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Cisco Secure Access vs Sangfor NGAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Secure Access
Ranking in Firewalls
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
73
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (4th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), ZTNA (5th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (2nd)
Sangfor NGAF
Ranking in Firewalls
28th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Access is 0.5%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor NGAF is 1.2%, down from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Access0.5%
Sangfor NGAF1.2%
Other98.3%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2788500 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Secure access has unified zero trust and web protection while AI assistance automates tasks
From a feature perspective, I have not experienced any issues, drawbacks, or shortcomings. However, the cost of Cisco's products and licensing is high. My clients usually prefer cheaper options if possible. Mid-size or smaller businesses typically cannot afford Cisco Secure Access. Additionally, there is a steep learning curve, as it is very intensive. Someone with significant knowledge can work on it, but a new professional would have to spend considerable time to get accustomed to it. It is hard to find engineers who can work on it. Overall, we get what we pay for, as it is a pretty good feature and service. The pricing of Cisco's products and licensing is higher than competitors. If they could be more reasonable, that would help. The support offered for two years also has higher costs. Overall, the client's IT budget gets affected. It was challenging to learn because, as mentioned, it has a significant learning curve and requires considerable training to become proficient.
Zaid Farooqui - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at Indus Motor Company
Enhanced threat detection with integrated security features and good support
We are using application firewalling, WAF, and SD-WAN. The capabilities are mostly within the box. For example, you will get web application firewall WAF as part and parcel of this. SD-WAN is also bundled. It integrates with their SIEM and SOAR solutions very nicely. Lastly, the pricing point is very cost-efficient as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Secure Access makes it really easy for our traveling sales guys, as they can have it on their phone, iPad, and laptop, and it is fairly user-friendly for them and also easy to set up on our side."
"I find Cisco Secure Access pretty interesting."
"Cisco is very well poised and it helps us to build up cases with Cisco that way, because having its brand strength and its facilities and all, they could learn a lot from their competitors."
"It's very useful because you can have visibility, especially in terms of logging and knowing who's doing what with Cisco Secure Access."
"Cisco Secure Client is really efficient for all the users and mostly for the enterprise, so I would say Cisco Secure Client would be the primary one."
"The biggest benefit of Cisco Secure Access, compared to Fortinet or other solutions from Palo Alto or Prisma, is its adaptability to different network environments."
"The return on investment in Cisco Secure Access is significant, providing substantial savings in time, data loss prevention, and management of protection, with time savings reaching up to 30% based on the processing time and retention policy of Cisco Secure Access, which is more than 30% better than others."
"The feature I like the most about Cisco Secure Access is the whole concept of zero trust, as it is exactly what we need and I believe that Cisco Secure Access is the future of cybersecurity."
"It offers good value for money and is much cheaper compared to other firewalls."
"The most valuable features are the WAN optimization, the internet access gateway (IAG), and the central console, which allows us to implement on their firewall."
"Sangfor NGAF's standout feature is its powerful application control, enabling precise restrictions on mobile user access to approved applications."
"The level of support provided to local companies is good. They transform their application control and other settings according to that country."
"While the features are not dissimilar to other brands, configuration is much more simple, which works out great for Indonesian people."
"The solution is quite safe and good, and furthermore, it is very good for different environments."
"It enables us to not only detect but also prevent various types of incoming threats, allowing us to take appropriate corrective actions and exercise control over the network."
"This product is very user-friendly, and its Layer 7 security is very much improved."
 

Cons

"One critique I have about the onboarding process is that for a lot of Cisco apps, you do have to sign back into everything."
"We did run into an issue with URL filtering where it would not filter a site properly. It took months to resolve by Cisco, but that is the only hiccup I would say there has been."
"There are times it feels difficult to navigate and get things configured, but that is coming from a CLI perspective."
"Improvement on the pricing will help in expanding the market for Cisco Secure Access and then it can be affordable to much more number of companies than what it is right now."
"The way that we're using Cisco Secure Access today, it doesn't scale with the growing needs of our organization, however, if we leveraged more of the cloud services, it would fit better."
"One big challenge which I see with Cisco is their MDR capabilities. They do not provide it as a service, which Palo Alto does provide."
"It is confusing. When you look at the prices, you have different licensing and years of licensing that you have to purchase. Additionally, it's unclear what service you get from those licenses regarding end-user support. We have a representative who has to walk me through it every time."
"Cisco Secure Access may not seamlessly integrate into such settings, although it performs well in a Cisco-based environment."
"An area for improvement would be the number of ports defined on the box. In the next release, I would like them to develop their provisioning stage of enrolling end devices."
"However, the maintenance cost can be a bit high."
"Sangfor NGAF could improve by refining its application control policies, especially in addressing challenges with certain types of applications."
"The setup phase is quite complex."
"Sangfor could improve by providing better real-time reporting, as the current reports don't offer the level of detail we need, especially for runtime insights."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered SD-WAN capabilities."
"The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardware scalability, allowing for more storage and memory capacity."
"They need to increase the number of ports in the firewall."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For what you get, it's a fair price in comparison to other products."
"It is confusing. When you look at the prices, you have different licensing and years of licensing that you have to purchase. Additionally, it's unclear what service you get from those licenses regarding end-user support. We have a representative who has to walk me through it every time."
"The pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco Secure Access have been very competitive compared to other platforms. I believe that if Cisco continues to improve costs or offers something similar to a Cisco credit, it would attract more customers."
"It is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"I rate the product price as one on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"Sangfor NGAF is a cheaply priced product, especially if I consider the previous product that was used in my company."
"The price falls in the mid-range, neither exceptionally low nor high."
"Sangfor NGAF price is reasonable and there is an annual license. However, the maintenance cost can be a bit high."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The product is very cost-effective compared to other brands or vendors."
"Price-wise, I would not consider Sangfor NGAF to be a cheap product. It is an expensive firewall solution, though not as expensive as something like Palo Alto, which is costly. However, the higher price point is justifiable given the feature set the tool provides that other firewalls may not offer in a single dedicated appliance."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise39
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise10
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Access?
The pricing is not too bad because it's per headcount with Cisco Secure Access. You check how many clients you have. If you have 500 users, then you base your pricing on that. It's still expensive ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Access?
I am dealing with Cisco Secure Access products. As a consultant and reseller, I am using it myself with Cisco Secure Access. You can have tenants with Cisco Secure Access. Tenancy is obviously part...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Secure Access?
The AI element of Cisco Secure Access should have better guidance on the logs. To be honest, I can't think of anything else because it's quite a robust feature. My overall review rating for Cisco S...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor NGAF?
The licensing cost is quite high compared to other available firewalls in the market.
What needs improvement with Sangfor NGAF?
The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardware scalability, allowing for more storage and memory capacity. Making the soluti...
What is your primary use case for Sangfor NGAF?
We are hosting applications over the platform, including websites and NAT traffic from our side. Because it's deployed in our data center, which is fully operational, we have various applications h...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Sangfor NGAF Firewall Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. IBM 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. Google 5. Apple 6. Cisco Systems 7. Oracle 8. Intel 9. HP Inc. 10. Dell Technologies 11. Verizon Communications 12. AT&T 13. Comcast 14. T-Mobile 15. Sprint 16. Vodafone 17. Orange 18. BT Group 19. Deutsche Telekom 20. Telefonica 21. Nokia 22. Ericsson 23. Samsung Electronics 24. Sony 25. Panasonic 26. LG Electronics 27. Siemens 28. General Electric 29. Ford Motor Company 30. General Motors 31. Toyota Motor Corporation 32. Volkswagen Group
The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Access vs. Sangfor NGAF and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.