We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks WildFire and WatchGuard Firebox based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"The solution is stable."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"It's very easy to configure."
"Stability is never a concern."
"Their technical support is outstanding and top-notch."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is easy to use and the Panorama feature is good. The software management or the malware blocking and some authentication management system are good."
"The backup is the best feature."
"I love the idea of Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It's more geared toward preventing malware. If someone's laptop or phone is malware-infected, the tool prevents it from uploading valuable corporate data outside the corporate network. That's what I love about Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It stops malware in its tracks."
"The cloud-based services are a nice feature."
"My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."
"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 product's usability is good. It is straightforward and simple. One of the benefits is that it is easy to navigate and intuitive."
"WatchGuard Firebox's two-factor authentication feature is particularly useful and provides an added layer of protection."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"I like the High Availability features of the newest ones I'm using because they allow a firewall to fail and still be up and running."
"It provides us with Layer 2 and Layer 3 security."
"Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."
"There are some formats that the solution cannot support ."
"The support is good but they could be faster."
"They should make their user interface a little more user-friendly."
"Our main concern is that everything has to be synced with the WildFire Cloud and has to be checked through the subscription."
"The deployment model could be better."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"The data analytical system for deployment needs to improve."
"The GUI is better in 8.0, but I still feel it lacks the fast response most of us desire. Logs are much quicker."
"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."
"If they could make the traffic monitoring easier that would be great. I don't use it that frequently, but I would like to see some improvements in the ease of use of that component, so it makes more sense. I know it's a technical component so there's going to be some difficulty trying to make that easier."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"There's always room for improvement, especially if the threats are getting more sophisticated and the IT department cannot sufficiently meet this kind of sophistication with their own knowledge and experience. Knowing that this solution can get up to the level of addressing a lot of these threats is something that everybody wishes for. If we look at the dark web and the lawful web, they are two opposites, and if these two good and bad collide in the world of the internet, you want the best possible product—especially if you cannot get to that point of knowledge. I am just an individual and end user, with limited knowledge of usage. That's why I say there's always room for improvement, from their side and also from mine, because by knowing exactly what they can achieve and the knowledge that they can get on an everyday basis, and the portion that is understandable to me, it's an improvement for them as well."
"WatchGuard Firebox could improve the speed of updates, such as new features or improvements. However, they are frequently improving the solution in many areas, such as geo-locations, definitions, and web blocking."
"We use WatchGuard to manage our failover for internet. If a primary internet goes down, it does a failover to the secondary the internet. However, what it doesn't do so well is that if the primary internet has a lot of latency but it's not completely down, it doesn't do a failover to the backup in a timely manner."
"I would like to see the devices made more flexible by adding modules to increase the ports that we can use."
"I would like to see more simplified management of the firewall... It's a complicated system to use."
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiSandbox and Symantec Advanced Threat Protection, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX.
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