We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and OPNsense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall is highly regarded for its robust threat defense, comprehensive application visibility, effective troubleshooting capabilities, seamless integration with other Cisco products, and reliable high-availability capabilities. OPNsense is praised for its impressive scalability, excellent guest access capabilities, impressive flexibility, unwavering stability, and commendable IDS/IPS features.
Secure Firewall could benefit from enhancements in network performance, policy administration, customization options, and rule creation. It also requires better licensing flexibility, support for standard interfaces, and advanced features like web filtering. The management interface, deployment times, reporting, and logging functionalities should be enhanced as well. OPNsense needs improvements in its user-friendly interface, bandwidth management, multi-provider internet protection, high availability feature, logging, IPS solution, peer-blocking features, installation and deployment process, reporting capabilities, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: The feedback on customer service for Cisco Secure Firewall varies, with certain customers appreciating their technical assistance while others encountered delays and challenges. OPNsense's support has received both positive and negative assessments, with some customers finding it outstanding while others believe there is room for improvement.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Cisco Secure Firewall can be complex, relying on the user's knowledge and environment. OPNsense's initial setup is straightforward and does not present major challenges.
Pricing: Cisco Secure Firewall has a costly setup, involving additional expenses for licensing, support, and hardware. OPNsense is more budget-friendly, as the software itself is free, with expenses primarily related to hardware and deployment choices. Additionally, OPNsense provides a free version, whereas Cisco necessitates licensing.
ROI: Cisco Secure Firewall offers varying ROI depending on the use case and organization's architecture. It brings reduced operational costs and enhanced security, leading to positive ROI. OPNsense delivers ROI in under three months by eliminating recurring fees and recouping savings within that timeframe.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall is the preferred choice when comparing it to OPNsense. The initial setup for Cisco Secure Firewall was generally considered straightforward and easy, thanks to the availability of Cisco's resources and documentation. Cisco Secure Firewall offers more valuable features such as threat defense, intensive troubleshooting capabilities, integration with other Cisco products, and advanced features like IPS and web filtering.
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"One of the best features is the ease of use. It's also easy to teach new engineers to use the ASA CLI."
"The technical support is excellent. I would rate it as 10 out of 10. When there has been an issue, we have had a good response from them."
"Another benefit has been user integration. We try to integrate our policies so that we can create policies based on active users. We can create policies based on who is accessing a resource instead of just IP addresses and ports."
"Cisco ASA works very nicely from an administration perspective. The management of the device is very nice. The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) is the software that we use and it is very easy to configure using the GUI."
"VPN, firewall, and IDS/IPS allow us to deliver services to meet client needs across various industry verticals."
"Its efficiency and security are the most important. We are more efficient and more secure."
"The features I have found most valuable are the ASA firewalls. I like to have features like most integrated systems in ACI."
"The ASA has seen significant improvement due to the IPS."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The most valuable feature is the Dual WAN in OPNSense, which offers advanced capabilities."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"I have found the solution has some great features overall, such as guest access capabilities, dashboards, and ease of use. There is plenty of documentation and support and it has the plugins that I needed."
"It has firewall and VPN capabilities, which are very valuable features."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"We would really like to see dual dual power supplies for some Cisco Firewall products."
"We wanted to integrate Firepower with our solution, but it didn't have the capability to accommodate our bandwidth since they only had two 10 gig interfaces on the box. We run way more than that through our network because we are a service provider, providing Internet to our customers."
"There are some limitations with SSL. Regarding the security assessment for the ISO 27000 standard, there are certain features that Cisco needs to scale up. Not all products support it, so you need to be slightly careful, especially on the site track."
"The Sandbox and the Web Censoring in this solution need to be improved."
"I would like more features in conjunction with other solutions, like Fortinet."
"It is not easy to configure."
"Sometimes, it is not easy to troubleshoot. You need to know where to go. It took me quite awhile. It's like, "Okay, if it doesn't go smoothly here, then go find the documentation." Once you do it, it is not so bad. However, it is sometimes a steep learning curve on the troubleshooting part of it."
"REST API stability needs improvement in order for customizing resource allocation available to the user rather than just being there transparently. This way users can customize REST API and tailor it to their needs."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"I think the most important thing is that it should be easily accessible, but currently, that doesn't seem to be the case. We need a hardware platform that's based on common standards and open computing principles, which would be like a commodity and benefit us greatly."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while OPNsense 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 OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and SonicWall TZ, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. OPNsense report.
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