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 application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"I'm the expert when it comes to Linux systems, however, with the pfSense, due to the web interface, the rest of the staff can actually make changes to it as required without me worrying about whether they've opened up ports incorrectly or not. The ease of use for non-expert staff is very good."
"I especially like the VPN part. It works like a charm."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"They have many different options with Palo Alto WildFire and the set-up is quick. If you have all the details in hand, it does not take more than 15 minutes to deploy a firewall."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is how it keeps up-to-date with viruses."
"It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace."
"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."
"You have better control because you define apps. You just don't define ports. You define apps, and the apps are monitored in the traffic. It is more specific than the Cisco firewall when it comes to our needs."
"High availability with active-active and active-passive modes."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"The initial setup was complex."
"I don't think it needs to improve anything, except maybe the speed to deploy the changes."
"The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"They provide a medium level of technical support."
"Management and web filtering can be improved. There should also be better reporting, particularly around web filtering."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve by adding support for manual submission of suspicious files and URLs. Additionally, it would be an advantage to add rule-based analysis. Currently, it uses only static and AI. We need to be able to analyze archive files."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) 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, Cisco Secure Firewall and KerioControl, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Fortinet FortiSandbox and WatchGuard Firebox.
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