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."A strong point of FortiGate is the graphical interface is complete and easy to use."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"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 databases and its signatures are its most important features."
"Firewalls help us a lot in controlling traffic on our network and preventing unauthorized access."
"It safeguards against cyber attacks."
"It provides visibility and drives organizational security."
"The most outstanding feature is being able to centralize each of the functions in a single device."
"The UTM platform has been the most valuable."
"The solution is very robust."
"We can create a domain to separate and segregate some functions, some services."
"I especially like the VPN part. It works like a charm."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"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 solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"I like the connectivity to the open VPN. It's very smooth."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"They need faster serviceability and more security features."
"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."
"I am not able to see a demo."
"While the technical support is good, the Indian level technical support could use an upgrade."
"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."
"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 interface needs improvement."
"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."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"The integration could be improved."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
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, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall.
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