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 simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The solution is stable."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The documentation is very good."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is scalable."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are user-friendliness, price, good security, and cloud-related options."
"For example, if a security Intel threat talks about an IOC. We can then go to our MSP and say, "Is there a signature for this particular type of malware that just came out?" And if they'll say yes, then we'll say, "Okay. Does it apply to these firewalls? And have we seen any hits on it?" There's absolutely value in it."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"I like the analysis they apply to the unknown files, and I think they have good technology to use as a sandboxing tool. I didn't find something similar to WildFire in the marketplace."
"Stability is never a concern."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"I need user-behavior analytics, to find threat scenarios from inside the organization, insider attacks. That would be very helpful for us. In addition, I would like next-generation features for small and medium businesses. These businesses require UTM, all in one product. Fortinet must include it."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"The security could be improved."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"I would like to see multiple DNS servers running on individual interfaces."
"The initial setup was complex."
"The GUI is better in 8.0, but I still feel it lacks the fast response most of us desire. Logs are much quicker."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"Management and web filtering can be improved. There should also be better reporting, particularly around web filtering."
"The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow."
"The only complaint that we receive from our customers is in regards to the price."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"The product fails to offer protection when dealing with high-severity vulnerabilities, making it an area of concern where improvements are required."
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.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.