Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs. Fortinet FortiGate

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Web Appliance
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Cisco Web Security Appliance [WSA]), powered by Cisco Talos, protects by automatically blocking risky sites and testing unknown sites before allowing users to link to them, helping with compliance. It is available models S690, S390, and S190.N/A
FortiGate
Score 8.6 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 Web ApplianceFortinet FortiGate
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceFortiGate
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 Web ApplianceFortinet FortiGate
Considered Both Products
Cisco Secure Web Appliance

No answer on this topic

FortiGate
Chose Fortinet FortiGate
We selected Fortinet FortiGate because it was cheaper compared with another similar appliance. Also, FortiGate is very easy to install and administrate. They have very good resilience and provide very good support. There's good traffic inspection and notification. The VPN is …
Chose Fortinet FortiGate
  • Very good price.
  • Easy to administrate.
  • A lot of features: Firewall, IDP and IPS, VPN, also you can use it like proxy.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceFortinet FortiGate
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Secure Web Appliance
-
Ratings
Fortinet FortiGate
9.3
38 Ratings
9% above category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings9.736 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.736 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings8.937 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings9.638 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings9.237 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings9.638 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.238 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings9.838 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings9.733 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.636 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings8.927 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceFortinet FortiGate
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Check Point Quantum Security Gateway
Score 9.2 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway
Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway
Score 6.6 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
6.7
(9 ratings)
9.5
(65 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.9
(4 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(6 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(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 Web ApplianceFortinet FortiGate
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
We have both scenarios where we can describe that. For example, in the HQ, where we have about 3,000 users, Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance is the ideal solution, because we can consolidate all the Internet access, policies, rules, etc. in the same box. However, if you have small offices with a few users, it's hard to justify one big and expensive box that could cost more than the whole office infrastructure.
Read full review
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
  • SMA gave us central control over multiple servers, simplifying management.
  • Performance of the Appliance VM exceeded that of our old physical appliance-based solution.
  • Convenient licensing for virtualized environments that allows easy scaling.
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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
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • I think that the interface could need updates to adapt it to a much more current system, achieve quick access to necessary tools and adapt the platform to a much more customizable and comfortable system to work with.
  • It is undoubtedly a platform that is worth having, however, the license costs could be better adjusted to small businesses so that it can be accessed more easily.
  • It could be a bit complex to use, the use of codes is quite extensive, it could be adjusted to something much more practical but just as efficient.
Read full review
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
No answers on this topic
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
Because it's one of those products you almost don't realize it exists from the end user. From the administrator perspective, you can do everything on its web interface and it's very intuitive to manage, once you know the concepts behind identities, acls, etc. Also, once you build the control structure, I mean, you link 'local' groups with your own Active Directory groups, as we did here, you don't need to be managing those things on the appliance itself.
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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
Our experience with Cisco's support was terrible. Other than the fact that they don't respond to service-related emails with urgency, they also keep on changing the policies that affected us. Recently, they came up with a new look for the same software, which was insanely slow. Renewal of keys for the old interface took months. Overall, the support was not very friendly from the users' point of view.
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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
At home I have a McAfee service that does similar tasks and helps manage the users of my internet. McAfee seems more user friendly and easier to set exceptions.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Security! Security! Security! We are financial company that work with very sensitive information. A lot of unsafe traffic was blocked on the Cisco IronPort WSA over years of using it. We did not earn on it but absolutely sure that we did not lose 'gazillion' of dollars being infected or scammed.
  • Easy to configure and use, no need to teach new personnel how work with this product (hopefully saving time = saving money).
  • Unfortunately the price of license subscription made financial managers push IT dept. to look for something cheaper.
Read full review
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