
1,750
perpetual license
PRTG 1,000
3,200
perpetual license
PRTG 2,500
6,500
perpetual license
PRTG 5,000
11,500
perpetual license
PRTG XL 1
15,500
perpetual license
PRTG Enterprise
Custom Pricing
subscription license
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure FirewallPRTG
Free Trial
NoYes
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 FirewallPRTG Network Monitor
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Secure FirewallPRTG Network Monitor
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Firewall
7.5
62 Ratings
12% below category average
PRTG Network Monitor
-
Ratings
Identification Technologies7.654 Ratings00 Ratings
Visualization Tools6.556 Ratings00 Ratings
Content Inspection7.656 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.159 Ratings00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP7.551 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.459 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting and Logging7.060 Ratings00 Ratings
VPN7.852 Ratings00 Ratings
High Availability7.857 Ratings00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.056 Ratings00 Ratings
Proxy Server6.734 Ratings00 Ratings
Network Performance Monitoring
Comparison of Network Performance Monitoring features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Firewall
-
Ratings
PRTG Network Monitor
7.1
55 Ratings
15% below category average
Automated network device discovery00 Ratings7.449 Ratings
Network monitoring00 Ratings7.754 Ratings
Baseline threshold calculation00 Ratings6.747 Ratings
Alerts00 Ratings7.755 Ratings
Network capacity planning00 Ratings6.739 Ratings
Packet capture analysis00 Ratings5.528 Ratings
Network mapping00 Ratings7.639 Ratings
Customizable reports00 Ratings7.448 Ratings
Wireless infrastructure monitoring00 Ratings7.438 Ratings
Hardware health monitoring00 Ratings6.952 Ratings
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Cisco Secure FirewallPRTG Network Monitor
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Score 9.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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Score 9.3 out of 10
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Score 8.8 out of 10
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User Ratings
Cisco Secure FirewallPRTG Network Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
7.6
(62 ratings)
8.5
(55 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
6.1
(2 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.6
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.6
(21 ratings)
8.5
(17 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Secure FirewallPRTG Network Monitor
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Sometimes it is really hard to handle. There are so many bugs especially when it comes to ACL or HA creation. Sometimes the Cisco Secure Firewall just needs a restart in order to work but that shouldn't be like that in our environment the Cisco Secure Firewall is the heart of the network and if the Cisco Secure Firewall is down the whole branch is down, for that we need a more reliable product.
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Paessler
If there are a number of different protocols and devices to monitor PRTG is really an all in one solution. There are network specific solutions, telephony solutions, server solutions, etc - but this tool can do anything. Even if you don't use this tool as your main "monitoring solutions" every IT professional should have access to this tool for at least troubleshooting purposes. If you are looking for something specific built for a task you may be able to find [a] more direct and easy tool to use that would be easier and quicker to setup as customization is not needed.
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Pros
Cisco
  • How the firewall works well is normally the firewall is protecting the secure network for the internal network to prevent the attack from external network. normally for the ISP customer, we usually filter the firewall polices only for the server farm, server farm because normally in ISP is the customer doesn't want to be filtered. So only for the server farm, they need the firewall for the enterprise like banking and for the DDoS attack, like the malware attack, something like that. And then sometimes it's some customer in ISPalso, they got the many DDoS attack and then they are using the public ip. When there are using the public ip, they need to protect their ip. So they need to use the firewall. So the firewall is essentially needed. many attackers and many, many things, terrible things have been to the network which has large impact..
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Paessler
  • Very, very configurable. You can create all kinds of monitors for all kinds of things. Plus it has loads of suggestions out of the box. It can get complicated but monitoring is complicated. Pretty decent interface and good support - active community.
  • I really liked how easy it was to add alerts by SMS. So easy to setup.
  • I like their sizing models (for purchase). We're actually small enough that we are free. But it's not free as in stripped down - it's free because we don't use many "sensors" and don't honestly have the need.
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • The UI in Cisco Firepower formerly Sourcefire) is complicated and entirely redundant. A lot of these features are not useful, and therefore, it can be removed from the main window.
  • The interface is very slow, with each operation taking a lot of time. Searching through the logs takes too much time.
Read full review
Paessler
  • The probe service can be quite resource-intensive. This can cause false-positive readings from some sensors sometimes.
  • The software gets updated very regularly. Whilst this is usually a good thing to fix bugs etc, it does meantime downtime of the monitoring quite often while they are installed.
  • The ability to create Maps from Libraries. Very specific issue but a lot of people have been asking for it for years and it is still not available.
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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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Paessler
It is now an essential tool for monitoring and maintaining the health of our network and systems.
Read full review
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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Paessler
The tool is very intuitive to use and it is Windows-based (everybody knows how to use Windows) so it's easy to get into. Every time is setup in a hierarchy so if you have a good initial hierarchy design, it will really reduce administrative effort down the road.
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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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
Customer service has been great. TAC has been mostly able to identify and fix problems that we may have and have been very responsive. If for some reason something isn't fixed right away, they have been adamant on staying with us and working the issues out before things get escalated up the chain.
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Paessler
I am giving this a 6 simply because I have never had to contact support. The online documentation is adequate for most things, and the user-maintained knowledgebase is excellent. The few times I have run into issues that were not easily resolvable with intuitive UI, I was able to find the answers that I needed either in the PRTG-provided documentation, the knowledgebase, or with a quick online web search.
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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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Paessler
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
We use the FMC as a virtual machine, it combines administration, monitoring and can be used perfectly for error analysis. There are restrictions due to administration without the FMC, so we decided on the FMC as the central administration.
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Paessler
I have deployed and tested three products for evaluation I found [PRTG Network Monitor] very easy to deploy, the deployment literally took not more than one hour including basic configuration and network discovery. After deployment few configuration changes and creation of maps, reports and little tweaking is required. [Then] it would go through its process of recommendation that took some time to complete, while [on] other hand other software's took lot of time to install and configure. And features were also missing, which resulted in decision in favor of [PRTG Network Monitor].
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Cisco Secure Firewall has provided a single management interface for all of our devices.
  • We have had issues implementing 1010 in HA where a site was using a dynamic IP previously.
  • Lack of DHCP options has slowed deployment to our smaller sites.
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Paessler
  • The ability to analyze multiple pieces of information in one place, especially with historical data, has saved our IT department time and headaches. It would be so much more difficult to trace an issue without PRTG, just relying on event logs and an open task manager window.
  • The cost is not cheap, so it's an expense that hits the bottom line like everything else. Figure in hardware costs as well, ideally a server outside of your main environment.
  • I keep saying this, but the historical data piece is worth so much. There's really no good way to collect all of that information in one place without something like PRTG. And that definitely saves time and money in the long run.
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