


Cisco Secure Firewall and SonicWall NSv are key competitors in the enterprise firewall market. Cisco Secure Firewall seems to have the upper hand due to its extensive features and integration capabilities.
Features: Cisco Secure Firewall provides extensive firewall capabilities, advanced VPN options, modular scalability, high availability, and comprehensive security features, including FirePOWER threat management. These features offer customizable security services and integration with existing Cisco products. SonicWall NSv is known for ease of use and effective threat management, including Application Firewall, Advanced Threat Protection, and DPI, offering a user-friendly experience.
Room for Improvement: Cisco Secure Firewall's complex configuration, expensive licensing, and challenges with scaling and performance are often cited drawbacks. There are also issues with technical support responsiveness and management interface complexity. SonicWall NSv users note a lack of extensive documentation, premium pricing in some regions, and desire for improved integration capabilities and administration ease.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Secure Firewall is favored for on-premises deployment but also supports public and hybrid cloud setups. Its technical support is generally rated highly, though inconsistent in certain regions. SonicWall NSv is appreciated for straightforward setup, finding favor in hybrid and public cloud scenarios, and benefits from good customer service, although challenges exist with licensing and configuration complexity.
Pricing and ROI: Cisco Secure Firewall is known for high costs when scaling advanced features, offering robust security justifying the price. Its flexible subscription model is challenged by licensing complexity. SonicWall NSv is moderately priced, though flagged for high costs in specific regions, offering a simplified licensing model recognized for good value given its security features and management ease. Both solutions report positive ROI, sensitive to cost considerations.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.
It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.
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.
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.
The biggest return on investment for me when using Cisco Secure Firewall is reliability and robust network design.
Investment was challenging but strategic, given its advantages like 30% depreciation in the Indian ecosystem by the third year.
I have seen a return on investment that includes money saved, time saved, and fewer employees needed.
Based on SonicWall NSv, it helped us to easily navigate through everything and get done what we needed in a very quick manner.
The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.
I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
As a solution provider, when I encounter problems, I connect directly with Fortinet support, and they provide solutions within a very short time.
I have to provide many logs, yet problems remain unresolved, often requiring workarounds rather than solutions.
I have been working with them on firewalls, wireless, switching, and routing, and the support is the best.
They have expertise and provide solutions for the most difficult problems.
Customer support for SonicWall NSv is top-notch.
Whenever I create a case regarding any issue, their support is prompt and effective, adhering to the SLA, which leaves our customers very satisfied.
I would rate the customer support a 10 out of 10.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.
Scalability presents a challenge.
Compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto, it lags in configuration and other aspects.
Even with the highest one, the 4600, we still face issues, particularly when transitioning between screens; it becomes very slow.
It has met our organization's needs by allowing us to scale our security posture consistently with our cloud compute growth, increased traffic and user areas, new cloud regions, and policy complexity growth.
Nonetheless, the product is robust, eliminating major scalability concerns.
On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate its scalability as eight to nine.
We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.
I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
Currently, we are experiencing a general outage of one of the main internet service providers of the Dominican Republic, and we have not been impacted in our operations because with SD-WAN, we have another internet service provider and we are working with the second WAN connection without any disruption.
We have often encountered split-brain scenarios during failover processes and code upgrades, which have been persistent problems for us.
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.
Understanding and handling these devices onsite was limited, requiring external support.
It rates around eight to nine in terms of stability, and it is quite good.
Regarding security, we have not had any issues since we have been using SonicWall NSv, and everything is usually up to date.
These sessions should be around five to ten minutes long, allowing users and partners to quickly grasp the information without disrupting their daily tasks.
The solution should be able to implement machine learning and analytics of all the logs for threat detection and protection.
It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription.
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.
Firepower Management Center is quite out of date compared to other vendors.
The integration between Cisco products themselves presents difficulties, such as SD-WAN configuration.
I believe that application-based QoS policy is very important given the current environment. This feature should be available for application QoS as well in this firewall.
When the software was downloaded, optimal hardware utilization was lacking, making hardware upgrades inevitable.
Currently, we are getting challenges with user-wise reports and other reporting details.
Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.
It offers cost savings as it is generally cheaper than the competition.
It is about 20% cheaper.
It's good to have them, however, it costs us a lot.
It's considered a premium, but people pay that price for Cisco.
There are a lot of in-place contracts for us that provide the benefit of discounts.
The Global VPN will be chargeable in our product, unlike Fortinet or Sophos, where it is free—this is a major difference.
SonicWall NSv was a bit expensive for the subscription.
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing has been that it is low cost.
These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.
The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring.
We got a firewall and gave an SSL VPN to my client to connect to their servers, after which, such kind of activities involving ransomware attacks stopped.
What stands out positively about Cisco is their training and support, which has effectively prepared engineers to work with their products.
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.
Cisco Secure Firewall allows me to safeguard Layer 7 or Layer 3 and manage the security rules with the business needs of my organization.
The cloud delivery threat intelligence spots suspicious behavior in just a few seconds, stopping it before execution, automatically blocking and quarantining files.
SonicWall NSv positively impacts my organization by providing firewall capabilities as a virtual firewall while offering the capabilities of a physical firewall with great performance and reliability.
SonicWall NSv has positively impacted my organization by helping us access our whitelisted web apps since we manage web apps while ensuring proper standards to prevent any information leaks.
| Product | Market Share (%) |
|---|---|
| Fortinet FortiGate | 18.8% |
| Cisco Secure Firewall | 7.0% |
| SonicWall NSv | 0.3% |
| Other | 73.9% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 357 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 133 |
| Large Enterprise | 188 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 180 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 126 |
| Large Enterprise | 212 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 9 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 8 |
| Large Enterprise | 8 |
Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.
Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.
What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.
Cisco Secure Firewall provides comprehensive network security with advanced features such as application visibility, URL filtering, and malware protection. It combines a user-friendly interface with robust VPN capabilities, making it a reliable choice for varying network environments and industry applications.
Cisco Secure Firewall offers exceptional protection with its integration into Cisco's broader ecosystem, ensuring enhanced threat detection and policy unification. Despite its complexity in command-line interfaces and management, Cisco Secure Firewall remains a potent tool for safeguarding data. It is widely adopted for edge security, VPN services, perimeter defense, and traffic segmentation, especially in hybrid settings. Essential sectors like banking and telecom benefit from its stable connectivity and centralized security management. Though there are challenges with costs and support for third-party APIs, the firewall's scalability and high availability provide comprehensive support for protecting network assets.
What are the key features of Cisco Secure Firewall?Cisco Secure Firewall is widely implemented across sectors like banking, education, ISPs, and telecoms. It fortifies data centers and network edge security, delivering strong protection for client access, hybrid environments, and intrusion prevention. In these industries, firewall solutions ensure secure connectivity and manage RTU traffic effectively, leveraging centralized management and integration with Cisco's security tools.
SonicWall NSV is a software-based virtual firewall that provides additional security for customers with public-facing servers or services on Microsoft Azure. The AGSS Bundle is considered the most valuable feature, providing security services such as antivirus, intrusion prevention system, and anti-spyware botnet GUI.
Additionally, customization of firewall rules provides great value to customers, allowing them to lock things up in the way they desire. SonicWall NSV offers extensive security control options to protect customers' valuable information and assets.
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