Cisco Secure IPS vs. Fortinet FortiGate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure IPS
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure IPS (formerly Firepower Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention System, or NGIPS) is an intrusion detection response system that produces security data and enhances the analysis by InsightOps. The technology replaces the former Sourcefire 3D IPS. Cisco acquired Sourcefire in 2013.N/A
FortiGate
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
FortiNet FortiGate is a firewall option with high integrability. It offers a variety of deployment options and next-gen firewall capabilities, including integration with IaaS cloud platforms and public cloud environments.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Secure IPSFortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure IPSFortiGate
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFortiGate pricing starts at $250 for home office use, up to $300,000 for large enterprise appliances. Must contact sales team for pricing.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Secure IPSFortinet FortiGate
Considered Both Products
Cisco Secure IPS
Chose Cisco Secure IPS
Cisco Firepower is as well positioned in the Gartner magic quadrant as the others I mentioned and not just because of that, but the product is really good, delivers what it's intended to deliver. For us, the main strategy is to simplify administration and operation and as we're …
FortiGate

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Secure IPSFortinet FortiGate
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure IPS
-
Ratings
Fortinet FortiGate
9.1
40 Ratings
7% above category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings9.038 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.738 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings9.339 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings9.340 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings9.039 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings9.040 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings7.740 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings9.040 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings9.635 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.638 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings9.828 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Secure IPSFortinet FortiGate
Small Businesses
AlienVault USM
AlienVault USM
Score 7.9 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
CrowdStrike Falcon
CrowdStrike Falcon
Score 9.2 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Secure IPSFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(6 ratings)
9.3
(67 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.9
(4 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.6
(26 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Secure IPSFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
Cisco Secure IPS is required for every organization and it gives us all the advanced security features for more visibility and control on our incoming and outgoing network traffic. We can easy to configure and management is also very easy. You can deploy in the existing network very easily. The price is very low and performance is very high and it works very quickly on threats and takes the necessary action.
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Fortinet
For FortiGate Firewall, the basic functionality and requirement is met easily as Fortigate is among market leaders in NGFW. There are some extra points that inclined us to use Fortigate as our main Firewall. [Fortinet]Fortigate has a very well refined and functional SD-WAN solution when it comes to load balancing for normal Internet Traffic. SD-WAN - Load balancing of Internet traffic is a USP of Fortigate and makes it stand tall in the competition. Be it 3 or more Internet Links, multiple Subnets/segments of users to distribute and bandwidth load balancing for links and users. SLA based monitoring of Internet Links / MPLS links, makes it even better to choose the links on the basis of performance (Latency, packet loss, Jitter etc). SSL VPN configuration - The deep CLI-level debugging is also very helpful in troubleshooting. Type of tunnel can be easily configured - Full Tunnel or Split Tunnel for SSL. Though, I think Fortigate is one of the best options for small and mid-sized organizations, there are some areas for improvement. First, the CLI interface is very hard to adapt as the commands and directory hierarchy is very different for common syntax and standards.
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Pros
Cisco
  • The option to deploy it as a virtual machine in a UCS-E inside a Cisco Router is something to consider a lot. It simplifies a lot the deployment in places where you need to optimize resources and keep things simple. It also saves some money on unnecessary hardware.
  • Having the most complete license, we can have in the same box IPS, inspection for malware and URL filtering. As Cisco uses Talos Intelligence network to mitigate and evaluate risks, having this complete set of security features turns the box into a powerful resource to protect our remote locations. Considering the hyper-connected business we have today, it's almost impossible to think that we can run a business without this kind of protection.
  • The integration between Firepower NGIPS and other products, like Cisco ISE and Splunk, is also a key feature for this solution. In both cases, you can integrate the product to have the best of both. As a security appliance, it's very important for us to have all the logs centralized in Splunk and this is done simply connecting FMC (Firepower Management Console) to the Splunk collector.
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Fortinet
  • It is the most reliable NGFW that we have ever been touch with it.
  • You can easily upgrade the firewall cluster firmware without user attention!!!
  • User IDentity based feature is fantastic and intrusion prevention just works with least false-positive possible.
  • Very reachfull and intuitive GUI, just love it
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Cons
Cisco
  • Wish additional modules were included such as FireAmp.
  • Wish it was easier to include customized signatures if needed. Required to know how to code with Snort in order to add real customization.
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Fortinet
  • When we switched to Fortinet Fortigate, it took some time getting used to and become familiar with the new interface. Being used to strictly command-line interfaces, a full GUI-based firewall was something brand new. Careful planning had to be done when creating rules to ensure we didn't miss anything. However, once we got used to the new GUI interface, going from one Fortinet product to another was simple, as Fortinet used the same interface for all of its devices.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
We are in the middle of outsourcing and may not be able to keep this product.
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Fortinet
Fortinet's products have kept improving with new software releases and they continue to deliver great value. Their support is also very good. I believe that as a small enterprise, their products have given us competitive advantage delivering features and functionality that enable us to innovate and do things better. They also continue to be a leader in the markets they serve.
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Usability
Cisco
Very easy to navigate GUI in the FMC and very effective at performing the intending duties.
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Fortinet
The user interface shared among many simultaneous users is very easy to get around. With shared favorites among users, most tasks are easily bookmarked and can quickly be found and edited. Their strategy for web filter integration is easy to understand and manage as well. With some general direction, setup and maintenance were easy to do and easy to teach others in the organization to do as well.
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
We had didn't any hardware failures at our two main office locations and upgraded our units last year after using them for about 5-6 years
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Performance
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
Good performance and really good integration. We have integration with Microsoft AD.
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Support Rating
Cisco
We didn't have any major issues that let us need support. Only, for this reason, I think Cisco Firepower deserves the rating. Even for small issues, the partner that helped us during the project could solve it quickly. There are also tons of documents and other online resources to help maintain, administer and support the product.
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Fortinet
We live in Turkey. Fortinet's Turkey office [dealt] constantly with us in our every problem or our experience. In addition, global support teams also supported every ticket we opened in every problem we encountered. They support innovative approaches and evaluate and offer solutions. In this context, they were very supportive of the problems we encountered in previous versions.
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In-Person Training
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
I received it a couple years afters use it and it was just to confirm my knowledge about the tool.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
Make sure that you have the most current version of FortiOS. Make sure all Fortigates are on the same version
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Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Secure IPS is our first product. We were not using any other tools before. We are very happy with the Cisco Secure IPS features and customer support
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Fortinet
[Fortinet] FortiGate is not only cost effective but it gives the comprehensive security against the APT attacks and gives the complete traffic visibility and granular control. You can easily create the VDOMs (Virtual firewall) within a Fortigate firewall and customize the dashboard as per your requirement if you have multiple VDOMs within a single firewall.
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Scalability
Cisco
No answers on this topic
Fortinet
My environments are pretty small (less than 100 users per location) so no issues here.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Has made it much easier to determine when incidents have occurred
  • Has been effective in reducing false positives and making solution management more efficient and cost effective
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Fortinet
  • Fortigates have an interesting bundle model for support and subscription services that make it an attractive option to deploy Firewall, IDS, Ant-virus, anti-SPAM in a single device. The cost of the bundle is pretty much what you pay for the device, not requiring huge expenditures on it's time to renew the hardware.
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ScreenShots