We performed a comparison between Huawei NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"The security on offer is very good."
"It performs very well."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The security is good. It's as effective as anything else on the market."
"The UI is quite good."
"The solution's implementation is pretty easy."
"The most useful feature is the performance of the firewalls and networking operations."
"The setup is quite easy."
"I like that the initial setup is straighforward. It's also a scalable solution."
"Huawei was able to assist us in the installation of their product. The installation was very fast."
"The mapping features and traffic logging are good."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"Two of the functionalities we use most are the traffic monitoring and the full panel dashboard. Those are two things that are very useful for us... In addition, it provides us with layered security. It allows us to determine what types of access, to which networks, we want to allow or deny."
"The policy monitoring and allowing different traffic flows are the most useful features for us; regulating which traffic comes in and out."
"The most valuable feature for small and medium businesses is the support for various protocol proxies."
"[A] valuable feature would be the branch office. We have five offices throughout the United States, and it coordinates the connections of those offices."
"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."
"I like that this product has very few issues."
"The GUI is easy and intuitive."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"The solution requires a more interactive dashboard. That would make it easier than playing with configurations the way we have to now."
"The WAF capability in the Huawei Firewall is missing."
"The solution could be more secure and have better integration."
"The solution isn't cheap. It's market price."
"The documentation needs to be improved. When they retire old models, they also retire the documentation. However, if you are still using an older model, you still need access to that documentation. And yet, they go ahead and removed it. It's gone. You are therefore stuck with a device with no documentation and technical support that isn't very helpful as they also remove support assistance as well."
"With the Huawei firewall, none of the features comes at the top. We found out later that customer support is really not good. For this firewall, because of our customers' routine, for example, every six months they'll do a penetration test to find weaknesses. So whenever they came up with VAPT reports, they are looking to Huawei for help. I think that's basically because it's a different culture. Chinese culture and our culture is different. They have always tried to help find some excuses or say some other things that cannot help you solve the problem immediately."
"The tool lacks features."
"The solution is scalable but it is difficult because you need to purchase new systems, it is not just one click."
"The UI and web view aren't nice."
"What could use some significant improvement in WatchGuard Firebox would be its interface and policy management. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of WatchGuard Firebox is the ability to modify an existing policy instead of having to recreate a policy when changes are necessary. At the moment, there's no possibility to modify the policy. You have to delete the policy and recreate it."
"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."
"The data loss protection works well, but it could be easier to configure. The complexity of data loss protection makes it a more difficult feature to fully leverage. Better integration with third-party, two-factor authentication would be advantageous."
"I'd like to have better access to workstation monitoring, connection monitoring, and the amount of time an address is being used, to better gauge proper network utilization. If I knew that something was connected to a particular external location for an extended period that seems abnormal, I'd be able to act upon it."
"The next release should have better software and configuration systems that can also be used on Linux."
"Reporting is something you've got to set up separately. It's one of those things that you've got to put some time into. One of the options is to set up a local report server, which is what I did. It's not great. It's okay... Some of the stuff is a little complicated to get up and running. Once you do, it becomes very user-friendly and easy to work with, but I find there are some implementation headaches with some of their stuff."
"In terms of the reporting and management features — and this isn't necessarily a WatchGuard issue, this seems to be more of an industry-wide issue — you get reports, but a lot of times you don't know what you're looking at. You're so overwhelmed with the data. You're getting a lot of stuff that doesn't matter, so it takes time to parse through it, to actually get what you want to know."
Huawei NGFW is ranked 31st in Firewalls with 19 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Huawei NGFW is rated 7.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Huawei NGFW writes "A scalable and easy-to-setup product that can be used to configure different policies for specific users". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Huawei NGFW is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Meraki MX and Sophos XG, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Huawei NGFW vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors, best Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendors, and best Firewalls vendors.
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