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 scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"The most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"Unified Threat Management (UTM) features."
"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."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"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."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"The cloud-based services are a nice feature."
"It has a user-friendly interface."
"I give the initial setup an eight out of ten."
"It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace."
"Their technical support is outstanding and top-notch."
"Whole team can use the firewall and understand it."
"Stability is never a concern."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"They've become quite expensive."
"Backup can be improved."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"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."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"The integration should be improved."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"I've never tried it in large environments. All my clients are small businesses with a handful of employees, so I am not sure how it works in large environments. I keep up with recent versions, and there's nothing I'm waiting for, and nothing breaks when I get a new version."
"There are several levels of firewall configuration such as beginner, advanced, and expert configurations. At each level, it becomes more complex and more tricky to set up the firewall. For example, if you want to install the firewall on your computer system, it would be a lot easier if it just tells you that this is the internet NIC and this is the Wi-Fi NIC."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
"The GUI is better in 8.0, but I still feel it lacks the fast response most of us desire. Logs are much quicker."
"I don't think it needs to improve anything, except maybe the speed to deploy the changes."
"The price could be better."
"The cost of this solution could still be improved, in particular, giving product discounts for charitable causes."
"The support is good but they could be faster."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"The data analytical system for deployment needs to improve."
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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