We performed a comparison between FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) and Netgate pfSense 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."Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"Our project needs to link two sides through the internet. One of these was in Cairo and the other in another city. We used FortiGate as the integrating solution between the two locations, i.e. the Fortinet 30E & 100E."
"We can detect any attack of viruses or malware at the first point of contact."
"It is a scalable solution."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a simple configuration."
"It is a stable solution compared to other vendors."
"The scalability is very good."
"User identification and application identification are valuable features."
"The solution's application control is very powerful."
"The usability of the solution is its best feature."
"FortiGate NGF is simple compared to other firewalls. It is easy to use and you don't need any training. Any person with basic firewall knowledge can use it."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The redundancy and scalability ARE very nice."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"The solution needs to improve its support."
"FortiGate NGFW can improve technical support. The engineer who answers the technical support call, email, or phone call, whatever the medium may be. The response time is very bad."
"I see problems with the licensing. If I have to add a new feature, we need to add a license."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall's performance and threat intelligence could be improved."
"The product's data guard feature should support a USB port when the internet connection is unavailable."
"The vendors offer models with different levels of productivity of the product to its users, which is not possible in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW). It lacks integration options."
"One area for improvement is the IPS engine."
"The solution's stability should be improved because it is extremely unstable."
"The usage reports can be better."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
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FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is ranked 14th in Firewalls with 37 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is rated 8.4, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) writes "Easy to set up but needs better pricing and more helpful support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is most compared with OPNsense, Tailscale, Twingate, Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Google Cloud Platform Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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