FireMon Security Manager and Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center are key players in the network security management category. FireMon seems to have the upper hand with its comprehensive auditing capabilities and policy review features, essential for maintaining top-tier security across various environments.
Features: FireMon Security Manager provides sophisticated firewall rule auditing, unused and redundant rule identification, and thorough compliance validation. It offers change monitoring and policy mapping, vital in multi-vendor setups. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center excels in intrusion prevention, advanced malware protection, and threat intelligence from Talos.
Room for Improvement: FireMon needs enhancements in network maps and reporting features and smoother system updates and integration with other vendors. Cisco faces challenges in improving user interface simplicity, performance, cloud management, ease of configuration, update frequency, and customer support responsiveness.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: FireMon Security Manager is mainly on-premises but can extend to public clouds. It's known for responsive technical support despite occasional variability in response times. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is available for both private and on-premises deployment, with a generally good support reputation but suggested enhancements in communication and efficiency.
Pricing and ROI: FireMon, although perceived as expensive, offers substantial ROI through effective rule management, error reduction, and operational efficiencies. Its flexible pricing structure supports discounts balancing costs for features. Cisco's licensing is customizable but additional support costs may be a deterrent. Both emphasize streamlining network security operations.
There are a lot of solutions which can provide the same features.
It significantly reduced the time spent on manual policy reviews and audit preparation, making the process faster and more efficient.
I rate the technical support from Cisco as ten out of ten.
An eight signifies they are doing a good job.
The technical support is good, but sometimes it takes some time.
For the 3000 new series and the 4000, we can make a cluster.
I would rate scalability capabilities as ten out of ten.
It offers extensive scalability options, providing more flexibility than other vendors.
As the environment grew, FireMon Security Manager continued to handle policy analysis, reporting, and change tracking reliably without performance issues.
If it can see and interpret everything correctly, it would do exactly what I want, and it would be very helpful.
If we have many devices added or if the firewall complexity is huge, we might experience some lag in processing.
Now Cisco has published the 120 series and the 1100 series, which support SD-WAN features in the firewall.
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.
Simplifying some workflows and dashboards would help teams get value more quickly, especially in large environments.
FireMon can see everything much better and provides me with a fuller report when using Meraki as a firewall system.
A basic understanding of cloud computing and firewall principles is necessary for successful implementation.
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.
Comparatively, FireMon has a very good price and is below the general competition in cost.
Compared to others, it is not so expensive.
Our experience with FireMon Security Manager's pricing and licensing is that it is on the higher side, but justified for a large, regulated environment.
I consider Talos feedback that Cisco provides as free threat intelligence to be the most valuable for me and for the operation of the security policy in my organization.
It provides full visibility of my devices, whether I have six or ten devices.
It helped us gain centralized visibility across a large firewall environment, reduce risk and unused rules, and significantly shorten the time required for audit and policy reviews.
By eliminating loopholes between policies, it simplifies review and analysis, while also automating policy changes and supporting multiple vendors.
It has helped me bring all the firewalls into better alignment with the compliance requirements in my environment.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| FireMon Security Manager | 17.6% |
| Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center | 1.6% |
| Other | 80.8% |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 12 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 9 |
| Large Enterprise | 7 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 9 |
| Large Enterprise | 45 |
The Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center is the administrative nerve center for select Cisco security products running on multiple platforms. It provides unified management of Cisco Secure Firewalls with Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) software for port and protocol control, application control, IPS, URL filtering, and malware protection functions. Firewall Management Center is the centralized event and policy manager for:
● Cisco Secure Firewall with the Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) OS
● Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services
● Cisco Secure IPS (Firepower Next-Gen IPS / NGIPS)
● Cisco FirePOWER Threat Defense for ISR
● Cisco Malware Defense (AMP)
The increasing complexity of networks, driven by the constant influx of new devices, applications, and cloud services, presents a daunting challenge for managing firewall policies and rules. A typical enterprise environment has millions of rules, and just one simple misconfiguration can lead to devastating consequences like compliance violations, outages, and data breaches.
FireMon’s Security Manager is a purpose-built network security policy management (NSPM) platform that automates the management of firewall and cloud security policies to eliminate policy-related risk, accurately and quickly change rules, and meet internal and external compliance requirements.
We monitor all Firewall Security Management reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
