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."Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The SD-WAN is the most valuable feature."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"I like the connectivity to the open VPN. It's very smooth."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"SNMP status monitoring and the Central Management Software."
"I like the hostwatch because I can see what traffic uses the most bandwidth and I can block that site."
"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."
"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."
"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."
"Monitoring of network activity is included in the box."
"It is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"The solution could improve by having centralized management and API support online."
"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 have not had any problems with it, and we also do not have a need for any new features. If anything, its reporting can be better. Sophos has better reporting than pfSense. Sophos has more detailed information. pfSense is not as detailed. It is summarized."
"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."
"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."
"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."
"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."
"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."
"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."
"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."
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, KerioControl, Sophos UTM 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.