We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: OPNsense is highly regarded for its ability to adapt and grow, its ability to allow guest access, its user-friendly interface, its versatility, its reliability, its intrusion detection and prevention system, and the availability of a free version. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls excel in their incorporation of machine learning, their ability to prevent attacks in real-time, their unified platform, and their robust security capabilities.
OPNsense has room for improvement in interface simplicity, bandwidth management, high availability, logging, integration, hardware updates, reporting, SSL inspection, and learning curve. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls can enhance customization, SD-WAN configuration, logging accuracy, management interface, documentation, VPN availability, training materials, external dynamic list feature, and internet filtering.
Service and Support: Some users find the customer service for OPNsense excellent, while others believe it could be enhanced. Opinions on Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' customer service are divided. Some customers appreciate the support team's expertise and promptness, while others have faced challenges in contacting support.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for both OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is described as straightforward. Users with or without IT experience can easily navigate through either setup. The deployment time for both options can vary depending on specific circumstances. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide training materials that contribute to the simplified and user-friendly setup experience.
Pricing: OPNsense primarily incurs expenses for hardware, while the software is available for free. Additional costs may involve public IPs and underlying VMs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are generally perceived as having higher pricing due to licensing and subscriptions. Nevertheless, this higher cost is deemed reasonable given the level of security and features offered by the product.
ROI: OPNsense delivers cost savings within a short period, eradicating the need for ongoing expenses. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls enhance visibility, reporting, and security, streamlining administration and ensuring a sense of security.
Comparison Results: Based on user feedback, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the preferred choice when compared to OPNsense. Users find the initial setup of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be straightforward and easy. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is highly regarded for its embedded machine learning capabilities, strong security features, and comprehensive logging.
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"It is a safe product."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"The technical support is very good."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly which makes the product easy-to-use."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"In general, its performance and ease of use are the most valuable. Its performance is good, stable, and reliable. The user interface is friendly and easy to use. Customers find it easy to work with and easy to learn."
"From my experience, comparing it to other products, the granularity you can have in the application is very good. The application detection is excellent. It's certainly one of the best."
"Innovative, advanced threat protection is the most valuable feature."
"I like the navigation of the general Panorama solution. I can easily navigate around and get to the thing I need. I'm not wasting time trying to find something."
"We utilize advanced threat prevention features like web filtering and SSL decryption, which haven't caused any issues."
"The most valuable feature is the security provided by the ATP."
"The stability of the product has been good over the years."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the network protection."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"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 capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"The solution could be more secure."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"The only area I can see for improvement is that Palo Alto should do more marketing."
"In terms of what could be improved, comparatively the price is very high. That would be the one thing."
"We're working with the entry-level appliances, so I don't know what the higher-end ones are like, however, on the entry-level models I would say commit speeds need to be improved."
"Interface could be improved visually and simplified."
"The level of control and granularity in terms of rule customization could be enhanced. However, compared to our previous solution, Palo Alto provides much better drill-down capabilities."
"Based on the features that I have seen so far, I do not see any room for improvement, but they can improve their CLI documentation. I haven't really seen much when it comes to CLI documentation."
"We are not happy with Palo Alto at all. It would be better if they provided more support for the firewall. We have a few pending issues with the configuration for each application. We cannot deploy them yet due to some support-related problems in the firewall. We have deployed a few policies for DNS spoofing and DNS attacks, but we could only block a few IP addresses through the policy. That's DNS security, and we have configured a few policies for DNS spoofing and more. URL categorization and URL filtering are not yet adequately maintained. For example, if you created a few rules in the rule-based configuration and made some rules downstairs, you will lose some of them if you give access upstairs. It's not giving us a proper solution for which route it is using. We need to apply the application-based policies and URL filtering-based policies. It creates more issues because we are not getting good support from the team."
"As part of our internet filtering, we integrate heavily with Active Directory, and we use security groups to separate staff into two groups: those who should have full access to the internet and those who should have limited access. It may be just the way the topology is for our domain controllers and that infrastructure, but at peak usage, there seems to be a delay in reading back against the security group to find out what group the user is in."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 164 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and Sophos XGS, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Sophos UTM. See our OPNsense vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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