We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks WildFire based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"Good basic firewall features."
"High availability with active-active and active-passive modes."
"What I like about Palo Alto is that it is a complete product, with everything in it."
"The most effective feature of WildFire for threat analysis is its collaboration with other security profiles on our Palo Alto firewall."
"It helps us when segmenting and securing the network and all sort of technologies, all sort of next generation needs. It's next generation phases of firewall like anti-virus, sandboxing, wifi, and VPN."
"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks WildFire are the good URL and file analysis that uses artificial intelligence. It has different interfaces, such as rest, SMTP protocol, and HTTPS. The Security incidents and event management are very good. Additionally, there are many file types that are supported and there is no limit to the number of files it can handle simultaneously. It integrates well with SIEM solutions."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"WildFire has been instrumental in blocking a number of new threats, before common desktop anti-virus tools were able to detect them."
"Detailed reporting on analysis of content. The inspections are easily applied to security policy profiles and profile groups, and may be assigned on a per-rule basis."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers."
"Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"The integration could be improved."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"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."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"I think it would be nice for Palo Alto to work without the connection to the cloud. It is 100% powerful when connected to the cloud. But, if you disconnect from the cloud, you only get 40-50% power."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"Many years back an update caused an issue with the firewall. However, Palo Alto not only informed us of said issue, they also sent an update that fixed the issue before I even had time to log in to determine if the issue affected our services."
"The price of WildFire should be reduced in order to make it more affordable for our customers."
"The GUI is better in 8.0, but I still feel it lacks the fast response most of us desire. Logs are much quicker."
"The only complaint that we receive from our customers is in regards to the price."
"They should make their user interface a little more user-friendly."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4. 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 WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Microsoft Defender for Office 365.
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.