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.
"With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"I'm the expert when it comes to Linux systems, however, with the pfSense, due to the web interface, the rest of the staff can actually make changes to it as required without me worrying about whether they've opened up ports incorrectly or not. The ease of use for non-expert staff is very good."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"Content protection, content inspection, and the application level firewall."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"Good basic firewall features."
"It is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"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."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"It needs to be more secure."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"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."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"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."
"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."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"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."
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 .
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.
