We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The two solutions are very comparable. WatchGuard Firebox received slightly better ratings because it is easier to deploy than Cisco Secure Firewall.
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"It is very flexible to use."
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"One of the most valuable features is the GUI front end, which is very easy to use. But I'm also a command-line guy, and being able to access the device via command-line for advanced troubleshooting is quite important."
"The clusters in data centers are great."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Firewall is its ease of configuration and that it's scalable for firewalls and VPNs."
"The features I have found most valuable are the ASA firewalls. I like to have features like most integrated systems in ACI."
"Valuable features include AnyConnect, double translations, and an independent IPS module."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"Cisco tech is always good and helpful. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"Its VPN and ASN features are very stable."
"The security that is used for defending from the attacks is very good."
"Simple to move settings between WatchGuard boxes."
"Management and visibility are the most valuable features."
"Because we bought two firewalls... we need a central place to manage the policies and deploy them to both devices. It's good that it provides a system management console that is able to manipulate and manage policies in one place and deploy them to different locations."
"There are no problems with the technical support. If a problem occurs it gets resolved immediately with our technical support partners."
"The Dimension control, the one-spot reporting and control, has been nice. It's been easy to go in and make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that only the right stuff is getting in."
"After conducting several tests I found the antivirus is working very well. Additionally, they have a very interesting feature, DNS WatchGuard, which is checking DNS requests for phishing, among other things, and it has caught a lot of unwanted attempts and attacks."
"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"The UI could be improved."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"Backup can be improved."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"The performance should be improved."
"I would like to see an IE version of the solution where it is ruggedized."
"There is no support here in Georgia. If something goes wrong, support is not always very helpful with the other firewalls or other products."
"Virtual patching would be helpful for servers that are not able to update patches due to compatibility issues."
"The IPS and GUI are outdated."
"Cisco makes horrible UIs, so the interface is something that should be improved."
"If they want to add better features to the current Cisco ASA, they can start by increasing the encryption. That is the only thing they need to improve."
"Most of the features don't work well, and some features are missing as well."
"It's sometimes not easy to understand and can require specialist assistance."
"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."
"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."
"The solution needs to improve its accessibility."
"The VPN aspect of the WatchGuard Firebox is an area that could potentially benefit from improvement. We encountered difficulties while attempting to integrate Windows 11 laptops into the system, which resulted in unreliable connections. After some research, we discovered that this was primarily due to compatibility issues with Windows 11 and required a patch. However, it was still a challenge as it seemed that even when we tried to keep the laptops on Windows 10, they still exhibited the same issues as Windows 11 machines. Despite WatchGuard attributing the problem to Microsoft, we were eventually able to find a solution and all the machines are now functioning seamlessly."
"We bought Firebox four or five years ago, and with the first version I had to reboot it every two or three months for no apparent reason. We upgraded last year to the M370 and it's been running, but it is rebooting from time to time. I don't know why."
"Setup of this solution is complex, it's not plug and play."
"There should be better integration and a way to configure multiple vendors into the same data center in order to offer more flexibility."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Sophos UTM, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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