We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks WildFire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The redundancy and scalability ARE very nice."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"I have found the most valuable features to be antivirus and malware protection."
"Detailed reporting on analysis of content. The inspections are easily applied to security policy profiles and profile groups, and may be assigned on a per-rule basis."
"The most valuable feature is the Automatic Verdict, to recognize whether something is a threat, or not."
"The most effective feature of WildFire for threat analysis is its collaboration with other security profiles on our Palo Alto firewall."
"The most valuable features are all of the security features in terms of protection and SSL and VPN."
"A good tool for file scanning and email threat detection, especially when it comes to attachments and communications."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"I love the idea of Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It's more geared toward preventing malware. If someone's laptop or phone is malware-infected, the tool prevents it from uploading valuable corporate data outside the corporate network. That's what I love about Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It stops malware in its tracks."
"It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"Its price could be better."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"Also, simplifying the rules for the GeoIP. Making it simpler to understand would be an improvement."
"The initial setup was a little bit complex, mainly due to the GUI console and management challenges."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"The system performance degrades after the solution has been deployed for some time. The data that it gives us becomes a little bit slow. When you try to get some data for troubleshooting, it seems like it's working hard to extract that data."
"The price could be better."
"It would be nice if there was an easier way to install and deploy it, such as through the inclusion of wizards."
"There are certain changes that I was expecting in the previous version, and I hope that they are soon fixed. All of the problems that I have faced so far have been resolved."
"The automation and responsiveness need improvement."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4. 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 WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Cloudflare.
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