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 management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"It protects the data behind our switches."
"From a protection perspective, it provides a network perimeter security function for our company."
"The most valuable feature is the virtualization because it can be used for customers who are using the mobile data network to request a private connection to a remote site."
"Commit: You can update the whole configuration without affecting the production. The new configuration will be loaded once the command "Commit" is submitted. You can also do a Commit confirmed to automatically roll back to the previous config after X minutes."
"The most powerful feature in Juniper SRX is definitely NCLS."
"Juniper SRX Series Firewall is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple."
"It provides good routing and high performance of the data center."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"It works. I put pfSense in, and it works. I can't think of any trouble I ever had with it. It runs on heat-sensitive appliances. They don't need a fan, so they don't overheat. It is affordable, fast, and very high-speed. It is built on BSD Unix, and it pretty much runs on any Intel processor."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"The solution is very robust."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"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."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"The UI could be improved."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"The initial setup is complex."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"It did not improve our safety because the IDS does not detect some attacks, but our anti-virus software did."
"I would like to have a better web UI for administration. Juniper could simplify the web UI and make it more compatible with mobile devices."
"In terms of other features, I'd like to see a web filter, 10 point control, application control and a DNA filter in the next release."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"Juniper SRX's UI is very bad."
"It would be ideal if the solution could use cloud services to help update signatures or threat prevention systems."
"IPS is one that I would definitely want to be improved. I would also like SSL VPN to be integrated."
"The GUI needs improvement."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
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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