Fortinet FortiGate and Netgate pfSense are firewall solutions. FortiGate is a commercial product with a focus on advanced security features and ease of use, making it ideal for businesses of all sizes. pfSense, on the other hand, is an open-source firewall known for its flexibility, customization, and cost-effectiveness, popular among tech-savvy users and small to medium businesses.
What are the valuable features of FortiGate and pfSense?
Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate has mixed reviews regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing. FortiGate offers positive ROI with cost savings, reduced communication costs, and enhanced security. pfSense provides valuable ROI with flexibility, scalability, and improved network solutions. pfSense is open source. The pfSense Community Edition (CE) is a free. However, Netgate developed pfSense is a commercial version of pfSense called pfSense Plus. pfSense Plus includes additional features and support, but the core functionality is the same as the Community Edition. ROI comes from cost savings and granular control.
Room for Improvement: FortiGate users would appreciate better monitoring and advanced reporting. pfSense reviewers suggest improvements to the user interface for a more streamlined experience, also advanced reporting, better documentation, and troubleshooting tools.
Deployment and customer support: FortiGate users commented for a straightforward setup process with clear documentation and readily available support. pfSense installation is considered user-friendly, but advanced configurations can be challenging. The open-source community provides extensive documentation and online resources.
The summary above is based on 296 interviews we conducted recently with Fortinet FortiGate and pfSense users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"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 built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"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."
"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."
"As an open-source solution, there are so many loopholes happening within the product. By design, no one is taking ownership of it, and that is worrisome to me."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
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, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall. 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.