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."It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"It works. I put pfSense in, and it works. I can't think of any trouble I ever had with it. It runs on heat-sensitive appliances. They don't need a fan, so they don't overheat. It is affordable, fast, and very high-speed. It is built on BSD Unix, and it pretty much runs on any Intel processor."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"The technical support is good."
"The analysis is very fast."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten since we never faced any issues."
"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."
"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."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"The solution is easy to use and the Panorama feature is good. The software management or the malware blocking and some authentication management system are good."
"Remote access is excellent."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"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."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"They provide a medium level of technical support."
"The initial setup was a little bit complex, mainly due to the GUI console and management challenges."
"When you contact support, there is no guarantee that they will be available to help you tackle the issue that you are facing."
"High availability features are lacking."
"Any enhancements should likely be focused on the firewall appliance to further strengthen overall security capabilities, such as refining app and user identity features."
"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."
"The initial setup was complex."
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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