Cisco IOS Security vs. Cisco Secure Firewall

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco IOS Security
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
IOS Security from Cisco is network security technology.N/A
Cisco Secure Firewall
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Firewall delivers comprehensive threat protection for modern, distributed networks. Built to support hybrid workforces and multicloud environments, it enables Zero Trust access, application visibility, and secure remote connectivity. With integration across the Cisco Secure portfolio, including SecureX and Talos threat intelligence, the firewall powers organizations to detect and stop more sophisticated threats. Centralized management simplifies policy enforcement, orchestration,…N/A
Pricing
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Considered Both Products
Cisco IOS Security
Chose Cisco IOS Security
IOS Security is a bonus feature when you purchase Cisco devices. It is great to have a vendor provide equipment to go above and beyond the minimal needs for business operation. Having security at the downstream edge of our organization provides a sense of ease from potential …
Chose Cisco IOS Security
Cisco IOS Security is more simple in use than Juniper devices, and they have a lot of documentations and blogs to design, implement and troubleshooting steps to use, also Cisco support keeps communication with us during any problem to fix it and learn the root cause and fix all …
Chose Cisco IOS Security
It’s not a secret for anyone that Cisco provides the best routers with the most reliable software on the market. Although we considered using a PC running Linux for the same purpose, we realized that to keep things simple it would be best if we use a brand that we already know …
Chose Cisco IOS Security
I also like HP Procurve. It is my choice when the customer cannot afford Cisco. Cisco is better all round but HP is the only other [product] I will use if I have a choice.
Cisco Secure Firewall
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
on par with other firewalls vendors I've used over the years
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
It has great features, and compared to competitors, the cost of deployment is manageable too.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
While Cisco Secure Firewall is pricey, it delivers and does not compromise on capabilities. It is the best for network protection. Worthy every dollar.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco is more secure than FortiGate.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
The administraion interface of the Cisco secure firewall is a lot more easy to learn than the Palo Alto solution. Also, the dashboard panels offers by Cisco seems a lot more useful and details than the Palo Alto solution.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Having worked in the Fortinet and Sonicwall space, I have found that the Cisco Secure Firewall platform is the easiest to work with. The platform is easily customizable and overall very clean. Cisco has kept the platform feeling fresh with regular updates.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
We use it because it's the best firewall on the market now. And are the best protection and hardware.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco has a more seamless integration with its firewall management center compared to palo alto's panorama which tends to become out of sync with their firewalls. This can cause config differences, duplicate rules, or just the inability to deploy polices due to inconsistencies. …
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Well FWs are branch security things and major things so really not much similar device at Cisco portfolio.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco Nexus Series Switches
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
They are peer competitors, with Palo Alto offering some advantages over the Cisco products in the way of licensing simplicity and costs. The Palo Alto also supports the abilty to do "to the box" filtering and policy enforcement where Cisco requires special rules that are …
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series and VMware SD-WAN
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
I personally didn't evaluate any other products. We were already working with Cisco, so just keep upgrading.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
I've used Ubiquiti products, SonicWall products, the various older Cisco and Meraki. Cisco is definitely more of an enterprise level and overall it has probably better overall options and integrations and functionality and we've continued to choose to use it because it works …
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
We utilize these two products together to provide enhanced user experience and security.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco Secure Firewall works better with the Cisco ecosystem when we can utilize it and feels beefy enough when we utilize it in the data center. The Fortinet we have found are great, small cost boxes for remote offices with a better UI then Cisco Secure Firewalls. The feature …
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
Cisco Secure Firewall outperforms and the feature set are much better.
Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
I'm still evaluating new data center build out with Palo Alto, Cisco Secure Firewall or other.
Features
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco IOS Security
-
Ratings
Cisco Secure Firewall
7.9
Ratings
9% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.10 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings8.70 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings8.20 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings7.20 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings7.70 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings7.90 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings6.80 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
NinjaOne
Score 9.0 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Meraki MX
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 9.1 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Meraki MX
Cisco Meraki MX
Score 9.1 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Likelihood to Recommend
9.1
(0 ratings)
8.1
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
7.2
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
7.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco IOS SecurityCisco Secure Firewall
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco IOS Security is great when there isn't enough budget to acquire advanced security solutions like ISE. We can use the Cisco IOS security features to secure our network as much as we can, we can do authentication using Radius, Port Security, and access lists to secure our traffic while eliminating the attacker from accessing our network.
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The software offers advanced firewall solutions from Web threats management to behavioural analytics and comprehensive application security. Cisco Secure firewall software is incredibly easy to deploy and implement. Customer support services providers are concise and very responsive. Integration and customization of the software are exceptional. The product boasts impressive capabilities, enabling it to stop threats and manage all security flaws in real time.
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Pros
  • QoS. Cisco Quality of Service is top notch and handles prioritization of voice and video without issue.
  • Ease of implementation and configuration. Once you have a device configured, it is easy to use that configuration as a template for the rest. Export your config, update, the IP Address and Name at a minimum, then deploy to the next device.
  • Longevity! Sometimes it can be difficult to upsell a current Cisco client due to aging hardware. I have gone into a network that has 12 year old switches still running strong. I have only seen this with the Cisco brand. At that point, the upsell is the newer features and not the age of the device.
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  • It's good at segregating networks and ensuring that you only give the access that you need to give. Especially with medical devices, you want to only give the access that they need and keep them in their own separate areas so that they can't just communicate with the rest of the network. It's also good at the border for keeping attackers out of the network.
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Cons
  • Needs many lines to configure a detailed access list.
  • No seamless integration between Cisco IOS and LDAP for authentication and need something in middle like Radius.
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  • I have one argument, failover scenario. It's not quite easy. Failover scenario of firewalls. It's sometimes not quite easy to know the issue. But if we open a tech case, a technical case to Cisco, Cisco will help us, it's a little bit con, but we are happy with this product.
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Likelihood to Renew
No answers on this topic
It works really well. We can do most anything we want or need to with it, and you don’t have to have a doctorate or multiple certs to necessarily figure it out. The thing that would probably have to happen to make us switch would be if we just got priced out - Cisco’s more powerful and higher bandwidth models cost a pretty penny.
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Usability
No answers on this topic
The platform is powerful and feature-rich, especially when paired with tools like Firepower Management Center (FMC) and SecureX. The policy structure is logical, and the visibility into traffic flows, threat activity, and rule hits is quite strong once you're familiar with the interface
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Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
As for the availability, in general we did not experience any issues with it, neither in situations where there's only one physical device implemented nor when there's and High Availability pair. Failover works like a charm, no complaints here, it works as it should and so far it has been highly reliable.
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Performance
No answers on this topic
no slowing down, vpn is working fast
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Support Rating
Cisco has the biggest and most trustful partner network in the world. Besides that, you can buy a service contract with the hardware and use the Cisco TAC to help to solve problems. That’s a key differential for Cisco comparing to other vendors.
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Our experience with Cisco TAC support for Cisco Secure Firewall has been very good. The support engineers are knowledgeable about the product and have many tools available to them to work "under the hood" of the firewalls or management center. When we've had equipment failures, the RMA process has been simple and straightforward.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
very good
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Online Training
No answers on this topic
was a good training but questions was answered not so good. Training was "Fundamentals of Cisco Firewall Threat Defense and Intrusion Prevention (SFWIPF)".
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Implementation Rating
No answers on this topic
Our initial implementation was aided by Cisco's professional services and was excellent. The engineer was very knowledgeable and helped us work through issues while building out our new internet security edge Part of this involved tools to migrate the firewall configuration from old to new.
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Alternatives Considered
IOS Security is a bonus feature when you purchase Cisco devices. It is great to have a vendor provide equipment to go above and beyond the minimal needs for business operation. Having security at the downstream edge of our organization provides a sense of ease from potential attacks.
Read full review
Cisco Secure Firewall works better with the Cisco ecosystem when we can utilize it and feels beefy enough when we utilize it in the data center. The Fortinet we have found are great, small cost boxes for remote offices with a better UI then Cisco Secure Firewalls. The feature set included with the firewalls feels similar from a security point of view.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
you can choose up to 50 devices i think thats enough for our organization
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Return on Investment
  • Cisco iOS security helped our business deploy a relatively safe solution for a small amount of money.
  • If you don’t have enough budget to invest in a robust and expensive firewall solution, you can safely use Cisco iOS security to protect your branch or remote office without compromise your network.
  • Because Cisco iOS security uses a simple command-line based interface, you can deploy standardized scripts and keep the operational costs low.
Read full review
  • Cisco Secure Firewall gives details on the possible intrusions attempts that are occurring on the network, which gives stakeholders confidence that the network is being protected.
  • Cisco's reputation as a longstanding network leader provides the trust that is needed in keeping networks secure.
  • The wide variety of tools and features that Cisco Secure Firewall provides allows business owners to plan for changes that can occur in the network as Cisco is able to adapt to the different needs.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Cisco Secure Firewall Screenshots

Screenshot of Cisco Secure 1200 Series Firewall FamilyScreenshot of Cisco Secure 4200 SeriesScreenshot of Cisco Secure 4200 SeriesScreenshot of Cisco Secure Firewall 1200 Stack FamilyScreenshot of Cisco Secure Firewall 200 SeriesScreenshot of Cisco Secure Firewall 200 Series