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Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Defense Orchestrator
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
14th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Secure Firewall Manag...
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Defense Orchestrator is 1.0%, down from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 0.9%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Vivek Balaji - PeerSpot reviewer
Useful guides, excellent support, integration could improve
Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components. I have been using Cisco Defense Orchestrator for approximately eight months. The Cisco Defense…
Yonas Abebe - PeerSpot reviewer
Great dashboard with extensive visibility and good support
I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I remember version 6.4 had an integration with Eddie, allowing me to define a policy according to my users, however, the latest version, lacks this integration. The logging of FMC should be improved as it does not offer real-time solutions like DazaSodo.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution. It provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."
"If we have a firewall go down, I can hop into CDO, pull the latest configuration off and apply it. That's really good. It helps save time."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"The most valuable feature is being able to do centralized upgrades on the ASAs. We can select all of those ASAs, and say, "Upgrade these ASAs at this scheduled time." It will copy down the ASA image, ASDM image, and then do the upgrade and failovers, and then put it all back into service as required at a scheduled time. It automates that process for us."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator has useful guides for the steps that need to follow by users."
"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the intrusion prevention system."
"Cisco's support and services are far superior to any other security product in Pakistan."
"The most valuable feature of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is the UTM."
"The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is scalable."
"The most valuable aspects are the antivirus and URL filtering."
"The platform's most valuable feature has been its centralized management capability, which allows us to monitor and control multiple devices from one location."
"The solution has a great UI and a policy deployment mechanism, and all the configuration is easily manageable for the firewalls."
 

Cons

"The main thing that would useful for us would the logging and monitoring. I have to check it out, to get the beta, because I don't have access to them... I wanted CDO to be a central place so where I could do everything but right now I don't think that's possible. I really don't want to go back and forth between this and FMC. Maybe the logging portion, when I look at it, will give me some similarities."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"They need to work on the user interface. It needs to be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"CDO doesn't have a report, an official report that I can check daily. It has another module called FTD, but it doesn't have that specifically for ASA. In the reporting, there are a lot of things that aren't there. There is also room for improvement in the daily monitoring."
"When logging into the device, we sort of had problems with it staying in sync. If somebody made a change onsite, it wouldn't do an automatic sync. It would have to wait, as you would have to do a manual sync up."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall."
"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."
"I've found dozens of bugs over the year we've been using it. The more I use it for different things, the more problems I find... Most of the problems have to do with the user interface. A lot of thought and work has gone into the back-end component to make the product do what it's intended to do, but the way it is presented for use hasn't gotten nearly as much thought to make it smart and bug-free."
"Cisco Firepower has been effective in solving various problems, but it could be improved by making it simpler and more user-friendly like Fortinet."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center could improve by being less expensive."
"The first version had a lot of bugs, but the recent versions have sorted them out."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center needs to reduce its price."
"The performance of the Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center could be improved."
"The solution should improve the user interface."
"Some duplicated values and security standards are not working in some high-application protocols with Cisco's next-generation firewalls."
"The tool is a little bit pricey. I was not involved much with finance, but it appeared to be really expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"After our free trial was done we got a subscription for three years and it was under $3,000 or so. It's part of the EA we already paid for, so I don't know what it would be if it was a la carte."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"It is about a $100 per year for an ASA 5506 firewall, and from there it keeps going up if you have a bigger box. For example, the 5516 is $200 to $300 per year."
"I work with a lot of clients, and the price or value of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator can vary from one client to another. If you have a lot of Cisco solutions, the price of the Cisco Defense Orchestrator is justified. Whereas if you have some security components from other vendors, such as Check Point or Palo Alto. This solution would be a pretty expensive proposition considering that they don't integrate with them well."
"I rate Secure Firewall Management Center eight out of 10 for pricing."
"The solution is not expensive."
"One of the advantages of Cisco is its range of flexible licensing options."
"It is rather expensive."
"Technical support is an additional annual cost and is not included with the license."
"The solution is expensive. We have a multi-license, and we pay extra for support."
"I use the free version of the product."
"It could be considered relatively cheaper when compared to some other vendors in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
51%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Legal Firm
3%
Government
21%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Engineering Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Cisco Defense Orchestrator should be made more user-friendly overall. Currently, to use it effectively, one must be specific with the rule set that needs to be set up. Additionally, I suggest impro...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes.
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Defense Orchestrator?
Those who want to use Cisco Defense Orchestrator should build their own use case and see if it fits their environment. The most significant benefit for us is the response time because it automates ...
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I...
 

Also Known As

CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.