We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is appreciated for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and robust assistance. It provides functionalities like site-to-site VPN, firewall security, and routing capabilities. pfSense is highly regarded for its capacity to obstruct IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source characteristics. It offers features such as secure VPN connections, scanning, filtering, and network security capabilities.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall could use enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. pfSense would benefit from improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, centralized management, GUI for SMBs, sandboxing, security, hardware support, user-friendliness, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have generally praised Juniper SRX Series Firewall's customer service for being helpful and knowledgeable, despite occasional slower response times. pfSense's customer service varies among users, with some having positive experiences with technical support and others relying on clear documentation and community resources.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be done within a day for smaller branch offices, whereas pfSense be set up in just 15 minutes. Juniper may demand familiarity with CLI, while pfSense is commonly referred to as being easy to use.
Pricing: Juniper has extra charges for advanced security features and APS, whereas pfSense provides updates without any additional fees. The specific licensing costs for pfSense are not clearly stated.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides advanced security features and reliable performance, leading to a favorable return on investment. pfSense stands out for its affordability, minimal management expenses, and substantial hardware cost savings. Users also emphasize its superior ROI compared to pricier alternatives such as FortiGate.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product over pfSense. Users appreciate its simplicity, intuitive interface, reliability, scalability, and exceptional customer support. It offers convenient configuration, site-to-site VPN capabilities, and effective firewall protection. Additionally, Juniper SRX Series Firewall is considered a more cost-effective and secure solution.
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"The SD-WAN function is very developed. It has SD-WAN functionality with security features in one device. We can manage from one single console SD-WAN and the security policy."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"We can detect any attack of viruses or malware at the first point of contact."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"The IPS functionality of Juniper SRX is useful in the telecom industry."
"It's fine, and it's good. It's very stable."
"I have used technical support quite a bit, and they are really good."
"The Juniper SRX series is easy to use."
"From a protection perspective, it provides a network perimeter security function for our company."
"The most valuable features are the security cloud ACP and KPP features."
"When compared to Palo Alto, Juniper is a better choice when it comes to the enterprise network and connectivity."
"Juniper is one of the most powerful network security solutions while remaining simple to use, set up, and scale."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"It is a stable solution."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"It needs more available central management."
"Its price could be better."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"It would be good if Junos had "unique commands" between all hierarchical levels, discarding the use of the "Run" command."
"In comparison to other enterprise-level firewalls, such as Cisco FTD, Cisco has improved significantly. In the past, I believed that Juniper SRX was superior, but after seeing the advancements in the FTD platform, Cisco has better functionality. I have not recently explored Juniper SRX's next-generation firewall capabilities as we only use basic firewall filtering in our enterprise network."
"The GUI needs improvement."
"Juniper needs to focus more on their perimeter firewalls."
"Both the web management and the graphical user interface are inadequate and should be improved."
"The range of devices should be expanded to include those suitable for a small implementation. Juniper does not have any lower-priced SRX models, useful perhaps for a single ATM or a single bank branch."
"The pricing strategy of the vendor could improve."
"In the next release, I would like to have a better web interface. It needs to be more user-friendly. Right now, you can only access many features through the console."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 86 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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