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."Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The product offers very good security."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"This solution has increased the level of security, given us more control, provided a deep insight into network traffic, and is a great VPN solution."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"They have many different options with Palo Alto WildFire and the set-up is quick. If you have all the details in hand, it does not take more than 15 minutes to deploy a firewall."
"We get support in the free version."
"The analysis is very fast."
"Scalable ATP solution that's quick to set up. It demonstrates good performance and stability."
"The most valuable feature is the Automatic Verdict, to recognize whether something is a threat, or not."
"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."
"It is stable and pretty much scalable."
"What I like about Palo Alto is that it is a complete product, with everything in it."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"The product does need better support in the cloud environment. It's not exactly cloud-native right now."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"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 needs to be improved."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"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."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"Could be simplified for new users."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"They provide a medium level of technical support."
"Other vendors have some sort of bandwidth management built into the firewall itself and Palo Alto is missing that."
"The cyber security visibility and forensics features to receive more information about incidents could improve in Palo Alto Networks WildFire."
"Management and web filtering can be improved. There should also be better reporting, particularly around web filtering."
"The deployment model could be better."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire should be more real-time in nature. The signature updates should happen in a minute or less than a minute to be a very good feature for the customer."
"The size of Palo Alto's cloud is big but it could be easier to use from a product management perspective."
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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