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.
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"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."
"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"The documentation is very good."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"The integration should be improved."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"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."
"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."
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, WatchGuard Firebox and Check Point NGFW, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM 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.