PACKETPERF

Primary Device

Cisco Secure Firewall 4215
Cisco Secure Firewall 4215
★ 3.2 Value Score

Technical Specifications

  • Firewall Throughput: 90 Gbps stateful (Cisco 4200 datasheet; some regional Cisco pages list 71 Gbps)
  • Threat Prevention Throughput: 65 Gbps (FW + AVC / NGIPS, 1024B)
  • IPsec VPN Throughput: 45 Gbps (1024B TCP w/ Fastpath)
  • Max Sessions: 40M concurrent connections (Cisco datasheet; some resellers list 15M)
  • New Sessions/sec: 350K
  • Interfaces: 8x 1/10/25GbE SFP28 fixed (some listings say SFP+); 2x NetMod bays for expansion
  • Form Factor: 1RU rack-mountable

Curation Review

  • ✔ Pros: Up to 90 Gbps stateful firewall throughput in a 1RU chassis; 40M concurrent connections and 350K new connections/sec suit high-session data center and campus workloads; 2x NetMod bays allow port expansion; Supports up to 20,000 VPN peers; Runs Cisco FTD or ASA software for flexible deployment
  • ✘ Cons: Threat prevention throughput (65 Gbps) is well below the headline firewall figure; Reseller pricing is high, typically well over $100K, which puts it out of reach for small or branch deployments; Published specs and port types conflict across Cisco and third-party sources, which complicates sizing; Threat, malware, and URL protection require separate subscription licenses on top of the hardware cost
  • Est. Price: $114,567 - $152,065

Compare Against

Ubiquiti UniFi Cloud Gateway Max (UCG-Max)
Ubiquiti UniFi Cloud Gateway Max (UCG-Max)
★ 4.9 Value Score

Technical Specifications

  • Firewall Throughput: Not published by Ubiquiti in the sources reviewed
  • Threat Prevention Throughput: 2.3 Gbps IDS/IPS per Ubiquiti spec page (older listings show 1.5 Gbps)
  • IPsec VPN Throughput: Not published by Ubiquiti; third-party reviews report about 800-1,000 Mbps for WireGuard and 300-400 Mbps for OpenVPN
  • Max Sessions: Not published in the sources reviewed
  • New Sessions/sec: Not published in the sources reviewed
  • Interfaces: 1x 2.5GbE RJ45 WAN, 4x GbE RJ45 LAN (one LAN port can be reconfigured as a second WAN for multi-WAN)
  • Form Factor: Compact desktop; UCG-Max-NS variant includes 512GB NVMe storage

Curation Review

  • ✔ Pros: Low entry price at $199 MSRP; Compact desktop form factor; Five-port layout with multi-WAN support via a reconfigurable LAN port; Runs UniFi OS with integrated IDS/IPS, site-to-site and remote VPN options (IPsec, WireGuard, OpenVPN, L2TP); Manages 30+ UniFi devices and 300+ clients per Ubiquiti listing
  • ✘ Cons: Routing and IPS throughput (2.3 Gbps) is modest for multi-gigabit WANs with inspection enabled; Published throughput figures conflict across sources (1.5 vs 2.3 Gbps IPS, varying VPN numbers); Only one 2.5GbE port, with the remaining ports at 1GbE; Vendor does not publish IPsec tunnel, session, or new-connection limits; Some resellers list prices well above MSRP (one US listing at $394.79)
  • Est. Price: $199 - $279

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