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 CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The customization potential is quite impressive."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"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."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"I handle the scanning for the finance department. I recently encountered an issue with the PCL bills, our company bills. I resolved the matter, cleared the bill, and received calls regarding it using pfsense.The user interface is extremely user-friendly, which is why we use it across various plant sites. Our IT representatives at the plants find it easy to use and manage because of its straightforward interface."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks WildFire are the good URL and file analysis that uses artificial intelligence. It has different interfaces, such as rest, SMTP protocol, and HTTPS. The Security incidents and event management are very good. Additionally, there are many file types that are supported and there is no limit to the number of files it can handle simultaneously. It integrates well with SIEM solutions."
"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."
"It helps us when segmenting and securing the network and all sort of technologies, all sort of next generation needs. It's next generation phases of firewall like anti-virus, sandboxing, wifi, and VPN."
"The backup is the best feature."
"The analysis is very fast."
"The most valuable features of the solution are user-friendliness, price, good security, and cloud-related options."
"It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"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."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"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."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Also, simplifying the rules for the GeoIP. Making it simpler to understand would be an improvement."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"When you contact support, there is no guarantee that they will be available to help you tackle the issue that you are facing."
"The solution can improve its traffic management."
"The threat intelligence that we receiving in the reporting was not as expected. We were expecting more. Additionally, we should be able to whitelist a specific file based on a variety of attributes."
"The initial setup was complex."
"The size of Palo Alto's cloud is big but it could be easier to use from a product management perspective."
"They provide a medium level of technical support."
"I would give this product a rating of 9 out of 10 due to some slight issues of performance."
"The support is good but they could be faster."
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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