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."Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"The solution is very robust."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"Scalable ATP solution that's quick to set up. It demonstrates good performance and stability."
"Intuitive threat prevention and analysis solution, with a machine learning feature. Scalable, stable, and protects against zero-day threats."
"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."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"The most valuable feature for us is the VPN."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."
"High availability with active-active and active-passive modes."
"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."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"Its customer service could be better."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The stability could be improved."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"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."
"I would give this product a rating of 9 out of 10 due to some slight issues of performance."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"In terms of what I'd like to see in the next release of Palo Alto Networks WildFire, each release is based on malware that has been identified. The key problem is an average of six months from the time malware is written to the time it's discovered and a signature is created for it. The only advice that I can give is for them to shorten that timeframe. I don't know how they would do it, but if they shorten that, for example, cut it in half, they'll make themselves more famous."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
"The price could be better."
"Many years back an update caused an issue with the firewall. However, Palo Alto not only informed us of said issue, they also sent an update that fixed the issue before I even had time to log in to determine if the issue affected our services."
"I think it would be nice for Palo Alto to work without the connection to the cloud. It is 100% powerful when connected to the cloud. But, if you disconnect from the cloud, you only get 40-50% power."
"The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow."
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 Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
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