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 performance is good."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"I have found the firewall portion for the blocking most valuable."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"Good basic firewall features."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the Automatic Verdict, to recognize whether something is a threat, or not."
"It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace."
"The backup is the best feature."
"The solution is completely integrated with all the other Palo Alto products. I think that it is the best part for endpoint protection. The firewall features include URL and DNS filtering, threat protection, and antivirus."
"Stability is never a concern."
"The most effective feature of WildFire for threat analysis is its collaboration with other security profiles on our Palo Alto firewall."
"I give the initial setup an eight out of ten."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"The reports are very basic."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"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."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"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."
"They can keep on doing more updates. As new malware and viruses are coming out, they can make sure that WildFire is up to date."
"As a firewall and 360 degrees of security, there needs to be more maturity."
"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 VPN and decryption need improvement."
"Management and web filtering can be improved. There should also be better reporting, particularly around web filtering."
"High availability features are lacking."
"I think it would be nice for Palo Alto to work without the connection to the cloud. It is 100% powerful when connected to the cloud. But, if you disconnect from the cloud, you only get 40-50% power."
"Many years back an update caused an issue with the firewall. However, Palo Alto not only informed us of said issue, they also sent an update that fixed the issue before I even had time to log in to determine if the issue affected our services."
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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