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 is the ease of configuration."
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"It is very flexible to use."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"It has improved our organization with control data."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"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."
"I like the hostwatch because I can see what traffic uses the most bandwidth and I can block that site."
"It configures in all-in-one place."
"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."
"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."
"WatchGuard XTM is fairly basic. We use it as the perimeter firewall. The main point is to protect from attack software and hacking."
"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 room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"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."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
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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