We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Palo Alto Networks PA-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."The solution is scalable."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"The solution is very easy to use and configure."
"pfSense helped us during COVID-19 because we used OpenVPN to connect from home."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"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."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"The solution is robust."
"The product's initial setup process was simple."
"The solution is easy to manage."
"App-ID is a really good feature."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The product's most valuable feature is web filtering."
"The documentation is great."
"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."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"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."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"With Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, I find that the support team takes a long time to resolve the issues that a user may face during the use of the product."
"The web interface is slow."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining this process for smoother transitions."
"The product's high prices are an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Compared to other vendors, the solution's community should be strong enough to solve the problems engineers face."
"I encountered a slight issue with the application portal, which was not functioning correctly."
"As we migrate fully into the cloud, additional features like capacity upgrading and improvements to hardware resources will be necessary, especially since our equipment consists of older-generation switches and routers."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Palo Alto Networks PA-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 PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, SonicWall NSa, Sophos XG, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report.
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