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 UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"We can detect any attack of viruses or malware at the first point of contact."
"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 initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"I had some outages in the network and we provide services for our company. We sell mobile credits. The terminal gets access to our own server inside the network and if one internet fails, then the other one is still up and we have a back-up link on the devices."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"It has a very nice web interface, and it is very simple to use. The way policies are working is also good."
"For example, if a security Intel threat talks about an IOC. We can then go to our MSP and say, "Is there a signature for this particular type of malware that just came out?" And if they'll say yes, then we'll say, "Okay. Does it apply to these firewalls? And have we seen any hits on it?" There's absolutely value in it."
"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 features are all of the security features in terms of protection and SSL and VPN."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is its ability to adapt to environments and its robustness."
"The backup is the best feature."
"It catches modified signatures of known viruses."
"WildFire has been instrumental in blocking a number of new threats, before common desktop anti-virus tools were able to detect them."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."
"Application management can be improved."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"We have not had any problems with it, and we also do not have a need for any new features. If anything, its reporting can be better. Sophos has better reporting than pfSense. Sophos has more detailed information. pfSense is not as detailed. It is summarized."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"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."
"When you contact support, there is no guarantee that they will be available to help you tackle the issue that you are facing."
"The size of Palo Alto's cloud is big but it could be easier to use from a product management perspective."
"The automation and responsiveness need improvement."
"I would give this product a rating of 9 out of 10 due to some slight issues of performance."
"In the future, I would like to see more automation in the reporting."
"Management and web filtering can be improved. There should also be better reporting, particularly around web filtering."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"They should make their user interface a little more user-friendly."
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, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
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