We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is appreciated for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and robust assistance. It provides functionalities like site-to-site VPN, firewall security, and routing capabilities. pfSense is highly regarded for its capacity to obstruct IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source characteristics. It offers features such as secure VPN connections, scanning, filtering, and network security capabilities.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall could use enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. pfSense would benefit from improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, centralized management, GUI for SMBs, sandboxing, security, hardware support, user-friendliness, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have generally praised Juniper SRX Series Firewall's customer service for being helpful and knowledgeable, despite occasional slower response times. pfSense's customer service varies among users, with some having positive experiences with technical support and others relying on clear documentation and community resources.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be done within a day for smaller branch offices, whereas pfSense be set up in just 15 minutes. Juniper may demand familiarity with CLI, while pfSense is commonly referred to as being easy to use.
Pricing: Juniper has extra charges for advanced security features and APS, whereas pfSense provides updates without any additional fees. The specific licensing costs for pfSense are not clearly stated.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides advanced security features and reliable performance, leading to a favorable return on investment. pfSense stands out for its affordability, minimal management expenses, and substantial hardware cost savings. Users also emphasize its superior ROI compared to pricier alternatives such as FortiGate.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product over pfSense. Users appreciate its simplicity, intuitive interface, reliability, scalability, and exceptional customer support. It offers convenient configuration, site-to-site VPN capabilities, and effective firewall protection. Additionally, Juniper SRX Series Firewall is considered a more cost-effective and secure solution.
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"The solution is stable."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"It uses many applications, like antivirus blocking and web filtering."
"It protects from distributed denial-of-service attacks with Screen Options."
"The most powerful feature in Juniper SRX is definitely NCLS."
"I have used technical support quite a bit, and they are really good."
"The solution's stability is very good."
"The most valuable feature of Juniper SRX is that it is plug-and-play. Additionally, it has a lot of capabilities in one device."
"Troubleshooting with the solution is quite easy. If you compare the process to, for example, Fortigate, Juniper is much easier."
"The virtualization feature is the most valuable feature. Sometimes customers are requesting a private connection using mobile data when they are connecting to remote sites."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"One of the advantages of pfSense is that it is very easy to work with. It is a very good open-source solution, and it works really well. pfSense provides a complete package. For some features, it could be the first solution in the world. It is a very good alternative in the market for a firewall solution. You don't need to go to Cisco or other brands with expensive firewalls. pfSense also allows us to offer some support services."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"Good basic firewall features."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"Junos Space should be improved to be on par with FortiGate's solution for managing firewalls and routing."
"Juniper SRX could improve by adding an IPX feature."
"The GUI needs to be easier to handle."
"The setup process should be improved."
"Juniper needs to focus more on their perimeter firewalls."
"It was very difficult to deal with and required a lot of support, and the UI is very poor."
"I would like to see endpoint control and endpoint testing security."
"The pricing strategy of the vendor could improve."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"The usage reports can be better."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 86 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl and Sophos UTM. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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