We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and OPNsense 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."The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"The GUI is good."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the scalability. The nice thing with the bigger vendors is that they're very good at scale."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco IOS Security is posturing."
"Cisco IOS Security is a mature product with extensive capabilities, serving as the base for the defense layer. It offers good network visibility, which helps in rapid response through the Rapid Threat Containment feature. Its deployment and configuration are straightforward."
"Cisco IOS Security has many good features, but compared to other solutions, it has a more user-friendly interface with steps to apply and manage rules. Another good part of the solution is that it's more straightforward."
"I've found their network routing to be very good."
"One of the valuable features of the solution is its flexibility and it performs great."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"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."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow."
"The initial setup is complicated."
"The solution is not user friendly and it is hard to manage the GUI interface."
"There are the usual bugs that are inherent to some software upgrades. Sometimes this provides some unexpected issues, however, it happens with all brands all the time."
"Cisco IOS Security's monitoring is rather rudimentary and could be improved."
"In the security portfolio from Cisco, the issue is marketing. Cisco is still seen primarily as an enterprise network player rather than being acknowledged as a security vendor."
"The configuration and reporting interfaces need a lot of improvement. It needs to be more accessible forsolide without a strong technical background. If you had a simplified dashboard, the lower-level techs could manage the solution and provide services. Cisco IOS Security requires someone who is highly trained to operate it."
"We have a very bad experience on the support. They take too much time requesting logs, and they are not coming directly online to resolve the issues."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"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."
"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."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". 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 IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks URL Filtering with PAN-DB, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. OPNsense report.
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