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."One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The interface is very good."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"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."
"The solution is fairly scalable when it comes to integrating with other applications and data sets."
"Routing, load balancing, Traffic Limiter and queues. Since this company relies on an Internet connection, having these features is a must."
"The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The most valuable features are all of the security features in terms of protection and SSL and VPN."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"The graphic user interface of Palo Alto is good and it's easy to configure."
"It catches modified signatures of known viruses."
"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."
"The analysis is very fast."
"The most valuable features of the solution are user-friendliness, price, good security, and cloud-related options."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"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."
"Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"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."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"There are more specialized solutions that compete with Wildfire. Therefore, they need to work on their machine learning and AI to be more competitive."
"The product fails to offer protection when dealing with high-severity vulnerabilities, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
"It's not really their problem, it's a problem across the board. There will always be problems with interrupted traffic. We have to set it up where we're playing a middle man game where we're stripping it out, looking at it, and then putting it back together and sending it on its way. That requires CPU cycles. And there's some overhead with that."
"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 GUI is better in 8.0, but I still feel it lacks the fast response most of us desire. Logs are much quicker."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"The configuration should be made a little bit easier. I understand why it is as it is, but there should be a way to make it easier from the user side."
"In the future, Palo Alto could reduce the time it takes to process the file."
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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