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 most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"The solution is stable."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"It works. I put pfSense in, and it works. I can't think of any trouble I ever had with it. It runs on heat-sensitive appliances. They don't need a fan, so they don't overheat. It is affordable, fast, and very high-speed. It is built on BSD Unix, and it pretty much runs on any Intel processor."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"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."
"It configures in all-in-one place."
"WatchGuard XTM is fairly basic. We use it as the perimeter firewall. The main point is to protect from attack software and hacking."
"There is a site-to-site VPN configuration between others people."
"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."
"Monitoring of network activity is included in the box."
"It is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."
"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."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"Lacks training for new features."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The stability could be improved."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"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."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"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."
"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."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"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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