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Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. Cisco Secure Firewall

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco 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

    Cisco Secure Firewall

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ACisco 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 Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Secure Firewall
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco 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 Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Secure Firewall
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
    Well FWs are branch security things and major things so really not much similar device at Cisco portfolio.
    Incentivized
    Chose Cisco Secure Firewall
    Cisco Secure Firewall aka Firepower has a more visibility than the ASA, specially with use of FMC. The Secure Firewall also adds a lot of security features, with IPS, IDS, AVC, Security Intelligence, Identity Mapping and so on.
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    87%
    Would buy again
    39 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    41 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    40 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Secure Firewall
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Cisco Secure Firewall
    Feature
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    7.8
    49 Ratings
    10% below category average
    Cisco Secure Firewall
    7.9
    79 Ratings
    9% below category average
    Identification Technologies6.532 Ratings8.168 Ratings
    Visualization Tools6.530 Ratings7.072 Ratings
    Content Inspection8.032 Ratings8.371 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls9.045 Ratings8.976 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP7.547 Ratings8.865 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console7.547 Ratings8.374 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging5.948 Ratings7.175 Ratings
    VPN9.048 Ratings7.665 Ratings
    High Availability9.047 Ratings8.571 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection9.046 Ratings7.870 Ratings
    Proxy Server8.031 Ratings6.741 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Secure Firewall
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.4 out of 10
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Meraki MX
    Score9.2 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Secure Firewall
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (87 ratings)
    8.0
    (84 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.1
    (4 ratings)
    7.2
    (2 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    9.1
    (2 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (8 ratings)
    7.6
    (35 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Product Scalability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareCisco Secure Firewall
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Cisco ASA's are great for internal network connected access between a firewall and the central management server. And, for complex networks where high security requirements with overly strict compliance are necessary. For networks with limited connectivity to the core or for poor network connectivity these are not the best solution. There are other more stand-alone firewall's that do this better. These firewall's are a little more complex to set up to start with so significant knowledge of these devices is required to set them up and ensure they are best practice installed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • ASA is our VPN concentrator. The client and server are very stable and very easy to use
    • ASA also offers Intrusion Prevention, to an extent. This is also very useful for an improved security posture for a small company
    • ASA allowed us to scale very quickly. We could onboard clients, partners, and consultants and give them a great onboarding experience as well
    • Administrative costs with ASA are low. It's very easy to administer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • 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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • The ASDM software is at times a nightmare to install because of different java versions[.]
    • [The firewall] could do with a power button, just to be able to do a hard reboot when needed[.]
    • It would be nice to manage the firewall via the web on port 443[.]
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    • I wish that the deployment of the updates to the sensors from the FMC was faster.
    • Cisco ASA firewall did a great job of authentication and authorization on the local firewall. FTD does not authorize users well in terms that an AAA must be setup to provide the granular tools that the ASA did.
    • Cisco's method of licensing the firewall can be improved. The FMC and the FTD are licensed through the Cisco software manager and there are instances where the devices are licensed but the firewall still displays and error due to licensing.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    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
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Performance
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    no slowing down, vpn is working fast
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Cisco
    The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    Firewall support is professional just like any other technology Cisco sells. From answering simple questions to bringing out outages affecting a large population of our workforce, Cisco support is always courteous, professional, and communicates with our team to keep our request on their radar. Some of the brightest people I've met are from Cisco support both in IQ and EQ which shows the talent Cisco is able to onboard to their team.
    Incentivized
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    In-Person Training
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    very good
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    was a good training but questions was answered not so good. Training was "Fundamentals of Cisco Firewall Threat Defense and Intrusion Prevention (SFWIPF)".
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    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 understand GUI.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cisco
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Contract Terms and Pricing Model
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    was not involved
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    you can choose up to 50 devices i think thats enough for our organization
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Professional Services
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Cisco
    was not involved
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Most network engineers have worked with ASA, so there is no need for re-training when adding or turning over staff
    • Current configs from older devices plug in easily, and are operational on larger devices if an upgrade is required
    • Many support options available
    Incentivized
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    Cisco
    • Positive impact. Cisco is a big player in IT environment. It is future stuff, everything, what you learn today, maybe something can be tomorrow. And yes, it's quite important to learn the new stuff every day. And yes, that's it. Yes, I'm happy with Cisco.
    Incentivized
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    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