We performed a comparison between FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) and Netgate pfSense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It can expand easily."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"The scalability is very good."
"User identification and application identification are valuable features."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution's application control is very powerful."
"The usability of the solution is its best feature."
"The most valuable aspects of FortiGate NGFW are its top-notch reputation in peer reviews, user-friendly interface, and excellent support."
"Overall, I am satisfied with the product."
"The solution has helped our organization secure our network and connect remote sites."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution. However, my issue is the performance only. When I use all the profiles, this affects the performance. From the beginning, I should have had a better sizing of the box."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Someone without certification and experience with other firewalls might find it a bit more challenging to grasp the FortiGate format and its platform layout."
"The vendors offer models with different levels of productivity of the product to its users, which is not possible in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW). It lacks integration options."
"FortiGate NGFW can improve technical support. The engineer who answers the technical support call, email, or phone call, whatever the medium may be. The response time is very bad."
"The licensing model and pricing need improvement."
"The solution needs to integrate VPN features."
"The pricing of the solution is expensive, so it could be cheaper."
"When considering the policy of the vendors, they do not offer much of a discount policy, making the licensing model an area that needs improvement."
"The product's data guard feature should support a USB port when the internet connection is unavailable."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"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."
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FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is ranked 14th in Firewalls with 37 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is rated 8.4, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) writes "Easy to set up but needs better pricing and more helpful support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is most compared with OPNsense, Tailscale, Twingate, Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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