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 scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"The documentation is very good."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"The solution has plenty of features."
"With this product, we receive the best monitoring and reports."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"Using WildFire has reduced the number of viruses and the amount of malware that comes into our system, which means that I don't have to rely on the end-users to identify it."
"The way that the solution quickly updates to adjust to threats is the solution's most valuable aspect. When there's a security attack, within five minutes, all Wildfire subscribers have access to updates so that all systems will be safe. Its threat prevention is way better than other vendor products."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"It helps us when segmenting and securing the network and all sort of technologies, all sort of next generation needs. It's next generation phases of firewall like anti-virus, sandboxing, wifi, and VPN."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"Application management can be improved."
"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."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"It should integrate with LDAP, Active Directory, etc, to improve the way in which the traces and connections of each IP, or user connected through the firewall, are shown."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"The price of WildFire should be reduced in order to make it more affordable for our customers."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"In the future, I would like to see more automation in the reporting."
"The initial setup was complex."
"High availability features are lacking."
"In the future, Palo Alto could reduce the time it takes to process the file."
"Other vendors have some sort of bandwidth management built into the firewall itself and Palo Alto is missing that."
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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