We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS and Netgate pfSense 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 response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The pricing is excellent."
"This is a user friendly solution and offers comprehensive integrations."
"The VDOM (Virtual DOM) is a virtualized firewall that has some opportunities for flexibility that are an advantage in certain configurations."
"The main features I find useful are intrusion prevention and web filtering. Additionally, the solution is easy to manage."
"It's very easy to use."
"The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive."
"I have found the most valuable features to be the policies, cache, and the SD-WAN."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiOS are the ability to block and make white and black lists. Additionally, the filtering of user access to websites is useful."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"Routing, load balancing, Traffic Limiter and queues. Since this company relies on an Internet connection, having these features is a must."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"They need to improve their technical support."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"Fortinet's central management needs to be improved. FortiManager's technical tool provider ability should manage all Fortinet security products. Right now, FortiManager only manages the configuration of FortiGate."
"FortiOS doesn't work well with all browsers. I think they need to do a better job of making it compatible with the various browsers that are out there."
"Fortinet FortiOS can improve the GUI and remove the command line interface. All the functionality should be available from the GUI. Day-to-day management can be tough for IT administrators. Additionally, the reporting is not very good."
"The central management can improve in Fortinet FortiOS. It is sometimes difficult to manage all the devices."
"I would like to see fewer bugs. If you use the box with its basic features, the solution is straightforward and stable, but you can run into bugs when using newer features or in more complex use cases. They included a DNS filter as a new feature, and I had issues that required raising a ticket with customer support."
"A switch should be introduced."
"They're using a lot of application-specific IC, so that may be causing some performance issues. And whenever a Fortinet adds new features, it can affect performance."
"There are some features for FortiGate using FortiOS that can only be enabled via a command line. These aren't very advanced features they have been part of FortiOS for quite some time but they still aren't accessible from the graphical user interface. It makes it a little bit harder than it should be for us to manage the solution. That's my main concern with the user interface. Another concern we have is some elements for the user interface, if they're not properly configured, it could lead to hardware and performance degradation."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Fortinet FortiWeb, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and OPNsense, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiOS vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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.