We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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."Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"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."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"I'm the expert when it comes to Linux systems, however, with the pfSense, due to the web interface, the rest of the staff can actually make changes to it as required without me worrying about whether they've opened up ports incorrectly or not. The ease of use for non-expert staff is very good."
"It provides complete security posture from end-to-end. This has given us better visibility into what our security aspects are."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"Centralized management is valuable because it allows us to configure settings in one location and apply them across all three locations."
"It offers a single pane of glass for all the different types of installations."
"The most valuable feature is the CLI."
"The most effective features for threat prevention are application-based prevention and WildFire. These features cover various threats, such as ransomware, malware, etc. They provide real-time visibility. By applying appropriate policies, threats can be blocked."
"The Palo Alto VM-Series is nice because I can move the firewalls easily."
"In Palo Alto the most important feature is the App-ID."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"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 solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"The stability could be improved."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"There are several levels of firewall configuration such as beginner, advanced, and expert configurations. At each level, it becomes more complex and more tricky to set up the firewall. For example, if you want to install the firewall on your computer system, it would be a lot easier if it just tells you that this is the internet NIC and this is the Wi-Fi NIC."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"The solution must improve Zero Trust integration and use cases."
"The solution's licensing could be improved, and training should be included before installation."
"The user interface could use some improvement."
"The product's AIOps process needs improvement."
"The user-friendliness of the UI could be improved."
"There could be dynamic DNS features similar to Fortinet in the product."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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 Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper vSRX. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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