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Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs Tufin Orchestration Suite 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
Tufin Orchestration Suite
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
2nd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
183
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 Tufin Orchestration Suite is 22.0%, up from 20.3% 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…
MithatBulut - PeerSpot reviewer
New employees can quickly grasp the various IPs, devices, and the network's logical and physical
Tufin is primarily used to orchestrate and manage network traffic and firewall devices. It is specifically useful for implementing firewall policies and handling requests from clients that require policy updates or changes Tufin simplifies understanding network topology. New employees can quickly…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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 that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution. It provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."
"There are a lot of templates that are already built-in. They give you quick-to-create and quick-to-apply policies that are typically a little more complicated for people."
"If our server is blocked, this solution shows us why it is blocked and allows us to update the network routing."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"I like the upgrade feature. That is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does it for me pretty well. It's all done in the back-end and I don't really have to be involved. I just initiate, pick the image, and I pick when I want it done and it just does it, whether I have a single ASA or have a dual ASA."
"This product provides excellent centralized device controls and reporting."
"Tufin has made handling firewall rule request tickets more centralized and easier to manage."
"A customer is able to submit a request for access and Tufin will automatically analyze the system to find out where the rule needs to go, and then design the rule for you."
"The designer gives the ability to know where to add a rule, or if the rule is already in place."
"We have a better view of our compliance status."
"The most valuable feature is the compliance check and the recommendations that it makes."
"It gives our firewall administrators visibility into the total infrastructure."
"I like the policy topology map, which allows us to visualize the picture of the security policy of the whole organization."
"The reports that this solution provides are very useful."
 

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 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."
"If I make a change locally to the firewall, CDO gives an alarm or an error message and says there's a change in compliance: "The firewall has this configuration but the last time it was compiled it had that configuration." That view of new changes versus the old could be better... I had to log in manually, locally on the firewall, to check which version, which configuration was actually running. I couldn't see it in CDO."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"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."
"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."
"I would like a better reporting feature and automatic alerting based upon rule changes."
"I would like to see improved role-based access."
"We have had a couple issues with the VMs, but I think it was just because they were starving for resources. A recommendation on what the virtual appliances should have for resources would be appreciated."
"The network part of the solution could be improved. It's too hard because of the Tufin licensing model for the routing devices."
"There are some missing features we'd like to see them add in the future."
"We want to have the ability for a ticket requester to add somebody, or to give somebody view rights to their ticket."
"The reporting function could improve in Tufin. For our clients with companies that have strong compliance, reporting privacy data is mostly a problem. In the IT department, private data needs a function that one person can analyze it. It requires multiple people to analyze the data."
"There are pros and cons to the workflow. You cannot customize it fully and there are some limitations. You cannot create a pure object, a firewall, IP, or service (single layer) object. You can only create a firewall object group. That is one of the challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"We have seen ROI just in the time savings and knowledge. Knowledge is power. Having the solution do it automatically for you without you doing the work is huge. If you are spending $50,000 a year, it could have cost you a $100,000 in man-hours without it, especially if you are working with a team.."
"For us it's around $40,000 or so."
"I'm saving 20 man-hours a week, so I am seeing some ROI."
"Licensing is available in both perpetual and subscription models, and it appears to be good for our scalable environments."
"Tufin makes things a little easier. It lessens the amount of manual work which we have to do. It has a lot of benefits in terms of revenues, profits, employee costs, and operational costs. We have already seen return on investment."
"Our licensing costs are three million total and then we pay for maintenance, which is an additional cost for three years."
"Its price is reasonable, but it could be lower. It has been cost-effective for us. We have a contract for three years."
"Our licensing fees are more than $100,000 USD per year."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
51%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Legal Firm
3%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
5%
 

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 Tufin SecureCloud?
The most valuable feature of Tufin is security auditing. We are able to check the rules and compliance of the company, for example, what is allowed or not. We are able to check the rules over diffe...
What needs improvement with Tufin SecureCloud?
The design needs improvement, particularly in recognizing target devices and target files. Additionally, there's a need for an improved network map.
What is your primary use case for Tufin SecureCloud?
My primary use case involves applying firewall policies faster from a central point. Additionally, I would like to use it to generate reports, but this hasn't occurred yet.
 

Also Known As

CDO
Tufin SecureCloud
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
3M, AT&T, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BNP Parabas, ConocoPhillips, Deutsche Bank, GE, IBM, Pfizer, United States Postal Service 
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Defense Orchestrator vs. Tufin Orchestration Suite and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.