We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall vs. pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Secure Firewall and pfSense come out about equal in this comparison. Cisco ASA Firewall has a slight edge when it comes to service and support, but pfSense has an edge when it comes to pricing.
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"It is a safe product."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"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."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"Beats sophisticated cyber attacks with a superior security appliance."
"VPN and firewall are good features."
"It's got the capabilities of amassing a lot of throughput with remote access and VPNs."
"With the FMC and the FirePOWERs, the ability to quickly replace a piece of hardware without having to have a network outage is useful. Also, the ability to replace a piece of equipment and deploy the config that the previous piece of equipment had is pretty useful."
"The IPS (In-plane switching) is the most valuable feature."
"Firepower NGFW has improved my organization in several ways. Before, we were trying to stamp out security threats and issues, it was a one-off type of way to attack it. I spent a lot of manpower trying to track down the individual issues or flare-ups that we would see. With Cisco's Firepower Management, we're able to have that push up to basically one monitor and one UI and be able to track that and stop threats immediately. It also gives us a little more granularity on what those threats might be."
"The high-availability features, the VPN and the IPSec, are our top three features."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is robust and reliable."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"The initial setup can be a bit complex for those unfamiliar with the solution."
"The worst part of the entire solution, and this is kind of trivial at times, is that management of the solution is difficult. You manage FireSIGHT through an internet browser. I've had Cisco tell me to manage it through Firefox because that's how they develop it. The problem is, depending on the page you're on, they don't function in the same way. The pages can be very buggy, or you can't resize columns in this one, or you can't do certain things in that one. It causes a headache in managing it."
"It could use a web-based portal for VPN. Earlier they had it in the ASA model, but currently they don't have it."
"Maybe the dashboard could be a bit better."
"Third-party integrations could be improved."
"One of the problems that we have had is the solution requires Java to work. This has caused some problems with the application visibility and control. When the Java works, it is good, but Java wasn't a good choice. I don't like the Java implementation. It can be difficult to work with sometimes."
"The solution could offer better control that would allow the ability to restrictions certain features from a website."
"There is no support here in Georgia. If something goes wrong, support is not always very helpful with the other firewalls or other products."
"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 could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Untangle NG Firewall. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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