We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks PA-Series 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."It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"It performs very well."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"I handle the scanning for the finance department. I recently encountered an issue with the PCL bills, our company bills. I resolved the matter, cleared the bill, and received calls regarding it using pfsense.The user interface is extremely user-friendly, which is why we use it across various plant sites. Our IT representatives at the plants find it easy to use and manage because of its straightforward interface."
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"The solution has a three-layer architecture, and it helps customers to deploy the solution quickly."
"The cloud-based aspect helps significantly. It integrates seamlessly with other Palo products like Prisma Cloud, offers robust VPN protection, and it's all in one convenient package."
"Palo Alto Networks firewalls offer single-mode panel processing with live scanning."
"It offers application-based policy enforcement. Palo Alto Networks firewalls help us recognize protocol anomalies, contrasting with other vendors that may require policies based on port numbers. With Palo Alto Networks, the port number isn't a constraint because their devices handle protocol traffic at Layer 7, allowing for accurate identification of protocol usage and port numbers. They can identify which protocol actually uses which port."
"The most effective features for threat prevention in the PA-Series are its integration with Cortex and the use of machine learning AI for advanced threat detection."
"It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides."
"It is stable when you set up something and put it into production. Once it works, you don't have other tasks or actions to perform."
"App-ID is a really good feature."
"The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"The product must provide multiple threat detection features."
"There are constant updates for the operating system. It is a nice thing also, but it has its own disadvantages. Continuous updates are there. The users face issues like, how often do I need to update that? Within a period of five months, I'm updating it two or three times. It gives them a feeling that they are not confident about their product and have to update it so frequently."
"The solution's licensing price could be improved."
"The web interface is slow."
"The product's high prices are an area of concern where improvements are required."
"In future releases, maybe Palo Alto can enhance and enlarge their portfolio with SIEM solutions. They already have an endpoint protection solution, SOAR solution, that's fine. But when it comes to standalone IDS/IPS solution or email security solution, for example, we don't have any product in that category for Palo Alto."
"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"With Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, I find that the support team takes a long time to resolve the issues that a user may face during the use of the product."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, SonicWall NSa, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Sophos XG and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report.
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