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Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs Cisco Security Cloud Control comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 2, 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 Secure Firewall Manag...
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
7th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Cloud Control
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
13th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is 1.6%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 2.5%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center1.6%
Cisco Security Cloud Control2.5%
Other95.9%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Yonas Abebe - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network and Security Engineer at Symbol Technologies PLC
Great dashboard with extensive visibility and good support
I expect more integration with AI. I expect Cisco to be easier for users in India, especially for junior users. For a junior one, it may somehow be complex, especially when configuring something. I remember version 6.4 had an integration with Eddie, allowing me to define a policy according to my users, however, the latest version, lacks this integration. The logging of FMC should be improved as it does not offer real-time solutions like DazaSodo.
FS
Security Engineer at Metrobank
Automation reduces intervention and speeds up threat prevention
Our primary use case for Cisco Defense Orchestrator is the automation of playbooks. We primarily use it for this purpose to streamline processes The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks. Since the system is automated,…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Scalability is not an issue as long as you are able to buy additional licenses. Ten percent of our customers use Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, and we have large accounts with 50% of their end users behind this firewall."
"So far, I am very satisfied with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center, and I have not considered additional features such as the analytics part of the product."
"The solution has a great UI and a policy deployment mechanism, and all the configuration is easily manageable for the firewalls."
"Malware detection, URL filtering, and antivirus are the most beneficial features for our security management. The platform has three main components: filters, hardware, and antivirus. We use the standard approach for automation and integration. The person in charge of management follows the rules and policies of the equipment and handles operations. However, we haven't set up any notifications, so it's mostly manual."
"The policy management capabilities streamline security tasks by facilitating policy configuration. This ensures the impactful implementation of security policies during product installation, enhancing overall security measures."
"My clients have never contacted me with any issues, so I believe the solution is stable."
"The solution is easy to use."
"One of the most valuable features of Cisco Secure Firewalls is their seamless integration with other Cisco products."
"For this product, they are very uncharacteristically interested in resolving whatever issue the customer reports. They're really attentive, and they address whatever we bring up as quickly as they can. That's been a very positive aspect of the product."
"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 bulk changes feature is definitely the most valuable."
"The ability to see the uptimes on the different VPNs that we have configured for site-to-site."
"The most valuable feature is that you can push one policy or one rule out to several devices at a time."
"We have quite a few Active Stone by pairs. If they fail over... I'll see that there's a change on it and I'll have a look. The only change on it is that now this one is the standby, it took over the active role. I can go into that firewall and find out what happened... and troubleshoot based on that. That's pretty cool too."
"With Cisco Defense Orchestrator, we can manage the complete Cisco Security solution. It provides a simple and centralized way to manage all products."
"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."
 

Cons

"I expect more integration with AI."
"Due to the lack of enough tutorials available online, I face problems with Cisco."
"Improving the product by incorporating SD-WAN functionality would be highly beneficial, especially for remote offices with limited server and Internet availability."
"The initial setup is a bit complex."
"The solution could improve the number of ports available and load balancing."
"It's not very user-friendly and can be somewhat disorganized."
"The product could be improved by simplifying its user interface and reducing complexity."
"I would go with a rating of three out of ten for the stability issues."
"When logging into the device, we sort of had problems with it staying in sync. If somebody made a change onsite, it wouldn't do an automatic sync. It would have to wait, as you would have to do a manual sync up."
"They need to work on the user interface. It needs to be improved to make it more user-friendly."
"There could be some slight improvements to navigation. In some of the navigation you've got to go back to be able to get into where you need to be once you've made a change. If I make a change, I've then got to go back to submit and send the change."
"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."
"The dashboard needs to be more customizable to provide better reporting for our network."
"They can centralize all products and provide a correlation about an incident and the response. They can also provide an on-premises solution. Currently, Cisco Defense Orchestrator is just for cloud deployments, not for on-premises deployments. Customers have to manage it on the cloud. We are based in Vietnam, and most of the customers here prefer to have on-premises deployments. Customers, especially from banking and government sectors, do not prefer to do anything on the cloud. Some of the small enterprises use the cloud."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform is costly."
"Technical support is an additional annual cost and is not included with the license."
"The price of the solution is expensive. We do not have to pay more than the standard licensing fees."
"When you are using a Cisco solution you know it will be expensive. Cisco makes you pay for everything individually. We pay for the licenses that we need."
"Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center has the best price on the market."
"The product pricing is reasonable and falls in the mid-range."
"The solution is not expensive."
"It is rather expensive."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"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."
"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."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Healthcare Company
9%
Retailer
9%
Performing Arts
9%
Computer Software Company
30%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
The platform has significantly enhanced our organization's operations by providing secure communication channels between different office locations.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
I find the pricing for Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center to be very reasonable, as they offer the license for both virtual and hardware options. For the virtual option, they have minimum lice...
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center?
So far, I find that everything related to Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is adequate. The only thing that was missing in the portfolio was SD-WAN, which I would like to use similar to Fort...
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 ...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center vs. Cisco Security Cloud Control and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.