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 solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"It is a good source for firewall protection."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"The GUI is good."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The features I have found best are ease of use, GUI, and performance."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"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."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"Backup can be improved."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"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."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"Also, simplifying the rules for the GeoIP. Making it simpler to understand would be an improvement."
"I've never tried it in large environments. All my clients are small businesses with a handful of employees, so I am not sure how it works in large environments. I keep up with recent versions, and there's nothing I'm waiting for, and nothing breaks when I get a new version."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
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.