CISCO ASA5505-BUN-K9 Cisco ASA 5505 10-User Bundle 10000 Simultaneous Sessions Firewall throughput: Up to 150 Mbps 3DES/AES VPN throughput: Up to 100 Mbps

Pros: Best bang for the buck. Yes, Sonicwall may be easier but come back in a year and tell me how great it is when the subscription runs out and you lose half the functionality. It's small and unobtrusive and is pretty much set and forget. I've been able to walk a non-technical person through setup without much difficulty. Price is very fair for what it is.

Cons: Yes it runs hot. It's an enterprise device and if you don't know what you're doing or don't care to find out you'll be in trouble fast. Hint: Use the wizards they are your friends. Service life can be iffy. I've had units that lasted 5 years and the same exact device that died in 1 year. Suggest not locating in a hot room. A fan is not a bad idea. I hate Cisco's Smartnet agreements. It's stupid that you can't get support or firmware updates without paying upwards of $150 a year or more per device.

Other Thoughts: It's a good device and so common in small offices these days that it's almost a given. Somebody's always selling them and if they were as bad as some make them out to be they wouldn't still be selling this exact model for the past 7 years! It's an enterprise device not some $50 Best Buy throwaway toy. It's just a firewall, however, so if you get virus infections and malware don't blame the device blame your computing habits and lack of security updates. No device will protect a user from themselves if they're determined enough. If you want web filtering buy a sonicwall and pay their subscription fees. I'd wager you'd still get infected if you had bad Internet habits. By the way if you want to set up a websense filter this thing will allow you to use it, all ASA's support it but you have to run the filtering software on another pc that's on all the time. Suggest you buy the smartnet agreement through a cisco VAR (there are VARS that will write one for a brand new one even if not bought through them) At least you'll get a 1 year warranty and a year of firmware (IOS) updates.

Pros: Good sturdy device

Cons: Cisco wont provide updates for the device unless you have a Service contact. They say to contact newegg if you need firmware..... which makes no sense. newegg has no idea what your talking about if you call in.

Other Thoughts: Ill never buy cisco again after the poor customer service i received.

Pros: I have used these before and programed them. Just have to remember that this device is not fast ethernet. Even though its not, the ASA provide the job which it is ment to do.

Cons: not fast enternet

Pros: Its a firewall, I posted a good review the other day for it.

Cons: It has already failed its purpose within the first week. I had a intruder get into my businesses Microsoft private cloud, and plant a backdoor. They fuzzed my network, then tried to use some python script to get in, and my IDS that's free caught them, and they trashed my business server.

Pros: Cisco is very thorough like Intel, all the bells and whistles needed for advanced security and it works, I hear bad reviews all the time and im sorry for your luck.

Cons: I forgot how intimidating this thing was at the GUI, but I like CLI better I think its faster

Other Thoughts: Highly recommend and I would buy the ips add in card that has the anomaly detection.

Pros: A word of warning to anyone no familiar with Cisco, this is not your typical "easy to configure GUI" SonicWall or whatever other small business firewall router you might find. Once configured correctly it will be rock solid with general traffic and site to site VPN use, how a firewall should be. I currently have 2 or these along with 4 ASA5510s and none have ever crashed or had to be rebooted for any issue, only when installing an IOS update. The GUI for this device is a java app that installs on your PC and has got better over the years.

Cons: Not really a con, but wish the base model came with more than 10 user support. With the rate most businesses are adding PCs it can be an issue. IOS update not free, but are included with purchased yearly support.

Other Thoughts: Read the licensing models before purchasing. This unit will only support 10 internal devices unless you buy the upgrade license to 50 or unlimited.

Pros: A very feature rich firewall for the money. This device is great for setting up VPN branch offices. It has two power over ethernet ports. This is enterprise grade for a cheap cost.

Cons: I never worked with a Cisco device before this. It took me about 3 days to figure it out. The device needs a default route created when you set it up the first time. I had issues with changing the subnet (from 192.168.x.x) it uses. When I did that DHCP just happened to break. Some people comment on being limited to 10 devices. Well I threw a cheap home firewall/wap/router behind it and all my devices are using a NAT know. Problem solved. This unit gets very hot.

Other Thoughts: I use this to create a site-to-site vpn from my home to my office. It took a little bit getting use to it and learning the command line. I couldn't configure it all from the web interface. That thing just stopped responding when I made major changes. Get a Serial to USB cable. You'll need it!

Pros: This thing is now over 4 years old and it still rocks. I have 35+ demanding devices on it and it never breaks a sweat. I started with 5 devices and kept adding. Nearly every device is streaming something and sometimes they all do at the same time. No problems. IP phones never break up. Netflix never flinches. Server traffic never affects the other networks. It's just great.

Cons: You could keep your coffee warm or slow cook a roast on this thing sometimes. It does get warm when it is really working. It does not have gigabit ports. There are no eazy/cheap/free upgrades. (But what you get WORKS!)

Other Thoughts: If I had to do it all over again, I am sure I would buy one of these. It works so much better than the normal residential grade FWs. If you VPN into work, your IT department will be thrilled! With all it does (and can do with some research) thing baby is worth every spendoolie.

Pros: Use this at home for Firewall/VPN ( a bit overkill I know)
-Awsome Multi Layer Firewall
-The ASDM has come a long way since the PIX's but I still prefer command line
-They all ship with 512 memory
-Pretty recent flash version loaded on it.
-Runs like a champ, I feel secure knowing this things got my back, and if you know what your doing can be configured to do everything but make you breakfast.

Cons: -The DMZ is somewhat limited (you have to deny all access to one Vlan if your going to use it, not a problem since my DMZ is for my seperate guest network VLAN)

-Its ports are 10/100 =( (Comcast is already offering 100MB Speed for a decent price, Even at home I have a feeling this will be the first thing to be a bottleneck.) It wont be a problem for most users, but I wish you had the option for atleast a 1G on the outside interface.

Cant really use it as a switch since its only 10/100 but then again if your going to dish out a few hundred on a firewall im sure you can afford a switch.

-This thing does get hot like everyone else says. Hotter then most other ciscos I've messed around with. Im kind of worried about hot humid days, but well see.

-Just for the record, you get no support (not that I need it) and the main thing that sucks is no UPDATES. What ever is loaded on there is what you get unless you pay through the roof.

Other Thoughts: All in all its a great unit. This thing has the capability to do so much if you wanna put 2 grand into it. I like that it comes stripped down so someone like myself can pick it up for home use and still get it at a reasonable price. If they would just make a model with a 1G external interface and IDS for around $600 id be in heaven.

Pros: Makes a decent paperweight and can be used to hurl at enemies. Will persuade you to throw away and build a PFsense based firewall.

Cons: Licensing, Support agreements, Cost, Complexity, Version Diversity, Cost, They get really hot, You will never get back all the time you wasted trying to get port 3389 to forward to your terminal server.

Other Thoughts: Also to note. Cisco begins the complimentary 90 Day support period from when Newegg bought the device, not from when you buy it. This usually means that by the time you open the box, you cannot update the firmware without buying a support agreement.