We performed a comparison between pfSense and Fortinet Fortigate based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, it seems that pfSense is the more favorable solution because it is open source and also offers great features.
"It is very flexible to use."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"Content protection, content inspection, and the application level firewall."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"It works. I put pfSense in, and it works. I can't think of any trouble I ever had with it. It runs on heat-sensitive appliances. They don't need a fan, so they don't overheat. It is affordable, fast, and very high-speed. It is built on BSD Unix, and it pretty much runs on any Intel processor."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"They've become quite expensive."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Check Point NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and KerioControl. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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Both are very good products, but some features that Sophos mentioned as new, FortiGate has been handling. If you are going to grow with several appliances I recommend Sophos, since the administration can be done from the cloud. With Fortinet, you have to pay a licensing fee. In terms of costs and all the options, they are very similar. Another detail to review is the support, at the beginning with Fortigate, I had enough details, but it is really improving significantly with respect to Sophos.
My comment is based on experience and I do not lean toward any of the brands. To reiterate, they are good types of equipment.