Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. pfSense

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

221 Reviews and Ratings

pfSense

72 Reviews and Ratings

Overview
Product	Rating	Most Used By	Product Summary	Starting Price
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software	Score9 out of 10	N/A	Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.	N/A
pfSense	Score9.9 out of 10	N/A	pfSense is a firewall and load management product available through the open source pfSense Community Edition, as well as a the licensed edition, pfSense Plus (formerly known as pfSense Enterprise). The solution provides combined firewall, VPN, and router functionality, and can be deployed through the cloud (AWS or Azure), or on-premises with a Netgate appliance. It as scalable capacities, with functionality for SMBs. As a firewall, pfSense offers Stateful packet inspection, concurrent…	$179 per appliance

Pricing

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

pfSense

No answers on this topic

SG-1100: $179
per appliance
SG-2100: $229
per appliance
SG-3100: $399
per appliance
SG-5100: $699
per appliance
XG-7100-DT: $899
per appliance
XG-7100-1U: $999
per appliance
XG-1537: $1,949
per appliance
XG-1541: $2,649
per appliance

Pricing Offerings
Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software	pfSense
Free Trial
No	No
Free/Freemium Version
No	No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No	No

No setup fee

No setup fee

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Community Pulse
Key User Insights
	Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software	pfSense
Considered Both Products	Cisco Anjali Nair project manager in Information Technology at DashClicks (Information Technology & Services, 51-200 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software We were using pfsence before [the] Cisco ASA firewall and we were not happy with pfSense features. Lots of features are missing in pfSence so we decided to install the [Cisco] ASA 5525 and we are very happy with the features. There are lots of options in nat and you can easy to … Incentivized Helpful? Mohit Singh System Engineer in Information Technology at Flipkart India (Information Technology & Services, 10,001+ employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software We were using pfSense in our environment before for remote VPN but we were facing continuous configuration misbehave issues. After using Cisco ASA is have resolved our remote VPN & security issues. It has also GUI Based control access so that we can easily check & manage things … Incentivized Helpful? sitaram gurjar System Administrator in Information Technology at Mattsenkumar LLC (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software We were using the pfSense but we were not happy with the services. We were facing lots of downtime and bugs during the production hours. That's why we selected Cisco ASA. It is a really very good firewall and we haveb't faced any downtime in the last 3 years. Incentivized Helpful? Ankit Singh Network Administrator in Information Technology at GKC Management Services Pvt Ltd (Information Technology & Services, 201-500 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software We were using pfSense before in our environment but we were facing continuous issues in configuration management & policy-based management. After the implementation of Cisco ASA, it has resolved both the previous problems & also provided us a reliable solution with High … Incentivized Helpful? Chirag Deol Chief Marketing Officer in Information Technology at Boxinall (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software We were using [pfSense] before in our environment but we regularly facing difficulties over it due to software bugs & downtime. After implementing Cisco ASA, it resolved our availability issue & provides us a reliable solution with the best security features & easy to … Incentivized Helpful? VINAY Mandora Sr Team Leader in Information Technology at Dish TV (Information Technology & Services, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software pfSense is a nice firewall but it is minimal in features. The main advantage of Cisco ASA is routing, VPN, and NAT, and pfSense is providing these features but they are only basic. Cisco ASA provides lots of options in NAT but pfSense provides basic NAT features, so according … Incentivized Helpful? rahul Verma Network Consultant in Information Technology at Upwork (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software I am a freelancer consultant so I use lots of firewalls. I recommended Cisco ASA to my client and asked him to replace pfSense because pfSense is not easy firewall. Options are very different and commands are very tricky. Lots of options are not available. But ASA is better … Incentivized Helpful? Rajesh Singh CEO & MD in Corporate at Gurjartech Pvt Ltd (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software [Cisco] ASA is far better than pfSense[.] pfSense is a very complicated firewall and if you need any help documentation is not easily available. Cisco ASA configuration via CLI is [the] very best and fast for configuration[.] Incentivized Helpful? Verified User Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Cisco ASAs are a world apart from SonicWall's, and even more so pfSense. Sonicwall's are okay for SOHO purposes; they're not expensive, but they're not as robust either. They often choke bandwidth because of CPU limitations. pfSense is a Linux-based firewall, and it does the … Incentivized Helpful? Brian Taylor Systems Engineer in Information Technology at Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc (Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software We evaluated other Cisco security devices and other vendors, but chose the Cisco ASA due to it's price point and compatibility. While Fortinet and Palo Alto are leaders in the field, we found that for the price, the features we needed were fully satisfied by the ASA. We … Incentivized Helpful? Basant Gupta Executive System Admin in Information Technology at Freelancer (Information Technology & Services, 1-10 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software I don't thin[k] any basic firewall in this budget is better then Cisco ASA. ASA provides you lots of option[s] in vpn, nat and this is very easy to configure. This is not complected firewall. Beginner network also can configure this and handle this. No downtime is main … Incentivized Helpful? Carlos Daniel Casañas Bertolo ஃ Director in Information Technology at Leverage - Advisory & Consultancy (Computer & Network Security, 1001-5000 employees) Chose Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software Above all, the robustness and quality of the components, the support and the rapid resolution of warranty issues. Cisco is a serious company and demonstrates this by making the processes with the client as easy as possible. Incentivized Helpful?	Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC) Verified User Chose pfSense pfSense is a lot cheaper and has higher firewall throughput per dollar than "enterprise" network appliances. It's also significantly easier to configure and learn. It may not have some of the "enterprise" features or the support level that someone like Cisco has, but for small … Incentivized Helpful? Victor Arana IT Manager in Information Technology at Stoneleaf Construction LLC (Construction, 51-200 employees) Chose pfSense It's an open source solution can support from 50 to 700 user without sweating and with the half of the standard bundle investment that will take to deploy a FortiGate UTM, or a Cisco ASA, also a Sophos UTM that are quite remarkable units but to pFSense saves you money and will … Incentivized Helpful? Rikia Kosaka Senior Systems Engineer in Information Technology at Real Estate Digital (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees) Chose pfSense I've used a number of routers like Cisco, Sonicwall, Juniper, Home based routers, etc. pfSense is like most routers but with the benefit of load balancing and multi-wan. Well many support multi-wan but load balancing is usually a separate device like an BIGiP F5 or Cisco CSS. Incentivized Helpful? Jim Nitterauer Senior Systems Administrator in Engineering at AppRiver, LLC (Computer & Network Security, 1-10 employees) Chose pfSense Neither of the Cisco devices are designed to compete. pfSense does tons more. Incentivized Helpful?
	Would buy again
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Delivers good value for the price
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Happy with the feature set
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Lived up to sales and marketing promises
	No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic
	Implementation went as expected
No answers on this topic	No answers on this topic

Features

Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

pfSense

Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and pfSense
Feature	Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software 7.8 49 Ratings	pfSense 7.6 11 Ratings
Identification Technologies	6.532 Ratings	5.010 Ratings
Visualization Tools	6.530 Ratings	7.08 Ratings
Content Inspection	8.032 Ratings	4.011 Ratings
Policy-based Controls	9.045 Ratings	10.011 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP	7.547 Ratings	7.09 Ratings
Firewall Management Console	7.547 Ratings	9.510 Ratings
Reporting and Logging	5.948 Ratings	8.011 Ratings
VPN	9.048 Ratings	10.011 Ratings
High Availability	9.047 Ratings	10.011 Ratings
Stateful Inspection	9.046 Ratings	7.011 Ratings
Proxy Server	8.031 Ratings	6.111 Ratings

User Ratings
	Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software	pfSense
Likelihood to Recommend	9.0 (87 ratings)	9.6 (24 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew	7.1 (4 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Usability	- (0 ratings)	10.0 (1 ratings)
Availability	7.5 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Support Rating	8.7 (8 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Implementation Rating	8.0 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)
Ease of integration	6.5 (2 ratings)	- (0 ratings)