I have a Cisco ASA 5510 someone gave me for free, but I’m wondering if my mikrotik has all the features of this device built into it? I’m guessing no.
No. The reverse is also true, though. ASAs have some features RouterOS doesn’t have as they are dedicated firewalls and can do things like superficial deep packet inspection, run dedicated IPS cards, among others. RouterOS has some features ASAs dont have, like advanced routing, more routing protocols like BGP, Hotspots, a web proxy, and other features.
Which one is better depends on the use case.
I want it to detect if someone is hammering my remote desktop or ftp ports and block them from attempting more. Which would be best for that? Does mikrotik even do that?
Both can do that.
RouterOS: http://wiki.mikrotik.com/wiki/Bruteforce_login_prevention. There are other documents about the same approach out there. Search the wiki and forums for keywords like “bruteforce” and “secure router”.
On an ASA with a recent image you’d use the Threat Detection feature.