We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks VM-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 solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"OPNsense is highly stable."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
"What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"The most valuable features are web control and IPS/IDS."
"A solid operating system with all the necessary data center security features."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series has everything centralized. You have the VPN solution, firewall, routing, UDR, flexibility, updates, and full visibility of your traffic."
"The most valuable feature is the Posture Assessment."
"We have reduced the number of configuration lines by 90%. We need fewer number of admins right now because of it."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"It scales linearly with load and no issues."
"Palo Alto’s Panorama centralized management system simplifies our security posture based on our requirements. Instead of manually pulling logs, then generating them into readable formats, it gives us the console in a readable format to view."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"The UI could be improved."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"The reporting part could be better."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"The interface isn't so friendly user. But we have some technicians here who are quite confident with this tool. OPNSense could maybe add sets of rules so it's simpler to manage different groups with particular needs."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"People are less aware of Palo Alto."
"The product needs improvement in their Secure Access Service Edge."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration between the endpoints and the firewalls."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"It would be helpful if we had a direct number for the support manager or the supporting engineer. That would be better than having to email every time because there would be less wait."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"At the beginning of the implementation, we had some difficulties with the scripts, but Palo Alto Networks support together with a local partner finally fixed it."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our OPNsense vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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