We performed a comparison between FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) 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 reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"The setup is easy."
"Overall, I am satisfied with the product."
"The tool's most valuable feature is IPS. In my experience, I haven't encountered any issues with integration. It easily integrates with the FortiGate solution. However, verifying through documentation and assessing their support is necessary."
"The usability of the solution is its best feature."
"It is easy to install. There is not much complexity involved."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall can be described as the most complete solution."
"The scalability is very good."
"It is a very user-friendly solution. Moreover, Foritgate offers good performance."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"I see problems with the licensing. If I have to add a new feature, we need to add a license."
"I see room to explore its integration with Secure Service Automation for a more comprehensive security view."
"Being a great product, some changes in the pricing would make it a great choice for even more organizations."
"There is an area for improvement in vulnerability management."
"There have been several vulnerabilities in the firewall. It is hackable, some of the images are hackable."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall could be made a little less expensive."
"The product has to be upgraded every few weeks."
"The inability to change passwords when using FortiGate firewall and relying on a local FortiGate database for account creation can be problematic, particularly in non-Active Directory setups."
"It is not centrally managed, where you log into the website and can see all your services there. We would like to be able to see is all the configurations from a central interface on all our pfSenses."
"When I checked other packages, it seems they use different tools that are installed on the PSS for functionality. They rely on third-party tools, unlike Fortinet, for example, which has its own tools. In comparison, we also use third-party tools on pfSense. For example, we had a situation where we needed a tool to identify authorized users, and when I searched for a solution, I found a third-party tool. However, using such tools may come with additional costs."
"The security could be improved."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"The usage reports can be better."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"I tried pfSense, and it has a big issue with file system consistency, and this is what drove me to OPNsense. The file system stability is quite a big issue for us. We have a lot of outages related to power issues, and OPNsense is much more stable on this side."
More FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) Pricing and Cost Advice →
FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is ranked 14th in Firewalls with 37 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is rated 8.4, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) writes "Easy to set up but needs better pricing and more helpful support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is most compared with OPNsense, Tailscale, Twingate, Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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