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."I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"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."
"It has a very nice web interface, and it is very simple to use. The way policies are working is also good."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"I like the connectivity to the open VPN. It's very smooth."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"It is a stable solution."
"Intuitive threat prevention and analysis solution, with a machine learning feature. Scalable, stable, and protects against zero-day threats."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is how it keeps up-to-date with viruses."
"The solution is scalable."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace."
"The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is its ability to adapt to environments and its robustness."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"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."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"I would like to see multiple DNS servers running on individual interfaces."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"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."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
"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."
"The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"There are some formats that the solution cannot support ."
"The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"The global product feature needs improvement, the VPN, and we need some enhanced features."
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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