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Cisco IOS SSL VPN vs Hillstone E-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on May 21, 2025

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 IOS SSL VPN
Ranking in SSL VPN
4th
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in SSL VPN
10th
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
20th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (40th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the SSL VPN category, the mindshare of Cisco IOS SSL VPN is 10.7%, up from 9.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 4.6%, up from 3.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
SSL VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco IOS SSL VPN10.7%
Hillstone E-Series4.6%
Other84.7%
SSL VPN
 

Featured Reviews

VM
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Ease and speed of connectivity impress and recommend
I have not found any areas that could be improved so far. I am not sure how Cisco IOS SSL VPN can continue their improvements for the future, but I think it is a great product. To stay on top, they probably need updates to this product. I do not know what kind of improvements these updates are offering. It is a great product so far.
TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is stable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its ease of use, management, and support."
"It is highly scalable, speedy, and reliable."
"Cisco IOS SSL VPN is stable, and once we connect, we don't face any issues and can do our work."
"The platform provides value and benefits to our organization through efficient and effective communication."
"The split panel functionality is much better in the Cisco IOS SSL VPN than in the Aruba VPN."
"The customer service and support are the best. When it comes to support, Cisco is the best vendor ever."
"We provide remote access solutions, internet access, and Voice over IP for our customers, as well as IT operational support."
"If an organization is not looking for a web proxy, it's a very, very good product."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients secure connectivity from a remote location to their offices or their servers."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
 

Cons

"The solution's graphical user interface is not very user-friendly."
"Enhancing the client certificate deployment process could be a valuable improvement, ensuring smoother and more reliable certificate renewal experiences in the future."
"The Secure Plus Connect product could be improved with many enhancements in any price license, especially for licensing. Cisco could simplify the licensing; it could make it easier to order and use the features."
"Cisco ASA system doesn't provide interface with radius based user mapping, other than the standard schema of users and groups."
"Only its mobile-based application is available right now."
"The product’s dashboard is not good enough."
"It can be difficult to find service and at times we cannot connect with the internet easily."
"When many people are using the internet at home, which is usually right after dinner, this type of service is a little bit hard to use. The internet becomes quite slow, and sometimes, I have to stop using this application. I am not sure if this issue is because of the application or my internet provider."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"With Cisco, there is a free solution or a licensed version of the solution with a set of endpoint services."
"The licensing cost of the solution is on a yearly basis, and it is expensive compared to other solutions in the market."
"Cisco IOS SSL VPN is more expensive than the Aruba VPN, but it is worth the money."
"It stands as the priciest solution available in the market."
"The platform is expensive."
"It is an expensive product."
"The licensing fee is expensive."
"The solution is reasonably priced, and we have around 50% to 60% discounts from Cisco."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which SSL VPN solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco IOS SSL VPN?
I have not found any areas that could be improved so far. I am not sure how Cisco IOS SSL VPN can continue their improvements for the future, but I think it is a great product. To stay on top, they...
What is your primary use case for Cisco IOS SSL VPN?
Currently, I use Cisco IOS SSL VPN to VPN in, but not with high frequency. We use Cisco IOS SSL VPN as our VPN client to connect to our network. This is for health.
What needs improvement with Hillstone E-Series?
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. Wh...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone E-Series?
I use the solution in my company for site-to-site VPN, SSL VPNs, URL filtering, IPS, IDS and all the other features which are available in the firewall.
What advice do you have for others considering Hillstone E-Series?
Our company did not use the tool's micro-segmentation features. There were no issues while integrating the tool. I have not used any AI in the tool. I recommend the tool to others. I rate the tool ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco SSL VPN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MST Systems
Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco IOS SSL VPN vs. Hillstone E-Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.