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Cisco Security Cloud Control vs FireMon Security Manager comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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

Cisco Security Cloud Control
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
12th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Cisco Security Cloud Control is 3.7%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 16.1%, down from 16.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
FireMon Security Manager16.1%
Cisco Security Cloud Control3.7%
Other80.2%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

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,…
SurajYadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Consultant at NTT DATA
Centralized policy governance has reduced audit effort and continuously improves risk visibility
I wish to see deeper and more customizable reporting and dashboards, as while the standard reports are useful for audits, operational teams sometimes need real-time, flexible views without exporting data. Tighter integrations with ticketing and change management tools would also enhance the workflow from request to implementation. FireMon Security Manager is excellent for policy governance and risk reduction, but better real-time dashboards and stronger workflow integrations would make it even more powerful for daily operations. There are one or two areas where FireMon Security Manager could be improved to make it even stronger. While FireMon Security Manager overall delivers solid governance and risk insight, it would benefit from more flexible dashboards and deeper integrations to reduce manual steps and improve visibility without relying on external tools. I rate FireMon Security Manager an 8 out of 10. It is a strong tool for firewall policy management, risk analysis, and compliance, clearly improving our audit process and policy governance. The reason I do not give it a 9 out of 10 is mainly because the dashboard could be more flexible and integration with the firewalls could be smoother. FireMon Security Manager is a reliable and high-value platform for managing and governing firewall policies, especially in a multi-vendor environment, though a few areas can still be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When we're looking to the policies, it identifies the shadow rules. It notifies us about anything that will supersede other rules."
"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."
"I like the upgrade feature, which is pretty valuable to me because I have dual ASAs and when I go through CDO it does everything for me in the back-end so I just initiate, pick the image, pick when I want it done, and it just does it whether I have a single ASA or a dual ASA."
"The initial setup was straightforward; we spun up the VM onsite, generated the key that it needed to talk to the Cloud Orchestrator, and after that, as I started adding devices, it was relatively quick and easy."
"The most valuable feature is the automation, as it reduces user intervention and allows us to focus on other tasks."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator is a very great solution to centralizing device management and security."
"We are using this solution for filtering and blocking some websites, as a firewall, and as the main tool for network segmentation and intrusion prevention, blocking malware and malicious activity."
"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion prevention."
"FireMon's return on investment is due to the massive improvements that we have made on firewall management and firewall hygiene."
"The most valuable features are the security assessments and the ability to identify unused rules or objects."
"On the whole, it gives us the ability to determine what our security architecture looks like, so as to help secure our company better."
"The SQL language is convenient to use. It allows us to process a bunch of criteria very quickly and narrows things down if there is an issue with the firewall. It's easy to do that with SQL queries."
"For our company, it became an invaluable tool for auditing purposes."
"FireMon Security Manager is a fast and intelligent device that delivers results in under ten seconds, even with thousands of policies."
"Using FireMon means that we can quickly implement new firewall rules."
"The most valuable feature is the Firewall reviews for our company compliance."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Cisco Defense Orchestrator can improve by providing more support for third-party security components."
"Right now, there's no benefit to doing changes through CDO; it doesn't save me time."
"It would be a better product if it incorporated device control for third-party products easily."
"I'd like CDO to be the one-stop-shop where we could do all the configurations easily. It would be nice, for ASA upgrades, if we could do them from a central repository and not have to reach out to Cisco. That would be a definite plus."
"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."
"The stability has been fairly decent, but there have been a few issues."
"We are also looking for more integration with SIEM and other tools."
"I don't like that it comes with bugs, constant issues, and limited functionality."
"The reason that we don't use the compliance module in FireMon is that it creates a heavy load on our CPU."
"Policy Planner requirements section is good, but could use some improvement to allow flexibility to enter different types of requests (modifying an existing policy, object or service group, for example) in a structured task format that can be auto-verified."
"Sometimes, there is a problem related to the sizing itself. If we have many devices added or if the firewall complexity is huge, we might experience some lag in processing. It may relate to the hardware specifications."
"The current health and monitoring of the devices is atrocious... Imagine you have a list of 200 devices, and you can grade each of those devices as either green, yellow, or red. However, there might be three different reasons for you to go to red, or eight different reasons to go to yellow, and all of those things could be combined... Out of all those categories, I only find one or two of them that are, perhaps, pertinent."
"Although I have left the company, I heard that since the license renewal cost was too high, management decided not to renew it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"If you compare to what is available on the market, they are in the same range with respect to pricing."
"It's around £500 per unit for a three-year license."
"It is covered under the CIsco Enterprise License Agreement (ELA). So, it is licensed and ours."
"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."
"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."
"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."
"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."
"We pay for it yearly."
"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."
"Relative to what it offers, the price is fair."
"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business18
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise45
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
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. The setup cost and licensing made sense give...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
I wish to see deeper and more customizable reporting and dashboards, as while the standard reports are useful for audits, operational teams sometimes need real-time, flexible views without exportin...
What is your primary use case for FireMon?
I have been using FireMon Security Manager for around two years in a production environment, mainly for firewall policy review, compliance report, rule cleanup, and change tracking across multiple ...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Defense Orchestrator, CDO
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Insurance Company of British Columbia, Shawmut
Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Security Cloud Control vs. FireMon Security Manager and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.