We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is appreciated for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and robust assistance. It provides functionalities like site-to-site VPN, firewall security, and routing capabilities. pfSense is highly regarded for its capacity to obstruct IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source characteristics. It offers features such as secure VPN connections, scanning, filtering, and network security capabilities.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall could use enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. pfSense would benefit from improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, centralized management, GUI for SMBs, sandboxing, security, hardware support, user-friendliness, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have generally praised Juniper SRX Series Firewall's customer service for being helpful and knowledgeable, despite occasional slower response times. pfSense's customer service varies among users, with some having positive experiences with technical support and others relying on clear documentation and community resources.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be done within a day for smaller branch offices, whereas pfSense be set up in just 15 minutes. Juniper may demand familiarity with CLI, while pfSense is commonly referred to as being easy to use.
Pricing: Juniper has extra charges for advanced security features and APS, whereas pfSense provides updates without any additional fees. The specific licensing costs for pfSense are not clearly stated.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides advanced security features and reliable performance, leading to a favorable return on investment. pfSense stands out for its affordability, minimal management expenses, and substantial hardware cost savings. Users also emphasize its superior ROI compared to pricier alternatives such as FortiGate.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product over pfSense. Users appreciate its simplicity, intuitive interface, reliability, scalability, and exceptional customer support. It offers convenient configuration, site-to-site VPN capabilities, and effective firewall protection. Additionally, Juniper SRX Series Firewall is considered a more cost-effective and secure solution.
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"The most valuable feature is robustness."
"The main features are safeguarding their data and ensuring robust security services for organizational data."
"Troubleshooting with the solution is quite easy. If you compare the process to, for example, Fortigate, Juniper is much easier."
"The command line in Juniper SRX is extremely powerful, in my opinion. It's one of the best command lines I've used in networking products."
"There is a lot of flexibility in how you can commit, check, and back out of a configuration."
"Juniper supports their products very well."
"The reason that we picked Juniper SRX is for the scalability, the fit for purpose, the tools that are available, the ongoing support and the ability to monitor, but particularly for the virtual routers in our data centers so that we can quickly upscale them when needed, when we need more throughput."
"We mostly use the Layer 4 firewall functions: Access rules, NAT, and site-to-site IPsec VPN."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"Stability has been excellent. We have experienced no issues; it never fails."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"The GUI needs improvement."
"The GUI needs to be easier and more helpful for users who don't have security experience."
"The visibility/reporting could be better. To see something, you have to export the log to a syslog and then process with another product."
"Their models for service providers could improve."
"The centralized management platform could be improved."
"J-Web, Juniper Web, is sometimes not working great when users are increasing their internet use. Additionally, they need to improve the GUI, graphical user interface, and the firewall management needs to improve. Their CLI is good, but sometimes the GUI is very slow."
"I would like them to add a dashboard because it's difficult to operate."
"Third-party support for Juniper is a lot less than Cisco. This is no surprise, but a definite consideration if you are expecting to use a lot of third party support. In my guesstimate, for every 100 Cisco shops, you will find one Juniper shop."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"The usage reports can be better."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"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."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 87 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl and Sophos UTM. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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