We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks PA-Series 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."The security fabric is excellent."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"The GUI is good."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"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."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced, almost 90% faster compared to other solutions. This leads to quicker deployment and less downtime."
"The solution has a three-layer architecture, and it helps customers to deploy the solution quickly."
"I like the tool's security and web filtering features."
"The product's most valuable feature is web filtering."
"The documentation is great."
"The solution is robust."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The product's initial setup process was simple."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"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."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"There seem to be some issues with TAC (Technical Assistance Center) or Palo Alto support. Anytime you open a case, a level one engineer joins, and then you have to escalate it to level two or three. The support system has changed in the past few years, and that's something they need to look into."
"Pricing flexibility could be an aspect worth considering, as it has been a concern for some of our clients."
"The product must provide multiple threat detection features."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"In future releases, maybe Palo Alto can enhance and enlarge their portfolio with SIEM solutions. They already have an endpoint protection solution, SOAR solution, that's fine. But when it comes to standalone IDS/IPS solution or email security solution, for example, we don't have any product in that category for Palo Alto."
"With Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, I find that the support team takes a long time to resolve the issues that a user may face during the use of the product."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive. We would like to see additional threat hunting features."
"I encountered a slight issue with the application portal, which was not functioning correctly."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, SonicWall NSa, Sophos XG, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
