We performed a comparison between Hillstone E-Series and Netgate pfSense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"There are great templates, so you don't have to customize them if you don't want to. You do have the option to custom create some folders and some reports, however, with what is there, you don't really need to go through extra effort, as they already give you a lot of predefined views of reports and so forth."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"Five out of five ROI."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients a secure connectivity."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The current usage reporting is very basic."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"The usage reports can be better."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
Hillstone E-Series is ranked 33rd in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Hillstone E-Series is rated 9.0, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Hillstone E-Series writes "A user-friendly and marketable solution with a virtual switching capability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Hillstone E-Series is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, OpenVPN Access Server, Sangfor SSL VPN and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Hillstone E-Series vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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