We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Zscaler Cloud Firewall 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 features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"Zscaler provides effective protection against various cyber threats ensuring a safe environment"
"The solution offers good sandboxing."
"It helps a lot of companies to reduce their downtime. Also, It helps businesses in terms of being secured and protected from any threats."
"The visibility and log availability offered are highly valued for troubleshooting purposes, and this is a key factor driving customer interest in the firewall module."
"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."
"Zscaler Cloud Firewall understands the applications in the current generation and adapts to the present generation cloud applications."
"The solution is scalable."
"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"Its customer service could be better."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"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."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"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."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"Could be simplified for new users."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."
"Instead of the standard license, they should certainly provide customers with the visibility to access and view the logs."
"They do not provide a few components that are fundamental to differentiate the products"
"It would be better if they improved their policy, package visibility, and flexibility while we're creating rules for inspection. It could also be cheaper or more things could be included in the basic package. In the next release, I would like better coverage in the Asia Pacific region and better quality of service."
"We are having some issues with internet access being denied when organizational ID-based policies change. For example, a lower level employee ends up getting the same level of access as that of a higher level employee."
"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."
"Certain criteria need to be met if you want to scale this solution."
"When it comes to customer support, there is room for improvement in Zscaler's service."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Zscaler Cloud Firewall is ranked 23rd in Firewalls with 15 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Zscaler Cloud Firewall is rated 8.4. 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 Zscaler Cloud Firewall writes "A highly stable and comprehensive cloud security and access solution". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Zscaler Cloud Firewall is most compared with Azure Firewall, OPNsense, Cisco Multicloud Defense, Cisco Secure Firewall and Check Point NGFW. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall report.
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