We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security and Netgate pfSense 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."The most valuable feature is the web filter."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls. We can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"The technical support is good."
"The technical is excellent."
"The capabilities for scalability with this product are huge"
"We use the product for firewalls."
"What I have used the most and received the most benefit from is the IPsec technology."
"Cisco has always been a premium product. There's a lot of other entry-level solutions. This is more robust."
"I'm able to transfer data over internet network security. With the GRE I'm able to transfer data within one bunch to another bunch in a public way, like the internet. The communication is encrypted and is private. It gives me added privacy."
"Cisco products are very secure and integrate easily with other devices."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"One of the advantages of pfSense is that it is very easy to work with. It is a very good open-source solution, and it works really well. pfSense provides a complete package. For some features, it could be the first solution in the world. It is a very good alternative in the market for a firewall solution. You don't need to go to Cisco or other brands with expensive firewalls. pfSense also allows us to offer some support services."
"It is a stable solution."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"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."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"The configuration should be easier in the solution."
"I would love it if it has a link-by-link feature, integration with Unified Threat Management (UTM), and load balancers. They haven't got any link-by-link feature right now, which can be a very attractive option. This link-by-link feature can also be made available for Cisco's UTM firewalls. The link-by-link feature is available in some of the other firewalls. Currently, integration with UTM is missing. Cisco IOS Security also doesn't have the load balancers and a few things that need to be done to get a good UTM firewall. Normally, other firewalls have UTM. As a next-generation firewall, it's good, but as a UTM, it has to do some work."
"The pricing is the only con for this product."
"In the security portfolio from Cisco, the issue is marketing. Cisco is still seen primarily as an enterprise network player rather than being acknowledged as a security vendor."
"If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow."
"The company needs to make its solution more affordable to make it more accessible to larger markets. Otherwise, it's seen as an enterprise-level solution that small or medium-sized organizations can't afford and therefore they won't even look at it."
"In the next release of this solution, we would like to see support for the 100BT and 7000 models."
"It would be ideal if the solution had more capacity."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"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."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"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 hotspot and the portal feature in this solution are not stable for WiFi access. We use it at least once or twice every day and it crashes. Some modules can be better by improving detection and having new updates. Additionally, we have some issues with clustering and load balancing that could improve."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 23rd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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