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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Hillstone CloudEdge comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 5, 2026

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
591
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Cisco Secure Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
459
Ranking in other categories
Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
Hillstone CloudEdge
Ranking in Firewalls
50th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 16.0%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Firewall is 7.6%, up from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone CloudEdge is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate16.0%
Cisco Secure Firewall7.6%
Hillstone CloudEdge0.3%
Other76.1%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
Phil Shiflett - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager, Network Engineering at TTi Power Equipment
Unified policies streamline network management but complex licensing requires attention
Cisco Secure Firewall has some growth opportunities in terms of visibility and control capabilities regarding managing encrypted traffic. It has the ability to analyze encrypted traffic, and there is potential for more integration with APIs and AI to enhance these capabilities. Cisco Secure Firewall needs improvement in deployment time and the capability to access the CLI during support calls. I often encounter issues when technical support uses a CLI that is not familiar to me while troubleshooting through the GUI. 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. For the next release, they should look at the features offered by competitors such as Fortinet, including the ability to perform packet capture directly from the interface. If they enhanced their troubleshooting efficiency related to packet capture for each specific rule, it would simplify the process significantly.
Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies
Comprehensive cloud security with robust threat protection and VPN capabilities
Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. This solution has a unified OS system for security products, ensuring that the virtual firewall has similar features to the on-premise solutions. Important features include a VPN, VTech VPN, SSL VPN, QoS, antivirus, threat protection, and sandbox capabilities.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's easy to manage. The GUI is very simple, and what is very good is that every product, regardless of size, has the same interface."
"Overall, we're very happy with their firewalls, but when we have issues or bugs, there are some difficulties in finding the resolution."
"It is easy to install. There is not much complexity involved."
"The solution offers very easy usability, the product can scale well, the solution is extremely reliable, the pricing and licensing models are pretty good, and the user interface, both the web and CLI versions, are very good."
"I prefer FortiGate because it has a lot of other solutions embedded within it and is the easiest for our technicians to operate."
"It has a good UI and overall integration, including FortiGate Manager for controlling all firewalls from a single place."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a simple configuration."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable; I am told that Fortinet FortiGate is one of the best solutions available, and I believe it."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is AMP (Advanced Malware Protection), as this is really needed to protect against cyber threats."
"VPN and firewall are good features."
"Network segmentation is the most valuable feature."
"Cisco Firepower is superior to other firewalls and people should not be afraid to dive in."
"There is a lot of information on the internet for troubleshooting, and all you need to do is use a search engine and you will find the information you are looking for easily."
"Firewalling is the most valuable feature."
"Among the top features are integrated threat defence and the fact that each virtual appliance is separate so you get great granular control."
"We had a situation where our network was down and the telecom providers at Cisco support helped us to resolve those issues, and the downtime was brought down to a minimum."
"I would recommend this product to any business that wants to protect its cloud environment, cloud server, or on-premises virtual servers."
"The solution is very easy to download and configure. The initial setup was very easy. The technical support is very good."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
"I'd rate the solution nine out of ten."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"The scalability of the device is limited."
"The area that Fortinet may improve is customer support."
"We understand that FortiGate cannot be standalone without others, such as FortiManager, so for small businesses, if FortiGate can provide something similar to FortiManager, it will be better."
"It would be helpful to have a better tool for migrating all policy rules using an automatic script."
"They should make the product user-friendly and enhance the security features."
"The system can slow down when inspections are carried out."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"This solution would benefit from being more cost-effective."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"Cisco ASA Firewall should be cheaper."
"The management of the firewalls could be improved because there are a lot of bugs."
"My experience with deploying Cisco Secure Firewall is that it is complicated, but if you have the experience, you can deploy it smoothly."
"We were also not too thrilled when Cisco announced that in the upcoming new-gen ASA, iOS was not going to be supported, or if you install them, they will not be able to be managed through the Sourcefire."
"Cisco provides us with application visibility and control, although it's not a complete solution compared to other vendors. Cisco needs to work on the application behavior side of things, in particular when it comes to the behavior of SSL traffic."
"One thing that Cisco could improve is the GUI. The graphic user interface should be more user-friendly."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
"The pricing is better compared to other solutions like Check Point, Arista, or Cisco."
"I rate the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG a seven and a half out of ten since it is not a cheap solution, though I feel it is a good product for the money one pays."
"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is a very cheap solution."
"We purchased a five-year bundle package, which worked out cheaper than competing solutions."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The solution requires a license annually, it is not a user license, you can have as many users as your want. I must renew the license regularly per device."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a moderately priced solution."
"The pricing was pretty comparable to other solutions when we purchased it."
"The licensing is not good, it's confusing. I'm an engineer so I don't care about the actual price that much but the licensing part is confusing."
"Pricing is high, but it is essentially a corporate decision."
"It has a great performance-to-price value, compared to competitive solutions."
"For me, personally, as an individual, Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is expensive."
"In terms of scalability, it is really expensive. It is scalable, but when it comes to pricing, the upgrading is a bit high."
"It's acceptable and comparable to other products."
Information not available
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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
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business367
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise193
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business190
Midsize Enterprise129
Large Enterprise232
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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 Fort...
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 Cis...
Which is better - Meraki MX or Cisco ASA Firewall?
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the operating software for the Cisco ASA suite. It supports netw...
What needs improvement with Hillstone CloudEdge?
There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance. M...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone CloudEdge?
Our primary use case is to provide cloud-based security solutions for customers using public cloud platforms. We dist...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
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
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
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.
LinkTime
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Hillstone CloudEdge and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.