We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks PA-Series and WatchGuard Firebox 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."Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."
"It performs very well."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced. It is almost 90% faster compared to other solutions."
"The solution is used for security and IoT security."
"It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides."
"The solution has a three-layer architecture, and it helps customers to deploy the solution quickly."
"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."
"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."
"Palo Alto Networks firewalls offer single-mode panel processing with live scanning."
"The reports are detailed."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"It's hard to pick one feature over another. But if I had to pick one, the UTM would be the most valuable because of the notification. I get notified via email if there is any type of threat detection or alert, telling me something is wrong."
"WatchGuard Firebox's two-factor authentication feature is particularly useful and provides an added layer of protection."
"[A] valuable feature would be the branch office. We have five offices throughout the United States, and it coordinates the connections of those offices."
"The solution has many security features. We have an intrusion provision system and filtering and block filtering."
"Because we bought two firewalls... we need a central place to manage the policies and deploy them to both devices. It's good that it provides a system management console that is able to manipulate and manage policies in one place and deploy them to different locations."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is complicated to configure compared to one of its competitors."
"The solution's licensing price could be improved."
"The UI definitely needs work. In my opinion, the UI could be simpler and more user-friendly for the average user."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining this process for smoother transitions."
"Pricing flexibility could be an aspect worth considering, as it has been a concern for some of our clients."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series should improve its price. It should also include a feature similar to Sophos' Security Heartbeat."
"There seem to be some issues with TAC (Technical Assistance Center) or Palo Alto support. Anytime you open a case, a level one engineer joins, and then you have to escalate it to level two or three. The support system has changed in the past few years, and that's something they need to look into."
"In future releases, maybe Palo Alto can enhance and enlarge their portfolio with SIEM solutions. They already have an endpoint protection solution, SOAR solution, that's fine. But when it comes to standalone IDS/IPS solution or email security solution, for example, we don't have any product in that category for Palo Alto."
"When working with WatchGuard, specifically in configuring Panda Security on the portal for the first time, it was challenging for me."
"I'd like to have better access to workstation monitoring, connection monitoring, and the amount of time an address is being used, to better gauge proper network utilization. If I knew that something was connected to a particular external location for an extended period that seems abnormal, I'd be able to act upon it."
"Sometimes I would like to copy a rule set from one box to another box in a direct way. This is a feature that is not present at the moment in WatchGuard."
"The level of support from WatchGuard is not as good."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"Reporting is something you've got to set up separately. It's one of those things that you've got to put some time into. One of the options is to set up a local report server, which is what I did. It's not great. It's okay... Some of the stuff is a little complicated to get up and running. Once you do, it becomes very user-friendly and easy to work with, but I find there are some implementation headaches with some of their stuff."
"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."
"There should be better integration and a way to configure multiple vendors into the same data center in order to offer more flexibility."
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, SonicWall NSa, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Sophos XG and Sophos XGS, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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