We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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."The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have a very nice interface for logging and monitoring. I find it easy to navigate and use, and the interface is organized as well. I can find answers within a couple of hours and have seen time savings."
"The fact that the Next-Gen firewalls are integrated with identity is the best. It gives us the ability to track what an individual is doing and helps us provide access to only what they need in order to do their job."
"We utilize advanced threat prevention features like web filtering and SSL decryption, which haven't caused any issues."
"This is arguably the best security protection that you can buy."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have a Single Pass Parallel Processing (SP3) Architecture, which has a different kind of code doing the work. It increases the packet processing rate. Whereas, without the SP3 Architecture, you are waiting for each job to complete, even if you have 100 jobs assigned."
"Decryption is one of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' best features because we can decrypt by category. For instance, we can decrypt everything except for bank traffic so that we don't interfere with the passwords and two-factor authentication of those checking their bank accounts at work. We can still monitor for malware and other threats that come through a secure channel. It's seamless for users. The URL filtering and IPS are both great as well."
"The user ID, Wildfire, UI, and management configuration are all great features."
"The most valuable features of this solution are all of the services it provides."
"Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is the VPN. It's easy to connect to the VPN."
"They've done a lot of work with their SD-WAN, which we do use, to have our old internet service with our new internet service. If anything goes down on a particular interface, I can have different rules applied. Most of my users don't even know when our primary internet goes down anymore... I don't have to be here to do anything to switch it to our backup internet or to switch it back."
"The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using NetApp System Manager on Window since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom."
"The GUI is easy and intuitive."
"The policy monitoring and allowing different traffic flows are the most useful features for us; regulating which traffic comes in and out."
"The main features of the solution are the control of the site-to-site network access and the overall features."
"Their centralized console simplifies management for organizations with multiple Fireboxes."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls work slowly for vulnerability management. Its performance could be faster."
"I think automation and machine learning can be improved to make bulk configurations simpler, easier, and faster"
"The biggest thing that needs to be improved with them is their training. I took a training class for the 8.0 build, then I took it again for the 9.0 and 10 builds. They add new features every time that they do a new major release, but the training doesn't keep up. It is the same basic training that probably was with the 3.0 build, and they just change the screenshots. I would love to see them do some more work since they have all these bells and whistles, but we don't know how to use those features on a large scale."
"The first level of support will usually do nothing for you. If you're an IT company, you're not looking for level one support. You need to escalate. Other vendors have a direct support line for enterprise clients, but not Palo Alto."
"Interface could be improved visually and simplified."
"When we looked at it originally, we needed to host the Panorama environment ourselves. I would prefer it if we could take this as a service. It might be that it is available, but for some reason we didn't choose it. The downsides of hosting are that we need to feed and water the machines. We are trying to move to a more SaaS environment where we have less things in our data centers, whether they be in our cloud data centers or physical data centers, which can reduce our physical data center footprint."
"Currently, they don't have email protection. They can maybe add it in the future. Currently, if you want to do so, you need to go with another solution."
"The analytics could be improved."
"We were able to take from an older configuration, build a new one quickly, and get it up and running, which didn't take long, but there was some pain around it."
"The way Secure Sign-On authentication is happening needs to be improved. When the Secure Sign-On portal is turned on, anybody who comes into the campus, whether he or she is a staff member or a guest, has to go past the initial portal. One of the shortcomings is the username. It shouldn't allow permutations or combinations with upper or lower cases. For example, when there is a username abc, it shouldn't allow ABC or Abc. It should not allow the same username, but currently, two separate people can go in. Therefore, its authentication or validation should be improved, and the case sensitiveness should be picked up. If I have restricted someone to two devices, they shouldn't be able to use different combinations of the same username and get into the third or fourth device. It shouldn't allow different combinations of alphabets to be used to log in."
"We bought Firebox four or five years ago, and with the first version I had to reboot it every two or three months for no apparent reason. We upgraded last year to the M370 and it's been running, but it is rebooting from time to time. I don't know why."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing."
"I don't think I can get a full-blown DNS client from it. I've been trying to have DNS services. It has forwarding, but I don't get the services of a full DNS client. My main difficulty with it is that I can't run a complete service. I need NTP. I need DNS. I need DHCP for my domain, but I only get forwarding. As far as I can tell, I don't get caching and the kinds of reporting and registration needed to host a DNS for a domain. I have to have a separate solution for that."
"The reporting is a little on the weak side. I would like to see a better reporting set and easier drill-down options."
"I'm not really impressed with the reporting side of it. It may be something I just haven't figured out very well, but it's hard to filter down on reporting of the actual valuable information that you would want. There is a lot of information out there so you have to have some kind of tool capture it and then filter through. So far, I haven't found the reporting side of the WatchGuard to be that user-friendly."
"It's very hard to get information from their website, for exactly what I need to do. Sometimes I end up having to open a lot of support tickets... It's a navigational issue which makes it hard to find what I'm looking for and it's just so broad."
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Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense and SonicWall TZ. See our Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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