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 on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"I had some outages in the network and we provide services for our company. We sell mobile credits. The terminal gets access to our own server inside the network and if one internet fails, then the other one is still up and we have a back-up link on the devices."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"The documentation is very good."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"We get support in the free version."
"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks WildFire are the good URL and file analysis that uses artificial intelligence. It has different interfaces, such as rest, SMTP protocol, and HTTPS. The Security incidents and event management are very good. Additionally, there are many file types that are supported and there is no limit to the number of files it can handle simultaneously. It integrates well with SIEM solutions."
"It has a user-friendly interface."
"The way that the solution quickly updates to adjust to threats is the solution's most valuable aspect. When there's a security attack, within five minutes, all Wildfire subscribers have access to updates so that all systems will be safe. Its threat prevention is way better than other vendor products."
"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."
"High availability with active-active and active-passive modes."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is its ability to adapt to environments and its robustness."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"When comparing this solution to others it is not as good overall."
"They provide a medium level of technical support."
"When you contact support, there is no guarantee that they will be available to help you tackle the issue that you are facing."
"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."
"They should make their user interface a little more user-friendly."
"The global product feature needs improvement, the VPN, and we need some enhanced features."
"The product's false positive logs could be more user-friendly to understand. They could provide examples of precious cases to learn."
"The initial setup was a little bit complex, mainly due to the GUI console and management challenges."
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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