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."Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"Firewalls help us a lot in controlling traffic on our network and preventing unauthorized access."
"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."
"It provides visibility and drives organizational security."
"It safeguards against cyber attacks."
"The UTM platform has been the most valuable."
"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."
"The filtering was very good."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"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."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"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."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"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."
"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."
"While the technical support is good, the Indian level technical support could use an upgrade."
"The interface needs improvement."
"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."
"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."
"I am not able to see a demo."
"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."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
"pfSense has some limitations in detecting site sessions. We want to control internet usage based on sites and their content, and pfSense doesn't perform this function."
"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."
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.
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