We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Zscaler Cloud Firewall based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"It is a safe product."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"I found that setting up rules for HTTPS and SSH access to the management interface are straightforward, including setting the cypher type."
"The most valuable feature is IPS. It's a feature that's very interesting for tackling the most current attacks."
"Cisco tech is always good and helpful. I would rate them as 10 out of 10."
"If configured, Firepower provides us with application visibility and control."
"The most valuable feature of the Firepower solution is FireSIGHT, which can be easily managed and is user-friendly."
"I would say the Firepower module is most valuable. I'm trying more to transition to this kind firewall. I had to study a little on Palo Alto Networks equipment. There is a lot I have to learn about the difference."
"The solution is used for the protection of the mobile data network. It is protecting 3G/4G Internet customers and the Private APN."
"It is extremely stable I would say — at least after you deploy it."
"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution is scalable."
"I like the ease of deployment and its flexibility. We don't need to deal with license, quotes, procurement, delivery, and installation. Everything is software-based, and it's very easy to operate."
"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."
"The solution offers good sandboxing."
"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."
"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."
"Its price could be better."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"Backup can be improved."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"One thing that we really would have loved to have was policy-based routing. We had a lot of connections, and sometimes, we would have liked to change the routing depending on the policies, but it was lacking this capability. We also wanted application filtering and DNS filtering."
"I'm not a big fan of the FDM (Firepower Device Manager) that comes with Firepower. I found out that you need to use the Firepower Management Center, the FMC, to manage the firewalls a lot better. You can get a lot more granular with the configuration in the FMC, versus the FDM that comes out-of-the-box with it. FDM is like Firepower for dummies."
"It would be good if Cisco made sure that the solution supports all routing protocols. Sometimes it doesn't."
"It seems very clunky and slow. I would like to be able to tune it to be a more efficient product."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"They need a VTI. I know it's going to be available in the next software version, which is the 6.7 version. However, the problem with that is that the 6.7 is going to deprecate all the older IKEv1 deployment tunnels. Therefore, the problem is that we have a lot of customers which are using older encryptions. If I do that, update it, it's not going to work for me."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"The user interface isn't as good as it could be. They should work to improve it. It would make it easier for customer management if it was easier to use."
"Because it's on cloud, it doesn't allow application of extra settings."
"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."
"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."
"Instead of the standard license, they should certainly provide customers with the visibility to access and view the logs."
"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."
"Pricing is a challenge."
"They do not provide a few components that are fundamental to differentiate the products"
"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Zscaler Cloud Firewall is ranked 26th in Firewalls with 15 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Zscaler Cloud Firewall 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 Zscaler Cloud Firewall writes "A highly stable and comprehensive cloud security and access solution". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Zscaler Cloud Firewall is most compared with Azure Firewall, OPNsense, Cisco Multicloud Defense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Sophos XG. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
