We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is appreciated for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and robust assistance. It provides functionalities like site-to-site VPN, firewall security, and routing capabilities. pfSense is highly regarded for its capacity to obstruct IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source characteristics. It offers features such as secure VPN connections, scanning, filtering, and network security capabilities.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall could use enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. pfSense would benefit from improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, centralized management, GUI for SMBs, sandboxing, security, hardware support, user-friendliness, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have generally praised Juniper SRX Series Firewall's customer service for being helpful and knowledgeable, despite occasional slower response times. pfSense's customer service varies among users, with some having positive experiences with technical support and others relying on clear documentation and community resources.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be done within a day for smaller branch offices, whereas pfSense be set up in just 15 minutes. Juniper may demand familiarity with CLI, while pfSense is commonly referred to as being easy to use.
Pricing: Juniper has extra charges for advanced security features and APS, whereas pfSense provides updates without any additional fees. The specific licensing costs for pfSense are not clearly stated.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides advanced security features and reliable performance, leading to a favorable return on investment. pfSense stands out for its affordability, minimal management expenses, and substantial hardware cost savings. Users also emphasize its superior ROI compared to pricier alternatives such as FortiGate.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product over pfSense. Users appreciate its simplicity, intuitive interface, reliability, scalability, and exceptional customer support. It offers convenient configuration, site-to-site VPN capabilities, and effective firewall protection. Additionally, Juniper SRX Series Firewall is considered a more cost-effective and secure solution.
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"The response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"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."
"What I like the most about Juniper is that they have the same CLI on all routers, switches, and firewalls. If you have worked with any Juniper device, such as a Juniper router, you will be able to work with an SRX, which is really cool. It is a nice experience to work with every device of Juniper, not only firewalls."
"It's a reliable firewall and very stable, for both the hardware and applications it is stable."
"We mostly use the Layer 4 firewall functions: Access rules, NAT, and site-to-site IPsec VPN."
"vSRX is easy to deploy to any virtual infrastructure, such as OpenStack, VMware, and even Docker (cSRX)."
"The security features and the model collection are the most valuable."
"Juniper is one of the most powerful network security solutions while remaining simple to use, set up, and scale."
"Juniper supports their products very well."
"The solution is relatively easy and inexpensive to maintain."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"Stability has been excellent. We have experienced no issues; it never fails."
"This solution has increased the level of security, given us more control, provided a deep insight into network traffic, and is a great VPN solution."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"The solution lacks multi-language support."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"I would like to see endpoint control and endpoint testing security."
"The GUI needs improvement."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"Juniper SRX is stable, but it could improve. FortiGate has better stability than Juniper SRX."
"This solution needs to update for "Next Generation" needs."
"The solution's configurations and syntax are specific and more complicated than other platforms."
"The CPU switch could be improved for a better overall performance of traffic flow."
"We purchased three devices and all three have been replaced under RMA."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"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."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"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 solution’s interface must be improved."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 87 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl and Sophos UTM. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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