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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Cisco Secure Firewall comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint enhances productivity and reduces costs by streamlining threat detection, integrating tools, and minimizing manual intervention.
Sentiment score
4.2
Cisco Secure Firewall boosts ROI by enhancing security, reducing costs, and increasing efficiency through simplified management and integration.
There is always a return on investment because you find you invest heavily, but your environment is secure and then you are at rest; you do not need to panic.
Specialist Datacenter And Server at IHS Towers
The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Firewall is that there's no waste in any infrastructure cost and licensing costs for us.
Assistant Vice President at PLDT Enterprise
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Firewall is the single pane of glass, which is a huge plus for us.
Network Engineer at a government with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Secure Endpoint support is praised for responsiveness and expertise, providing quick issue resolution and valuable user guidance.
Sentiment score
7.2
Cisco Secure Firewall support is praised for its responsiveness and expertise, though some users experience delays in resolution.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
I have to provide many logs, yet problems remain unresolved, often requiring workarounds rather than solutions.
VSO at a computer software company with 501-1,000 employees
I have been working with them on firewalls, wireless, switching, and routing, and the support is the best.
Principal Consultant at Epitome Infotech Solutions (P) Ltd
They have expertise and provide solutions for the most difficult problems.
Network Security Administrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Secure Endpoint is scalable, integrates with SecureX for efficient management, and supports diverse industries without extra resources.
Sentiment score
6.7
Cisco Secure Firewall effectively scales for different user volumes but faces licensing and hardware challenges, especially in on-premises solutions.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
When something happens in the device, the failover happens very quickly without any interruption.
Network Unit Head at a comms service provider with 501-1,000 employees
Cisco Secure Cloud now allows us to potentially take the management functions of Cisco Secure Firewall, move it into the cloud, and integrate it with other Cisco security products, managing everything from one single pane.
Senior Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
I rate the scalability as a number 10.
Cybersecurity Team Leader at EMAK For Computer Manufacturing (ECM)
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Cisco Secure Endpoint is highly stable, reliable, and trusted for performance, earning high ratings from users in various enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco Secure Firewall is reliable with minimal downtime, strong stability, and consistent performance through effective updates and support.
We have not encountered any problems.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
We have often encountered split-brain scenarios during failover processes and code upgrades, which have been persistent problems for us.
Senior Manager, Network Engineering at TTi Power Equipment
We work with a cluster with high availability, so if something goes wrong, we have it functioning.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers exceptional performance and stability.
Principal Consultant at Epitome Infotech Solutions (P) Ltd
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Cisco Secure Firewall needs improvements in UI, integration, management, pricing, configuration stability, and overall performance to remain competitive.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
My ongoing complaint for the last six years has been the lack of CLI functionality, which hinders my ability to work on the firewall, alongside concerns regarding deployment time.
Senior Manager, Network Engineering at TTi Power Equipment
The GUI is useless for me and frustrates me to a very high degree, which led me to switch to the CLI for configuration.
Network Engineer at a logistics company with 10,001+ employees
Firewall as a Service can scale to a very large extent because it is a cloud-based offering that can scale up to a very large number, which is not a problem.
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Cisco Secure Firewall is often seen as high-priced, but offers robust features and support, justifying the expense.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
It's good to have them, however, it costs us a lot.
It Administration at Dilcon Community School
Basically, the license for the VPNs is for all the interfaces, and that is the thing that is really expensive compared with Palo Alto.
Technical Account Manager at a tech vendor with 5,001-10,000 employees
It's considered a premium, but people pay that price for Cisco.
Principal Consultant at Epitome Infotech Solutions (P) Ltd
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers robust features like VPN termination, powerful threat prevention, and seamless integration, ensuring effective network security.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
What stands out positively about Cisco is their training and support, which has effectively prepared engineers to work with their products.
Senior Manager, Network Engineering at TTi Power Equipment
This is very important to my organization, as we work extensively with security because we are a bank, so we can keep the data safe.
Network Security Administrator at a government with 501-1,000 employees
Cisco Secure Firewall allows me to safeguard Layer 7 or Layer 3 and manage the security rules with the business needs of my organization.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (29th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (26th)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
2nd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
464
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Cisco Security Portfolio category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 8.4%, down from 11.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 9.7%, up from 6.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cisco Security Portfolio Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Firewall9.7%
Cisco Secure Endpoint8.4%
Other81.9%
Cisco Security Portfolio
 

Featured Reviews

JavedHashmi - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Future Point Technologies
Reliable threat protection is achieved while integration and analysis capabilities need refinement
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet. We haven't encountered a single breach after it's deployed. It controls USB devices and has a separate antivirus solution called Tetra, providing security even for real-time, day-zero attacks through its strong Talos threat intelligence platform.
RajeshKumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Consultant at a outsourcing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Unified policies have strengthened zero-trust demos and automate rapid threat containment
Feedback and Improvement Areas – Cisco Secure Firewall (Customer Perspective) From a customer point of view, there are a few improvement areas observed while positioning Cisco Secure Firewall in competitive scenarios. 1. Dashboard & Visibility Enhancements Customers often compare firewall dashboards across different OEMs during evaluation. * Competing vendors typically provide more feature-rich and visually detailed dashboards. * There is a perception that Cisco dashboards still require enhancement in terms of visualization, consolidated reporting, and built-in analytics. * Some OEMs advertise additional security capabilities clearly within their publicly available data sheets, making competitive positioning easier. In comparison, Cisco sometimes references separate documentation or explains how certain capabilities (such as anti-spam or antivirus functionality) can be achieved through integration or ecosystem components rather than native, built-in features. This creates a perception gap during customer discussions. Improvement Opportunity: * Enhance dashboard capabilities. * Clearly articulate feature availability in public documentation and data sheets. * Reduce dependency on cross-referenced documentation for commonly compared features. 2. Virtual Firewall / Multi-Instance Capabilities in Lower Models Another competitive challenge relates to virtual firewall capabilities. * Several OEMs provide virtual firewall (VDOM-like) functionality in lower-end models. * In Cisco’s portfolio, multi-instance capability typically starts from higher-end platforms such as the 3K series or higher. * Customers looking for smaller deployments with logical segmentation are often forced to consider higher models, resulting in a price jump. Competitors also offer: * Compact hardware models * Dongle-based firewall appliances * Smaller entry-level products with virtual segmentation In Cisco’s case: * To achieve similar multi-instance functionality, customers must opt for higher-tier models. * This creates a significant pricing gap in entry-level or SMB deployments. This pricing difference becomes a key factor when customers compare solutions. If competitors offer a lower-cost model with virtual segmentation, and Cisco requires a higher platform investment, customers may lean toward alternative OEMs. 3. Documentation Gaps – OT Protocol Visibility In our lab environment, we have deployed Cisco Secure Firewall and are using Application Visibility and Control (AVC) for OT network monitoring. Observations: * OT protocols are clearly visible within application visibility. * The firewall successfully identifies and classifies OT traffic. However: * This capability is not clearly mentioned in publicly available documentation. * When a feature is available and functional, it should be explicitly documented in data sheets and feature guides. The need for third-party integration depends on what we are looking for. Here I am saying that the integration with Cisco NAC can be done because RTC functionality is only available with Cisco ISE and the firewall integration. For other ecosystems, if we use a NAC solution that is not Cisco, we can still integrate it for user authentication, such as with VPN user authentication. But in that case, we don't achieve the same functionality, such as RTC with other NAC solutions. This is one aspect. Another part is that if we are using it, it always happens with some NAC solutions because we have Cisco NAC and Cisco firewall; we want consistent policy across the network, whether the user is on-prem or using VPN services. If this is a unified OEM solution, in that case, we require an agent, such as the Cisco Secure Client. That allows us to easily check the posture status of the remote user and connect to the network effortlessly. But if we are using a third-party solution, we can't achieve that. From a SIEM perspective, certain prerequisites must be fulfilled before integration with Cisco Secure Firewall can be completed. The feasibility of integration depends on the capabilities of the SIEM platform. If the SIEM solution supports the required APIs and event handling mechanisms, similar functionality can be achieved. Therefore, integration itself is generally not the challenge; the key consideration is the desired security outcome within the overall ecosystem. If the customer does not have a SIEM solution and intends to automate quarantine actions or enforce restricted access for users, a Network Access Control (NAC) solution becomes mandatory. In this scenario, the recommended NAC solution is Cisco Identity Services Engine (Cisco ISE). Automated quarantine and dynamic access control workflows are dependent on NAC capabilities. From a feature enhancement perspective for Cisco Secure Firewall, deeper NAC-driven integration adds significant value. 1. TrustSec / Tag-Based Policy Enforcement Cisco ISE supports Cisco TrustSec, which enables Security Group Tag (SGT)-based segmentation. * In traditional (legacy) networks, firewall policies are created based on IP addresses. * With TrustSec, policies are defined based on user identity, group membership, and security tags instead of IP subnets. * When users authenticate to the network, Cisco ISE assigns Security Group Tags (SGTs). * These tags are shared with Cisco Secure Firewall. * The firewall then enforces policies based on SGT-to-SGT rules rather than IP-to-IP rules. Benefits: * Significant reduction in the number of firewall rules * Simplified policy management * Improved scalability * Easier implementation of role-based access control This integration enhances operational efficiency and security posture. 2. Rapid Threat Containment (RTC) Another key capability is Rapid Threat Containment (RTC). If Cisco Secure Firewall detects malicious activity—such as malware download attempts identified via signature-based or advanced threat detection—it can notify Cisco ISE about the compromised endpoint. Based on this input: * Cisco ISE can automatically quarantine the user * The endpoint can be moved to a restricted VLAN * Access can be dynamically limited without manual intervention This automated workflow ensures faster response time and reduces the risk of lateral movement within the network. 3. VPN and Posture Assessment This functionality is not limited to wired or LAN users. For VPN users: * Authentication can be integrated with third-party NAC solutions. * However, if posture assessment (device compliance checking) is required in addition to authentication, Cisco ISE integration with Cisco Secure Firewall becomes essential. Cisco ISE enables: * Endpoint posture validation * Dynamic policy assignment * Automated remediation workflows
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Consultant at Webernetz.net - Network Security Consulting
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise21
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business192
Midsize Enterprise130
Large Enterprise236
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Endpoint?
Cisco Secure Endpoint lacks features like DLP which other vendors offer. XDR is new, so integration capabilities with third-party tools need improvement. The forensic capabilities need enhancement,...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Endpoint?
We deployed Cisco Secure Endpoint for our customers two to three years back. The use case was to secure their endpoints and servers by deploying the EDR.
Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too...
Which is better - Fortinet FortiGate or Cisco ASA Firewall?
One of our favorite things about Fortinet Fortigate is that you can deploy on the cloud or on premises. Fortinet Fortigate is very stable, reliable, and consistent. We like that we can manage the e...
How does Cisco's ASA firewall compare with the Firepower NGFW?
It is easy to integrate Cisco ASA with other Cisco products and also other NAC solutions. When you understand the Cisco ecosystem, it is very simple to handle. This solution has traffic inspection ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Firewall, Cisco ASA NGFW, Adaptive Security Appliance, Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls, Cisco ASAv, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall, Cisco Secure Firewall ASA Virtual - BYOL
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Cisco Secure Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.