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 email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"The features I have found best are ease of use, GUI, and performance."
"I'm the expert when it comes to Linux systems, however, with the pfSense, due to the web interface, the rest of the staff can actually make changes to it as required without me worrying about whether they've opened up ports incorrectly or not. The ease of use for non-expert staff is very good."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"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 tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"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."
"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."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"It should integrate with LDAP, Active Directory, etc, to improve the way in which the traces and connections of each IP, or user connected through the firewall, are shown."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
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.