We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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."One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"It performs very well."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"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."
"Cisco Technical Assistance Center works on a follow-the-sun concept and gives real 24x7 customer support, which is a great advantage when you have a service contract with them."
"Cisco IOS Security is very robust and works very well."
"The product's stability is good."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco IOS Security is posturing."
"I've found their network routing to be very good."
"The security is very good."
"The most valuable feature is endpoint protection."
"One of the main features is that the hardware is extremely reliable."
"The solution is scalable"
"I like all the functions and features."
"They have a good system operator in the firewalls and it provides many tools that they can use to protect their networks."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls saves us time."
"It is an extremely powerful solution as it provides visibility into all the network traffic, and offers a range of actions such as blocking websites or graphics, as well as load balancing. It's a great tool."
"We utilize advanced threat prevention features like web filtering and SSL decryption, which haven't caused any issues."
"It is critical that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls embeds machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. In my environments, we have an integration with a third-party vendor. As soon as there is new information about new threats and the destination that they are trying to reach on any of our network devices, that traffic will be stopped."
"Application control, IPS, and sandboxing towards the cloud are the most valuable features. It is a very user-friendly product with a very easy-to-use interface."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could 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."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"There's a technology called SD-WAN that we would like to see. We are unable to handle multiple connections or to automatically load balance. I would like to have a feature that enables us to automatically prepare for load balancing."
"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."
"Cisco very slowly introduces and implements the products, unlike other brands."
"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."
"Cisco is an expensive firewall, so the pricing can be improved."
"The solution is not user friendly and it is hard to manage the GUI interface."
"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."
"I would love it if it has a link-by-link feature, integration with Unified Threat Management (UTM), and load balancers. They haven't got any link-by-link feature right now, which can be a very attractive option. This link-by-link feature can also be made available for Cisco's UTM firewalls. The link-by-link feature is available in some of the other firewalls. Currently, integration with UTM is missing. Cisco IOS Security also doesn't have the load balancers and a few things that need to be done to get a good UTM firewall. Normally, other firewalls have UTM. As a next-generation firewall, it's good, but as a UTM, it has to do some work."
"I would like to see more in terms of reporting tools and the threat analysis capabilities."
"In the cloud, the HA could be a lot better. Its price could also be better. It is very expensive."
"The initial configuration is complicated to set up."
"The built-in machine learning features provide some automation, but I think there should be an option for manual review because nothing replaces the human eye."
"It would be better to have more tools to control Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. We don't have too many tools to access Palo Alto. For example, the IT team doesn't have access to it. We can see it physically and see if it's running or not. We need to contact a special team to receive that information. I would also like to see more reporting in the next release."
"In Mexico, Palo Alto's discounts are significantly lower than Cisco's. They are also more expensive – about 15% or 20% – than Cisco, but their platforms are very similar."
"Most other VPN clients include mobile VPNs but Palo Alto does not."
"The advanced manual protection needs to be improved a little bit because they used to make a cloud manual analysis for the cloud."
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Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 164 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiOS, Meraki MX and Netgate pfSense, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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