We performed a comparison between OPNsense and WatchGuard Firebox 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 most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"It can expand easily."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"I feel that its valuable features are that it is simple and free."
"The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use."
"The technical support is very good."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"I have found the solution has some great features overall, such as guest access capabilities, dashboards, and ease of use. There is plenty of documentation and support and it has the plugins that I needed."
"I like their management features a lot. Their System Manager server as well the System Manager software make managing them, and tracking changes, very easy and complete."
"The most valuable features of this solution are live logging, rule setup and maintenance, and VPN creation."
"There are no problems with the technical support. If a problem occurs it gets resolved immediately with our technical support partners."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Their support is excellent, and the stability is very good."
"The solution has increased productivity with our outside salespeople being able to connect into their computers and use those remotely."
"The most valuable feature for small and medium businesses is the support for various protocol proxies."
"The main reason we went with it was the security protocols. They were more robust on this device."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"Lacks training for new features."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"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."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"You will need additional training before you can actually start to use it."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"I'd like to have better access to workstation monitoring, connection monitoring, and the amount of time an address is being used, to better gauge proper network utilization. If I knew that something was connected to a particular external location for an extended period that seems abnormal, I'd be able to act upon it."
"Websense is an application that monitors and filters internet traffic. Websense was derived from WatchGuard. But when you go to WatchGuard to actually implement that particular feature, you have to use some type of additional feature and you have to pay for it, unfortunately. I think it should be free or free in the WatchGuard box itself, as an option. It would be nice if they didn't charge us for that."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing."
"What could use some significant improvement in WatchGuard Firebox would be its interface and policy management. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of WatchGuard Firebox is the ability to modify an existing policy instead of having to recreate a policy when changes are necessary. At the moment, there's no possibility to modify the policy. You have to delete the policy and recreate it."
"We were able to take from an older configuration, build a new one quickly, and get it up and running, which didn't take long, but there was some pain around it."
"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."
"The pricing could be improved. It is definitely one of the more expensive products."
"It's very hard to get information from their website, for exactly what I need to do. Sometimes I end up having to open a lot of support tickets... It's a navigational issue which makes it hard to find what I'm looking for and it's just so broad."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our OPNsense vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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