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."Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"The solution is used for security and IoT security."
"The cloud-based aspect helps significantly. It integrates seamlessly with other Palo products like Prisma Cloud, offers robust VPN protection, and it's all in one convenient package."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The tool's most valuable feature is WildFire."
"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."
"It offers application-based policy enforcement. Palo Alto Networks firewalls help us recognize protocol anomalies, contrasting with other vendors that may require policies based on port numbers. With Palo Alto Networks, the port number isn't a constraint because their devices handle protocol traffic at Layer 7, allowing for accurate identification of protocol usage and port numbers. They can identify which protocol actually uses which port."
"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."
"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."
"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."
"It's very easy to use, especially compared to similar products. A lot more users use the WatchGuard appliance now than use the SonicWall appliance because of the ease of usability."
"It provides us with Layer 2 and Layer 3 security."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"One of my favorite features is the Geolocation service, where you can actually block specific activity or IP addresses registered to certain countries. For example, I don't want any web traffic from Russia or North Korea. I may even lock down certain policies down to 'I only want U.S. IP addresses.' I find that very useful."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use of the interface."
"Easy to change the model if you need more performance, with good cohesion in the whole lineup of devices."
"Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process."
"It needs more available central management."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"Its customer service could be better."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is complicated to configure compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"The solution's licensing price could be improved."
"The support provided by the solution is not that good."
"Palo Alto should integrate artificial intelligence for security purposes in the background for well-known threats and new risks coming to the market."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved because it is an expensive solution."
"The web interface is slow."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining this process for smoother transitions."
"There is room for improvement in the threat protection, data packet inspection, and performance of the solution. Generally, it's just a lower-end product. It does the job but doesn't do it very well."
"Due to their lack of investment in marketing, channel development, and certifications, WatchGuard faces challenges in gaining visibility and market share, especially in regions like Pakistan."
"In terms of the reporting and management features — and this isn't necessarily a WatchGuard issue, this seems to be more of an industry-wide issue — you get reports, but a lot of times you don't know what you're looking at. You're so overwhelmed with the data. You're getting a lot of stuff that doesn't matter, so it takes time to parse through it, to actually get what you want to know."
"Once you start getting into proxy actions and setting up: "Okay, cool. Once this rule gets triggered, what actions have to happen?" I do know a few people who use WatchGuard and they still have to get assistance when they look at that. So I would file that as a con for WatchGuard. Proxy actions can be a little bit complicated."
"I would like to see more training become available for us."
"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."
"I believe there is a need for additional measures to connect mobile devices securely to the Firebox router."
"In WatchGuard Firebox, the antivirus and malware detection systems are areas with shortcomings that require improvement since they are the most important elements of a cybersecurity tool."
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 28 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. 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, Sophos XG, Juniper SRX Series Firewall 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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