We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks PA-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."The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"We can detect any attack of viruses or malware at the first point of contact."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility."
"The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The cloud-based aspect helps significantly. It integrates seamlessly with other Palo products like Prisma Cloud, offers robust VPN protection, and it's all in one convenient package."
"The product's initial setup process was simple."
"The most effective features for threat prevention in the PA-Series are its integration with Cortex and the use of machine learning AI for advanced threat detection."
"App-ID is a really good feature."
"The documentation is great."
"It is stable when you set up something and put it into production. Once it works, you don't have other tasks or actions to perform."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"You will need additional training before you can actually start to use it."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The product must provide multiple threat detection features."
"The web interface is slow."
"Currently, they are not protected with any data security when they work from home or outside the network. They surf the Internet directly and should implement a proxy or firewall to monitor the data between the endpoint and the internet."
"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The pricing of the solution needs improvement."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"With Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, I find that the support team takes a long time to resolve the issues that a user may face during the use of the product."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive. We would like to see additional threat hunting features."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire, whereas Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with SonicWall NSa, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox. See our OPNsense vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report.
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