We performed a comparison between pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from reviewers, but WatchGuard ultimately won out in this comparison. According to reviews, WatchGuard appears to be a more secure solution.
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"It is a good source for firewall protection."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."
"It provides us with Layer 2 and Layer 3 security."
"They've done a lot of work with their SD-WAN, which we do use, to have our old internet service with our new internet service. If anything goes down on a particular interface, I can have different rules applied. Most of my users don't even know when our primary internet goes down anymore... I don't have to be here to do anything to switch it to our backup internet or to switch it back."
"WatchGuard Firebox is the most powerful firewall for Wi-Fi security."
"It's pretty simple to use. It's pretty simple to understand, and there's plenty of documentation. It does a pretty good job of what it is meant to do."
"The most effective and helpful features of WatchGuard Firebox, especially when purchased with the full suite of applications, are its bundled applications and subscriptions for comprehensive protection against various threats."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"It should integrate with LDAP, Active Directory, etc, to improve the way in which the traces and connections of each IP, or user connected through the firewall, are shown."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"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."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"The data loss protection works well, but it could be easier to configure. The complexity of data loss protection makes it a more difficult feature to fully leverage. Better integration with third-party, two-factor authentication would be advantageous."
"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"In terms of the reporting and management features — and this isn't necessarily a WatchGuard issue, this seems to be more of an industry-wide issue — you get reports, but a lot of times you don't know what you're looking at. You're so overwhelmed with the data. You're getting a lot of stuff that doesn't matter, so it takes time to parse through it, to actually get what you want to know."
"Firebox would be improved with integration for endpoint protection solutions."
"There should be better integration and a way to configure multiple vendors into the same data center in order to offer more flexibility."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and SonicWall TZ, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors and 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.