We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard XTM [EOL] based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"There are great templates, so you don't have to customize them if you don't want to. You do have the option to custom create some folders and some reports, however, with what is there, you don't really need to go through extra effort, as they already give you a lot of predefined views of reports and so forth."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"It has a very nice web interface, and it is very simple to use. The way policies are working is also good."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"The documentation is very good."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"Application Control is fantastic with over 2,500 applications and the granularity that we can either allow people to view but not be able to log on to Facebook; or view it and log onto it if they're in the marketing department, but not play Facebook games. There are all sorts of different options like that. So it's highly granular."
"Monitoring of network activity is included in the box."
"SNMP status monitoring and the Central Management Software."
"We have used technical support for WatchGuard many times and overall, we are satisfied with it. They are always listening and there is a good reaction time to our findings. When there are issues, they really try to resolve them."
"WatchGuard XTM is fairly basic. We use it as the perimeter firewall. The main point is to protect from attack software and hacking."
"It configures in all-in-one place."
"They have a reporting system which can store data over a very long period of time. Not many other firewall vendors provide a reporting system, but if they do, like Fortinet does, then you've got buy that as an additional product and that can be more than twice as expensive as the initial investment in the firewall. And without reporting over a long-term period, you're just about wasting your time."
"Reputation Enabled Defense indicates that some websites are so infested that it's not even worth visiting them, and therefore saving the bandwidth of going through the detection process."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"It needs to be more secure."
"The integration should be improved."
"When I checked other packages, it seems they use different tools that are installed on the PSS for functionality. They rely on third-party tools, unlike Fortinet, for example, which has its own tools. In comparison, we also use third-party tools on pfSense. For example, we had a situation where we needed a tool to identify authorized users, and when I searched for a solution, I found a third-party tool. However, using such tools may come with additional costs."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"The initial setup is neither simple nor complex. If you know the base in networking and how the firewall works, you will be able to figure it out."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"The setting policies need improvement. It needs an easier way to do static NAT and check on what policy is being used for that specific traffic."
"One huge issue with WatchGuard XTM is that I'm not getting reports in a readable format. Readable means, I don't want Excel online. We repeat auditing when we trigger the report or setup calendar. That functionality is what we are looking for from WatchGuard XTM here."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"WatchGuard doesn't have a product that allows them to get into the data center. And that's just because there is no hardware to do the job. The software could do it, but there's no hardware that allows that to happen at the moment. So it doesn't scale as well as some other products, that's for sure."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
Earn 20 points
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while WatchGuard XTM [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in Firewalls. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard XTM [EOL] is rated 8.0. 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 WatchGuard XTM [EOL] writes "The multi-layer security of the products are the primary reason we use these appliances, however, the gateway wireless functionality for managing access points leaves much to be desired". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas WatchGuard XTM [EOL] is most compared with .
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