TrustRadius: an HG Insights company

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Score8.4 out of 10

40 Reviews and Ratings

Get a Demo

What is Cisco Firepower 4100 Series?

The Cisco Firepower 4100 Series’ 1-rack-unit size is presented by the vendodr as ideal at the Internet edge and in high-performance environments. They further state that it shows what’s happening on your network, detects attacks earlier so you can act faster, and reduces management complexity.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Cisco Firepower 4100 Series has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 40 ratings of Cisco Firepower 4100 Series's features
View all features

Top Performing Features

  • High Availability

    Built-in capacity to prevent exposure if primary firewall stops working

    Category average: 8.8

  • Stateful Inspection

    Stateful inspection analyzes packet headers and contents of packets

    Category average: 8.6

  • Content Inspection

    Inspecting permitted application traffic by means of threat prevention, URL filtering and data filtering

    Category average: 8.4

Areas for Improvement

  • Visualization Tools

    Visualization tools present administrators with data on applications traversing the network, who is using them, and the potential security impact.

    Category average: 7.6

  • VPN

    VPN's implement encryption and anonymize IP addresses

    Category average: 8.9

  • Proxy Server

    A proxy server changes your IP address and masks the origin of your network traffic

    Category average: 8.2

Reviews

What users are saying about Cisco Firepower 4100 Series.
View all reviews

Next gen firewall

Incentivized
Gustavo ChangView profile
Network Security lead in Information Technology at Pan-American Life Insurance Company (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Cisco Firepower 4100 Series for network perimeter controls. Remote access vpn for our users and site to site vpns for partners and third parties. We use Firepower Management Console to orquestrate the configuration for all of our firewalls. Our HA configuration give us piece of mind for the availability and resiliency piece.

Pros

  • Packet filtering
  • Great vpn client
  • Integrates correctly with other vendors

Cons

  • Takes a lot of time to deploy changes
  • Instability on some releases
  • Lack of innovations

Return on Investment

  • Great support
  • Integrates great with other tools
  • Lack of innovations

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention

Other Software Used

Aruba ClearPass, Aruba EdgeConnect, Cisco IOS

Great performance and secure connections with Cisco Firepower 4100 Series

Incentivized
José Antonio PadillaView profile
Telecomunications in Information Technology at Grupo K (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Cisco Firepower 4100 Series as the perimetral device for outside connections to the internal network, such as VPN for remote access, VPN L2L, NAT translation for published services and to have full control of who can access the network and what they can do. It is also used as a backup route to the internet.

Pros

  • VPN Site to Site
  • High Availability / Failover
  • Ldap mapping to vpn connections

Cons

  • Too much time to deploy changes
  • When there are a lot of entries in the ldap mapping the device runs slow
  • You can not make config changes via CLI, only via GUI

Return on Investment

  • Quickly respond to incidents using vpn remote access
  • VPN L2L used to establish connections with global providers
  • Up to 2000+ vpn access without having performance issues
  • Granular access with policy groups based on the AD user

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Juniper SRX, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, CheckPoint and Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services

Other Software Used

Cisco 5520 Wireless Controller, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series Review

Charles Lund
Director of Network Services in Information Technology at Millersville University (201-500 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use two of them, in HA, to monitor and manage our network security for all of our internal network. We were the victim of a ransomware attack in 2021, and needed to upgrade our network's security significantly. We use the firepowers for policy management, VPN security, site-to-site and remote access tunnels, network monitoring, etc... It, in conjunction with several other Cisco products like Umbrella, Stealthwatch ISE and SecureX have significantly impacted our network security, and provided us with incredible visibility of what is going on in our environment.

Pros

  • Policy management in the GUI. I'm old-school, and still create ACLs in the CLI, but using the GUI for this is very nice.
  • Event monitoring and reporting is great, and you can get very granular when it comes to what information you are viewing.
  • I really like the troubleshooting features that are built in, especially the packet tracer and the ability to generate and download a troubleshooting package to review or send to TAC.

Cons

  • The failover process is clunky. When out Fortigate firewalls failed over, we lost 1 ping. When our Firepowers failover, whether it is on purpose or not, we experience a 2.5 minute complete outage.
  • Cisco could stand to improve their support documentation. I have found it difficult to find good directions for configuring these, especially when it comes to NAT and IPSEC tunnels.

Return on Investment

  • We feel much more confident in our security.
  • Management is easily done, which reduces the amount of time it take to implement new policies.
  • Troubleshooting has become easier because of the GUI and the built-in tools.

Alternatives Considered

Fortinet FortiGate

Other Software Used

Cisco Catalyst 9300 Series Switches, Cisco Aironet and Catalyst Access Points, Cisco Meraki Insight

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series Review

Kelvin Goh
Security Specialist in Information Technology at Mesiniaga Berhad (1001-5000 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Cisco Firepower 4100 Series can support Layer 7 firewall protections when deployed as Firepower Threat Defense. Besides, it is also providing centralized management from Cisco Firepower Management. This can easily simplify the administration tasks and daily operation works. Cisco Firepower 4100 Series is a high-end firewall model which able to cater to high traffic throughput and does not cause any performance issues.

Pros

  • Application Control.
  • URL Filtering.
  • Intrusion Prevention.

Cons

  • When deployed as Firepower Threat Defense, configurations cannot be made within the device itself.
  • Troubleshooting can be difficult if the Cisco Firepower 4100 Series firewall is managed by the Cisco Firepower Management Center.
  • There are two operating systems in Cisco Firepower 4100 Series, firmware upgrade process will take a long time.

Return on Investment

  • Very stable and does not cause major interruption.
  • Supports most of the business requirements.
  • Enhance security, risk and compliance.

Alternatives Considered

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series

Other Software Used

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series, Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos SG Firewall Appliances

Cisco Firepower 4100 is another solid security device that you can trust

Incentivized
Verified User
Engineer in Information Technology (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Lots of expansion modules available for add-ons.
  • SFP ports are fast and plentiful.
  • Well designed hardware blends in with our other modern Cisco equipment.

Cons

  • Initial install and configuration can be complex.
  • May need to learn the new interface if coming from ASA.
  • Buggy web interface can at time cause issues.

Return on Investment

  • Positive impact would be our increased security network wide.
  • Another positive would be the increased processing power, saving us time and [from] needing more equipment.
  • A negative impact would be the increased need for having to learn a new interface.

Other Software Used

Cisco 4000 Series Integrated Services Routers (ISR 4000), Dell EMC Networker, Snort