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.
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The performance is good."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"This solution has increased the level of security, given us more control, provided a deep insight into network traffic, and is a great VPN solution."
"The initial setup is easy."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"pfSense helped us during COVID-19 because we used OpenVPN to connect from home."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"I have found the most valuable features to be antivirus and malware protection."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"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."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"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."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
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.