We performed a comparison between pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from reviewers, but WatchGuard ultimately won out in this comparison. According to reviews, WatchGuard appears to be a more secure solution.
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The solution is stable."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"The redundancy and scalability ARE very nice."
"The features I have found best are ease of use, GUI, and performance."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"The tool's most valuable feature is the dashboard."
"If you just plan to use WatchGuard Firebox in your office and not publicly, then it is okay to purchase it. With WatchGuard Firebox, you can manage your users and permissions while also taking care of the basic setup phase in your office."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"The most valuables feature of WatchGuard Firebox are the VPNs, and web filtering where we can stop users from going to malicious sites."
"There are no problems with the technical support. If a problem occurs it gets resolved immediately with our technical support partners."
"The ports that I have assigned appear to be unattainable to outside 'mal-actors,' unless they have an address registered on the internet that this thing is expecting. That's a layer of security."
"I could still keep the data rates really high, up near the two gigahertz data speeds, without compromise on the security perimeters being acted simultaneously."
"Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"They need to improve their technical support."
"A couple of things I've seen that need improvement, especially in terms of a hard coding. The driver-level active moment really is out-of-the-box and we have to have contact the customer support and sometimes it is difficult to resolve."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"The integration could be improved."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"As an open-source solution, there are so many loopholes happening within the product. By design, no one is taking ownership of it, and that is worrisome to me."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"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."
"They are working on cloud-based options. However, they do not have the options fully functional in their solution at this time."
"The data loss protection works well, but it could be easier to configure. The complexity of data loss protection makes it a more difficult feature to fully leverage. Better integration with third-party, two-factor authentication would be advantageous."
"The VPN aspect of the WatchGuard Firebox is an area that could potentially benefit from improvement. We encountered difficulties while attempting to integrate Windows 11 laptops into the system, which resulted in unreliable connections. After some research, we discovered that this was primarily due to compatibility issues with Windows 11 and required a patch. However, it was still a challenge as it seemed that even when we tried to keep the laptops on Windows 10, they still exhibited the same issues as Windows 11 machines. Despite WatchGuard attributing the problem to Microsoft, we were eventually able to find a solution and all the machines are now functioning seamlessly."
"The software in it could be a bit more friendly for an amateur user. I look at it and don't understand what half the stuff is. Looking at the interface, it is all mumbo-jumbo to me. It's not a simple interface. You have to be an IT guy to understand it. It is not for your average person to use, then walk away from it. It is much more entailed."
"A 12-hour power outage... got our batteries."
"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."
"I would like to see more simplified management of the firewall... It's a complicated system to use."
"An area for improvement is that when we use a web administration link, there is no security."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and SonicWall TZ, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors and 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.
