We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The features I have found best are ease of use, GUI, and performance."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"It is a stable solution."
"It provides complete security posture from end-to-end. This has given us better visibility into what our security aspects are."
"A solid operating system with all the necessary data center security features."
"App-ID and User-ID have repeatedly shown value in securing business critical systems."
"It is reliable and the support is very good."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its stability, ease of implementation, ease of operation, and security."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the zero-trust security architecture."
"It gives us the ease that we are secure. We have set up the proper things that help make our data safe."
"We now know a lot more detail about what our users are doing on the network."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"The stability could be improved."
"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."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"It needs to be more secure."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"Netgate pfSense needs to improve the configuration for a VPN."
"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."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
"AWS doesn't integrate well with third-party firewalls."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"There's room for improvement in terms of integration with the load balancer. It isn't like Fortinet, which has a load balancer built into its firewall. It is effortless to integrate within the load balancer-plus-firewall solution."
"The solution's licensing could be improved, and training should be included before installation."
"It would be helpful if we had a direct number for the support manager or the supporting engineer. That would be better than having to email every time because there would be less wait."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. 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 Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper vSRX. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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