We performed a comparison between pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Both products received high marks from reviewers, but WatchGuard ultimately won out in this comparison. According to reviews, WatchGuard appears to be a more secure solution.
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"It is a stable solution. It is also easy to install and can be deployed and maintained by one team member."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"pfSense helped us during COVID-19 because we used OpenVPN to connect from home."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"After conducting several tests I found the antivirus is working very well. Additionally, they have a very interesting feature, DNS WatchGuard, which is checking DNS requests for phishing, among other things, and it has caught a lot of unwanted attempts and attacks."
"The firewall aspect and the branch office VPNs are the most valuable features... We don't have any issues with it. We don't have to spend a lot of time maintaining it."
"WatchGuard has a very easy VPN and branch office VPN setup, so we use those pretty extensively."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is its ease of use."
"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using NetApp System Manager on Window since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom."
"I like intrusion detection the most."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"Could be simplified for new users."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"In WatchGuard Firebox, the antivirus and malware detection systems are areas with shortcomings that require improvement since they are the most important elements of a cybersecurity tool."
"There's always room for improvement, especially if the threats are getting more sophisticated and the IT department cannot sufficiently meet this kind of sophistication with their own knowledge and experience. Knowing that this solution can get up to the level of addressing a lot of these threats is something that everybody wishes for. If we look at the dark web and the lawful web, they are two opposites, and if these two good and bad collide in the world of the internet, you want the best possible product—especially if you cannot get to that point of knowledge. I am just an individual and end user, with limited knowledge of usage. That's why I say there's always room for improvement, from their side and also from mine, because by knowing exactly what they can achieve and the knowledge that they can get on an everyday basis, and the portion that is understandable to me, it's an improvement for them as well."
"WatchGuard Firebox could improve the speed of updates, such as new features or improvements. However, they are frequently improving the solution in many areas, such as geo-locations, definitions, and web blocking."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"Reporting is something you've got to set up separately. It's one of those things that you've got to put some time into. One of the options is to set up a local report server, which is what I did. It's not great. It's okay... Some of the stuff is a little complicated to get up and running. Once you do, it becomes very user-friendly and easy to work with, but I find there are some implementation headaches with some of their stuff."
"The VPN aspect of the WatchGuard Firebox is an area that could potentially benefit from improvement. We encountered difficulties while attempting to integrate Windows 11 laptops into the system, which resulted in unreliable connections. After some research, we discovered that this was primarily due to compatibility issues with Windows 11 and required a patch. However, it was still a challenge as it seemed that even when we tried to keep the laptops on Windows 10, they still exhibited the same issues as Windows 11 machines. Despite WatchGuard attributing the problem to Microsoft, we were eventually able to find a solution and all the machines are now functioning seamlessly."
"The UI and web view aren't nice."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. 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 WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and SonicWall TZ, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors and best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.