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Cisco Secure Endpoint vs Fortinet FortiClient comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 9, 2024

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
6.9
Fortinet FortiClient boosted productivity and security, reduced VPN costs by 8%, but faced challenges in functionality activation.
The VPN performance has a substantial impact on our remote workforce.
 

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
6.5
Fortinet FortiClient's customer service varies, with response times and resolution quality improving notably for higher-tier service subscribers.
Cisco has good technical support, especially considering these are newer solutions compared to traditional routing and switching products.
They initiate the troubleshooting process quickly and resolve issues in a timely manner.
They provide very good support, and an issue I had was resolved quickly over the phone.
The technical support for FortiClient is excellent.
 

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
7.3
Fortinet FortiClient is praised for scalability, easily accommodating user expansion and seamless integration, despite some suggested improvements.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is definitely scalable.
The scalability could use improvement as you need to ensure that routes and policies are aligned, which can be complex.
We can recommend FortiClient for small organizations with 50 to 60 users as well as for larger enterprises due to its extensive features.
The scalability rates at nine out of ten because the features can be easily extended.
 

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
7.8
Fortinet FortiClient is praised for its stability, reliability, and performance, with minor issues quickly resolved through updates.
We have not encountered any problems.
Its stability level is excellent.
The overall stability of Fortinet FortiClient rates at nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Secure Endpoint requires better integration, reporting, and UI enhancements, alongside improved pricing, AI capabilities, and IoT support.
Fortinet FortiClient requires improvements in management, configuration, compatibility, user interface, and integration with additional security features and platforms.
The forensic capabilities need enhancement, especially for deep forensic data collection.
Fortinet frequently releases updates without thorough testing.
There are complexities with the scalability part, particularly with routing and policy alignment.
There are advanced features like Zero Trust that I currently do not use but could be beneficial for security.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Secure Endpoint offers competitive and flexible pricing with value-rich features, despite some complexity in licensing.
Fortinet FortiClient offers cost-effective VPN solutions with variable pricing, requiring licenses for advanced features, often rated reasonably by users.
Cisco is aggressive in pricing, making it competitive and sometimes even cheaper than other good products like CrowdStrike, Microsoft Defender, or SentinelOne.
FortiClient is a value-for-money product and is not considered expensive compared to similar products on the market.
FortiClient is cost-effective since the client itself is free with the purchase of Fortinet.
FortiClient is included in a package with the UTM features, so there is no separate cost for it.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Secure Endpoint provides advanced security features, cross-platform support, and ease of use with strong threat intelligence and support.
Fortinet FortiClient provides strong security features, easy management, and integration, enhancing VPN services and endpoint protection.
Cisco Secure Endpoint is very good in machine learning, which allows it to secure offline contents even if not connected to the internet.
I strongly recommend this solution, especially for Fortinet customers who use FortiGate or other Fortinet products, as they can easily integrate these features and exchange information seamlessly.
We appreciate its VPN capabilities and the features that offer extra security functionalities like antivirus and malware scanning.
The most valuable feature of FortiClient is its high security level.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Endpoint
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
49
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (13th), Cisco Security Portfolio (5th)
Fortinet FortiClient
Ranking in Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
13th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
99
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Compliance (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Endpoint is 1.5%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiClient is 1.9%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP)
 

Featured Reviews

Mark Broughton - PeerSpot reviewer
Tighter integration with Umbrella and Firepower gave us eye-opening information
We were using a third-party help desk. One of the ways that they were fixing problems was to delete the client and then add the client back if there was an issue where the client had stopped communicating. Any improvement in the client communicating back to the server would be good, particularly for machines that are offline for a couple of weeks. A lot of our guys were working on a rotation where the machine might be offline for that long. They were also terrible about rebooting their machines, so those network connections didn't necessarily get refreshed. So, anything that could improve that communication would be good. Also, an easier way to do deduplication of machines, or be alerted to the fact that there's more than one instance of a machine, would be useful. If you could say, "Okay, we've got these two machines. This one says it's not reporting and this one says it's been reporting. Obviously, somebody did a reinstall," it would help. That way you could get a more accurate device count, so you're not having an inflated number. Not that Cisco was going to come down on you and say, "Oh, you're using too many licenses," right away. But to have a much more accurate license usage count by being able to better dedupe the records would be good. I also sent over a couple of other ideas to our technical rep. A lot of that had to do with the reporting options. It would be really nice to be able to do a lot more in the reporting. You can't really drill down into the reports that are there. The reporting and the need for the documentation to be updated and current would be my two biggest areas of complaint. Also, there was one section when I was playing with the automation where it was asking for the endpoint type rather than the machine name. If I could have just put in the machine name, that would have been great. So there are some opportunities, when it comes to searching, to have more options. If I wanted to search, for example, by a Mac address because, for some reason, I thought there was a duplication and I didn't have the machine name, how could I pull it up with the Mac address? When you're getting to that level, you're really starting to get into the ticky tacky. I would definitely put the reporting and documentation way ahead of that.
MuhammadJahangir - PeerSpot reviewer
Users only need to install the VPN and authenticate with their email address
I primarily use remote VPN solutions to connect securely. We have configured both site-to-site VPN and remote VPN, and it is connected to FortiClient Implementing this solution has streamlined time management in our organization. Without SSO, we would need manual configuration for each PC, but…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
39%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
5%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Endpoint?
The product's initial setup phase was very simple.
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,...
How does Fortinet FortiClient compare with Open VPN Access Server?
Fortinet FortiClient is a feature-rich solution that is easy to use and deploy without sacrificing safety and security. It has a very fast connection rate and has a built-in VPN. With this solution...
What's the difference between Fortinet's FortiEDR and FortiClient?
I suggest Fortinet’s FortiEDR over FortiClient for several reasons. For starters, FortiEDR guarantees solid protection because it continually scans servers for emerging vulnerabilities, which gives...
 

Also Known As

Cisco AMP for Endpoints
FortiClient
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Heritage Bank, Mobile County Schools, NHL University, Thunder Bay Regional, Yokogawa Electric, Sam Houston State University, First Financial Bank
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Endpoint vs. Fortinet FortiClient and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.