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.
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"This solution helped us to identify the key areas where we need to focus to block traffic that is malicious to our organization."
"The most valuable feature we have found to be the VPN because we use it often."
"Our company operates in Saudi Arabia, primarily working with government sectors. If any hardware malfunctions, the defective device is removed, and we receive a replacement from the reseller. We have not encountered any issues related to delays in receiving replacements for malfunctioning devices which has been beneficial."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"The most valuable feature would be the IP blocking. It gets rid of things that you don't need in your environment."
"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."
"I like the user interface because the navigation is very easy, straightforward on your left side pane you have all the sites that you need to browse. Unlike any other firewalls, it's pretty straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to block almost all of the ports."
"Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change."
"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."
"The solution has increased productivity with our outside salespeople being able to connect into their computers and use those remotely."
"The main reason we went with it was the security protocols. They were more robust on this device."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser."
"The firewall aspect and the branch office VPNs are the most valuable features... We don't have any issues with it. We don't have to spend a lot of time maintaining it."
"I have found the DNS Watch feature for intrusion and prevention response and APT Locker most valuable to me."
"What I found most valuable in WatchGuard Firebox is that it's a functional platform that works, and each of its features works well. The solution also has good reporting and dashboard capabilities. I also find the overall performance of WatchGuard Firebox great."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"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."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"The GUI interface could be improved when compared to other solutions."
"The stability could be better because we have a lot of issues with the stability of Cisco Firepower."
"The configuration in Firepower Management Center is very slow. Deployment takes two to three minutes. You spend a lot of time on modifications. Whereas, in FortiGate, you press a button, and it takes one second."
"10Gb interfaces should be available on more models."
"Cisco makes horrible UIs, so the interface is something that should be improved."
"The scalability has room for improvement."
"We see a lot of vendors in the market with a lot of niche products. I understand that it's difficult to cover everything, but making it more open for integration with other vendors would be a value add for Cisco."
"Its implementation was not straightforward. It was mainly because we were running two projects together."
"This solution needs the option to add an external hard drive."
"It's sometimes not easy to understand and can require specialist assistance."
"When working with WatchGuard, specifically in configuring Panda Security on the portal for the first time, it was challenging for me."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"Firebox would be improved with integration for endpoint protection solutions."
"The few issues that we have had, such as not knowing where to go, they have been answered quickly."
"Last year, I had an issue with one of the Fireboxes going down. It was overheated, because my server room became overheated and this fried it."
"If they could make the traffic monitoring easier that would be great. I don't use it that frequently, but I would like to see some improvements in the ease of use of that component, so it makes more sense. I know it's a technical component so there's going to be some difficulty trying to make that easier."
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 XGS. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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