We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs. pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall and pfSense come out about equal in this comparison. Cisco ASA Firewall has a slight edge when it comes to service and support, but pfSense has an edge when it comes to pricing.
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"The product offers very good security."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"It's very easy to configure."
"It performs very well."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature would be ASDM. The ability to go in, visualize and see the world base in a clear and consistent manner is very powerful."
"It helped us a lot with our VPNs for the home office during COVID. There has been more security and flexibility for VPNs and other applications."
"The return on investment is not going to be restricted to just the box... Now, these genres have been expanded to cyber, to third-party integrations, having integrated logging, having integrated micro and macro segmentations. The scope has been widened, so the ROI, eventually, has multiplied."
"I found that setting up rules for HTTPS and SSH access to the management interface are straightforward, including setting the cypher type."
"Basic firewalling is obviously the most valuable. In addition to that, secure access and remote access are also very useful for us."
"The stability of the product is good."
"The features I've found most valuable are the packet captures and packet traces because they help me debug connections. I like the logs because they help me see what's going on."
"The ASA has seen significant improvement due to the IPS."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"The documentation is very good."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"The process of procuring modern-day technology within the DOD needs to improve."
"The content filtering on an application level is not as good as other solutions such as Palo Alto."
"It seems very clunky and slow. I would like to be able to tune it to be a more efficient product."
"As it’s a GenX firewall, expertise for both implementation and troubleshooting the pain points can be a challenge. This could be a concern when companies are thinking about buying this product."
"My team tells me that other solutions such as Fortinet and Palo Alto are easier to implement."
"The graphical interface should be improved to make the configuration easier, to do things with a single click."
"This is an older product and has reached end-of-life."
"The scalability is a bit limiting, to be honest. In terms of when you look to changing landscape in terms of threats, I think to me, my personal it's a bit limiting."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"Could be simplified for new users."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"It needs to be more secure."
"We have not had any problems with it, and we also do not have a need for any new features. If anything, its reporting can be better. Sophos has better reporting than pfSense. Sophos has more detailed information. pfSense is not as detailed. It is summarized."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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