We performed a comparison between Check Point UTM-1 [EOL] and Netgate pfSense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The solution can scale well."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"The solution is very robust."
"It provides visibility and drives organizational security."
"The most outstanding feature is being able to centralize each of the functions in a single device."
"We can create a domain to separate and segregate some functions, some services."
"The most valuable feature for us was to implement negligent functionality, to direct functionality to viewer control and application control so we could disconnect, and at the same time, we installed checkpoints. We disconnected our proxy."
"It safeguards against cyber attacks."
"Firewalls help us a lot in controlling traffic on our network and preventing unauthorized access."
"The databases and its signatures are its most important features."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"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."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"As we don't have a representative of Check Point in Mozambique, this makes it very difficult when we have some issues to resolve."
"Some features that could be improved are advanced threat protection, sandboxing, and vulnerability management."
"The interface needs improvement."
"I am not able to see a demo."
"What has been the issue of firewalls is they ask me for policies and content filtering application control and all these features that are now part of Harmony."
"Technical support was very bad because the supplier who sold it to us, wasn't very supportive, and he wouldn't giving us direct links to the OEM."
"Specifically on the user experience, sometimes the set up of things, such as the VPN SSL, takes a lot of time to load and a lot of time to get up and running on every session."
"The solution could be improved if there was a better way to report. The reporting functionality is not really good. Even though it's not the major function. Maybe adding a way to make a custom report."
"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."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
Earn 20 points
Check Point UTM-1 [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in Firewalls with 19 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Check Point UTM-1 [EOL] is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Check Point UTM-1 [EOL] writes "Great firewalls, VPN, and Intrusion prevention capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Check Point UTM-1 [EOL] is most compared with , whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall.
See our list of 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.
