Top 7 Firewall Configuration Software in '25: Analysis of Features

Security management system misconfiguration is the primary cause of 99% of firewall security breaches.¹ During my experience as the CISO of a fintech company, I reviewed & leveraged several firewall configuration software. See the top 7 firewall configuration software below with links to their detailed reviews:

Explore the top 7 firewall configuration software solutions and their key features such as configuration automation and rule analytics:

Analysis of top 7 firewall configuration software

Table 1. Feature comparison

To have a deep understanding of features in the table, check the definitions and importance of key features.

Table 2. Market presence comparison

*Based on data from leading B2B review platforms

**Based on data from LinkedIn

Disclaimer: ❌ means that the AIMultiple team couldn’t identify publicly available evidence.

Inclusion criteria:

• All vendors featured in this list employ over 30 individuals.
• Every tool provides compliance and configuration management services.

Ranking: The companies are ranked based on the total of employees except for the sponsored products ranked at the top.

Compliance Management ensures that firewall configurations adhere to industry standards and regulatory requirements. This feature is crucial for organizations that need to demonstrate compliance with legal and security frameworks. It also helps for network security policy management which ensures that firewall rules and policies comply with established network security standards.

Tufin Orchestration Suite

The Tufin Orchestration Suite, as one of a firewall configuration software, stands out as a comprehensive solution with an extensive feature set designed to enhance firewall management and network security.

Audit trail feature ensures that all changes to firewall configurations are recorded, providing a clear log of who made changes, what changes were made, and when they occurred. This transparency is crucial for troubleshooting and accountability.

Tufin helps organizations adhere to regulatory standards by continuously monitoring and auditing firewall rules and configurations against compliance policies. This reduces the risk of non-compliance and associated penalties.

This firewall management software analyzes firewall rules to identify redundancies, inefficiencies, and potential security risks. This optimization improves firewall performance and security posture. Configuration automation streamlines the configuration process, reducing the likelihood of human error and ensuring that configurations are consistently applied across the network.

Tufin’s change management capabilities track and manage changes to firewall configurations, which enhances network stability and security. Tufin Orchestration Suite enhances network change management with its “Secure Change” feature, which offers comprehensive control over rule deployment.

Choose Tufin for automatic compliance reporting and regular configuration backup.

Figure 1. Change management workflow of Tufin Orchestration Suite

By integrating with incident management systems, Tufin helps organizations quickly respond to and resolve security incidents, minimizing downtime and damage.

User review

✅ Tufin is appreciated for its detailed reports on firewall configurations, configuration change tracking by the user.²

Figure 2. A user review on Tufin Orchestration Suite

❌ Tufin‘s support team may lack sufficient expertise in resolving specific cases, which can be a drawback when dealing with complex firewall management and security issues.³

AWS Config

AWS Config, as one of a firewall configuration software, provides a detailed log of configuration changes, enhancing transparency and accountability. The software continuously monitors configurations to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and internal policies. AWS Config analyzes firewall rules to identify and mitigate security risks.

Configuration automation features streamline the management of firewall configurations, reducing manual effort and improving consistency. AWS Config tracks and manages changes to configurations, ensuring that all modifications are documented and approved. AWS Config provides automatic compliance reporting but lacks regular configuration backup functionality.

User review

✅ Users can efficiently identify non-compliant resources and leverage tools to address compliance issues.

❌ The cost can be a concern, particularly for small companies, as it’s based on the number of configuration items recorded and the rules evaluated. Storage and data processing costs can add up with numerous AWS resources.

Figure 3. A user review on AWS Config

Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

Cisco Firewall Management Center provides comprehensive firewall management with a focus on incident response, compliance management, rule analytics, configuration automation and change management.

These firewall configuration software features help organizations to ensure firewall configurations meet industry standards and regulatory requirements and streamline the deployment and management of firewall configurations by reducing manual workload. Cisco Firewall Management Center also tracks and manages changes to configurations, ensuring that they are authorized and documented.

The incident management feature integrates incident response capabilities, helping to quickly identify and mitigate security threats. Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center supports regular configuration backup but does not include automatic compliance reporting.

User review

✅ Users appreciate the efficient management of firewall access policies, IPS policies, and VPN configuration through wizards, enhancing network security policy management and firewall rule optimization.

Figure 4. A user review on Cisco Secure Firewall Management Center

❌ Some users highlight the lack of a rollback feature, a clunky menu system, and challenges in obtaining timely support responses. Improving deployment speed, access policy configuration, and VPN troubleshooting options could enhance user experience.

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager

SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager, another firewall configuration software, monitors firewall configurations to ensure compliance with regulatory standards and internal policies. SolarWinds helps identify and rectify inefficiencies and security gaps by analyzing firewall rules’ analytics.

Automation reduces the complexity of managing firewall configurations. SolarWinds tracks and manages changes to firewall configurations, enhancing control and reducing the risk of unauthorized modifications. It includes both automatic compliance reporting and regular configuration backup for robust firewall management.

User review

✅ SolarWinds Network Configuration Manager (NCM) is appreciated for tracking and comparing network configurations, including firewall devices.

❌ Users report limited scripting options for vendors other than Cisco. This limitation can be problematic for organizations using a diverse array of network devices and firewall vendors, as it restricts the flexibility and customization of firewall management tools.

ManageEngine Network Configuration Manager

ManageEngine Network Configuration Manager, as another firewall configuration software, offers a robust set of features focused on automating and managing network configurations. The compliance management feature ensures that firewall configurations comply with industry standards and internal policies, mitigating security risks and potential regulatory fines.

Configuration automation streamlines the deployment and management of configurations, reducing manual effort and ensuring consistency across the network. Change management capabilities provide visibility into configuration changes, enabling administrators to prevent unauthorized modifications and maintain network integrity effectively.

The software supports automatic compliance reporting and regular configuration backup, enhancing firewall configuration consistency.

User review

✅ ManageEngine Network Configuration Manager supports multiple vendors and device types, enabling network administrators to manage an entire network infrastructure from a single console. This is crucial for managing firewalls and other network security devices in diverse environments.

❌ The initial setup and configuration of the software can be complex and time-consuming. Although the support from ManageEngine is helpful, simplifying the initial setup process would enhance the user experience and reduce deployment time.

Titania Nipper

Titania Nipper provides powerful automatic compliance reporting, ensuring firewall configurations align with industry standards and regulatory policies. By continuously monitoring firewall settings, the firewall security management software helps organizations maintain compliance and improve security posture.

Nipper’s configuration automation simplifies the management of firewall settings, reducing the need for manual intervention and ensuring consistent configurations across the network.

Nipper does not support audit trail, incident management, change management or rule analytics features. However, Titania Nipper quickly identifies configuration failures against vendor hardening guides and best practices, while delivering evidence-based compliance reporting by detailing specific test results and highlighting any vulnerabilities or security standard violations.

User review

✅ The ability to review the configurations based on the industry security standards and provide compliance reports is praised.

Figure 5. A user review on Titania Nipper

❌ Some users suggest improving the reports, reducing false positives, and enhancing the dashboard for a more intuitive experience.

Backbox

Backbox focuses on providing audit trail, compliance management, and rule analytics capabilities. The existence of an audit trail is essential for maintaining accountability and transparency.

The firewall configuration software ensures that network configurations comply with regulatory standards and internal policies. Automated compliance checks and reporting help organizations avoid penalties and security threats.

Backbox includes rule analytics capabilities that help in analyzing and optimizing configuration rules. This feature improves network security and performance. Backbox ensures both automatic compliance reporting and regular configuration backup for improved network security.

User review

✅ BackBox is praised for its stability as an automated backup solution, making it easy to implement, manage, and customize for various companies. Its user friendly front end enhances firewall security management and network traffic monitoring.

Figure 6. A user review on Backbox

❌ BackBox faces limitations in real-time monitoring, reporting, and incident management within the web UI. Improving monitoring capabilities, reporting features, and adding incident management tools could enhance its functionality.⁴

Key features

1. Automatic compliance reporting

Firewall configuration software with automatic compliance reporting ensures that firewall rules and configurations meet regulatory standards like PCI-DSS or HIPAA. It streamlines audits by continuously monitoring the firewall’s adherence to security policies, providing real-time insights, and generating comprehensive reports, which reduces the workload on IT teams and minimizes the risk of non-compliance. It also helps for:

• Simplifying audits: Automatically generates detailed compliance reports, reducing manual effort during security audits.
• Ensuring policy adherence: Continuously monitors configurations to ensure they align with industry standards and regulatory requirements.

For more details, read firewall compliance.

2. Regular configuration backup

Regular firewall management system backup capabilities ensure that firewall settings and configurations are safely stored, allowing for quick restoration in the event of misconfigurations or system failures, thereby maintaining network integrity. It also helps for:

• Disaster recovery: Quickly restores firewall settings after an outage or system failure, minimizing downtime and security risks.
• Configuration version control: Keeps a history of previous configurations, allowing easy rollback to a stable state if issues arise after changes.

3. Audit trail

Audit trail is a fundamental feature of firewall configuration software, providing a detailed record of all changes and actions taken on firewall devices. This feature enhances network security by allowing security administrators to track modifications, identify unauthorized changes, and ensure accountability. It also helps for

• Firewall log analysis: By maintaining an audit trail, administrators can perform thorough firewall log analysis to detect suspicious activities and potential security threats.
• Regular firewall security audits: Continuous monitoring and auditing of firewall changes help in maintaining continuous compliance with security policies and regulatory requirements.

4. Rule analytics

Rule analytics, another feature of firewall configuration software, provides insights into the effectiveness and efficiency of firewall security rules. This feature helps optimize firewall performance by identifying redundant or conflicting rules and ensuring that the firewall policies are both effective and efficient. It also helps for

• Optimize firewall rulesets: Analyzes and fine-tunes firewall rules to enhance security and performance.
• Security and traffic analysis: Provides a detailed analysis of network traffic, helping administrators to identify and block potential security threats while allowing legitimate traffic.

5. Configuration automation

Configuration automation automates the application and enforces the firewall rules and settings. This feature reduces the likelihood of human error and speeds up the deployment of firewall configurations. It also helps for

• Automate firewall rule administration: Simplifies the process of managing firewall rules, reducing manual intervention.
• Centralized management: Provides a secure firewall management center for deploying and managing firewall policies across multiple network devices and vendors.

6. Change management

Change management tools track and manage all changes made to firewall configurations, ensuring that every modification is documented and authorized. This feature in a firewall configuration management software is essential for maintaining the stability and security of the network. It also helps for

• Proper firewall management: Ensures that all changes are reviewed and approved, preventing unauthorized modifications that could compromise network security.
• Security policy management: Helps in maintaining a consistent and secure network security policy by managing changes effectively.

If you are looking for a network change management software to automate change management, check the network change management software article.

7. Incident Management

Incident management integrates with firewall configuration software to quickly detect, respond to, and mitigate security incidents. This feature is crucial for maintaining a secure network environment. It also helps for

• Security breaches: Provides tools and processes for identifying and responding to security breaches, minimizing potential damage.
• Network connectivity issues: Helps in diagnosing and resolving network connectivity issues that may arise due to firewall configurations.

You can also check open source configuration tools.e configuration tools.

Further Reading

• Top Firewall Management Tools
• Firewall Integrations
• Firewall Audit Logs: Analysis and 6 Steps for Improvement
• Firewall Configuration Best Practices & Case Studies

External Links

• 1. Focus On The Biggest Security Threats Not The Most Publicized.
• 2. Tufin Orchestration Suite Reviews 2025: Details, Pricing, & Features | G2.
• 3. A user review on Tufin. TrustRadius. Accessed: 15/May/2024.
• 4. A user review on BackBox. Gartner. Accessed: 16/May/2024.