TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Save this comparison

Save this comparison

Add Product

Recommended Comparisons

    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AThe Cisco Firepower® 1000 Series for small to medium-size businesses and branch offices is a family of four threat-focused Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) security platforms designed to deliver business resiliency through superior threat defense. The vendor provides that they offers exceptional sustained performance when advanced threat functions are enabled. The 1000 Series’ throughput range addresses use cases from the small office, home office, remote branch office to the Internet edge. The…N/A

    pfSense

    Score9.9 out of 10
    N/ApfSense 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 Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    Editions & Modules
    Firepower 1000
    1,000-5,000
    per appliance
    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
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    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 Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    Chose Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
    I faced a lot of issues with pfSense. The configuration was very difficult through the dashboard and there were a lot of bugs. Cisco Firepower 1000 Series provides all the security features. I am very happy with this series and its features.
    Incentivized
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    89%
    Would buy again
    17 Answers
    93%
    Would buy again
    13 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    89%
    Happy with the feature set
    17 Answers
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    87%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    13 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    11 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    17 Answers
    93%
    Implementation went as expected
    13 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Firepower 1000 Series and pfSense
    Feature
    Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
    8.3
    33 Ratings
    4% below category average
    pfSense
    7.6
    11 Ratings
    13% below category average
    Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings5.010 Ratings
    Visualization Tools7.230 Ratings7.08 Ratings
    Content Inspection8.330 Ratings4.011 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls8.733 Ratings10.011 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP8.429 Ratings7.09 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console7.232 Ratings9.510 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging8.333 Ratings8.011 Ratings
    VPN9.128 Ratings10.011 Ratings
    High Availability9.232 Ratings10.011 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection8.828 Ratings7.011 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings6.111 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    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 Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.3
    (34 ratings)
    9.6
    (24 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    8.0
    (5 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Availability
    8.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    8.3
    (29 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.5
    (34 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    8.1
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriespfSense
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    I think it is well suited for smaller companies or (as in our case) extension to a central system with higher performance. My personal guess is, that it can be quite annoying with those delays in bigger environments, when 20 or more devices needed to be managed. From the point of security, support and updates it works quite good and seem to have no downsides.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    I believe PFSense is well suited for both home lab environments as well as up to small to mid-size business environments on a tight budget. However, I would implore that anything in production requires the use of the authorized hardware that PFSense sells to receive support. However, in my experience, PFSense is a solid set-and-forget firewall solution.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
    • Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    • Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
    • Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • ACLS in gui are PIA cant see object details
    • Objects in ACLs dont show IP addresses
    • Have to renames every object to name+ip to make acl GUI useable
    • Speed to data can use improvement.
    • Health warnings should allow you to resolve you have to dig n search in some cases.
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    • I did kind of mention a Con in the Pro section with OpenVPN.
    • When I create a config for an employee other employees are able to login to that config.
    • I could be doing something wrong when I am making it - I am not afraid to admit that as I am pretty new to all of this, but it seems like it builds a key and I would think the key would be unique in some way to each employee, but I could be wrong.
    • I actually do not have a lot of Con's for this software - I did not get to set this up on our work network so I am not sure of any downfalls when installing.
    • I installed this on my personal machine in a Hyper-V environment to get a feel for it before I started working on it at work and it seemed pretty smooth. I didn't run into any issues.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    It is quite good, robust and reliable but not always so easy to manage and configure. The tools could be improved and the price is not low for an entry level firewall
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Cisco
    Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    The pfSense UI is easy to navigate and pretty go look at. It is much better than some high dollar firewalls that just throw menus you you. The pfSense UI is quick and responsive and makes sense 99% of the time. Changes are committed quickly and the hardware rarely requires a reboot. It just runs.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    Has not let me down yet.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    Cisco
    Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    I have had troubles with Firepower Management Center and the FTD's in the past. Sticking to a Gold Star image and upgrading when the "bugs" are fixed is great. That still doesn't mean you are left vulnerable though. The extra features are just not enabled yet. Great product and calling support is readily available for any issue.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance.The Firepower 1000 Series has a more complex user interface, with a steeper learning curve, but offers more customization and configuration options. The Meraki MX has a simpler, more intuitive interface,
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    Meraki has a unified management login for all devices, which is nice. It also has decent content filtering, both areas where pfSense is weaker. Where pfSense far ouclasses Meraki is in the ease of use and the other width of features. These include features such as better VPN interoperability, non-subscription based pricing, auditability, not relying on the infrastructure of a third party, more transparency of what's actually going on, easier to deploy replacements if hardware fails. Additionally, the NAT management for pfSense seems to be a bit better, as you can NAT between any network segment and not just the LAN segments out the WAN interfaces.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
    • It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
    • This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    • pfSense can be installed on commodity hardware with no licensing fees. With a simple less than 10 minute restore time, on most hardware, it's an extremely inexpensive way to achieve the same results that some of the more expensive vendors provide.
    • The easy to use interface has allowed configuration management to be preformed by lower level technicians with quick and easy training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots