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."We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"It is a safe product."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"I have found the most valuable features to be antivirus and malware protection."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The reporting feature and application ID functionality within Palo Alto Networks PA-Series are incredibly valuable to us."
"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."
"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced. It is almost 90% faster compared to other solutions."
"The solution is used for security and IoT security."
"The solution is easy to manage."
"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."
"The product's initial setup process was simple."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"The user interface could be improved."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"They've become quite expensive."
"It needs more available central management."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"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."
"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."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"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."
"The usage reports can be better."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"The SD-WAN feature of Palo Alto Networks is not good compared to FortiGate."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive. We would like to see additional threat hunting features."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"Palo Alto should integrate artificial intelligence for security purposes in the background for well-known threats and new risks coming to the market."
"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Currently, they are not protected with any data security when they work from home or outside the network. They surf the Internet directly and should implement a proxy or firewall to monitor the data between the endpoint and the internet."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is complicated to configure compared to one of its competitors."
"The solution's licensing price could be improved."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 17th 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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