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 features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"Good basic firewall features."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"It has a very nice web interface, and it is very simple to use. The way policies are working is also good."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"The support system could be improved."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
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.