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Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
27th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (11th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (19th), IoT Security (5th), WAN Edge (12th)
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.5%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda CloudGen Firewall is 0.4%, down from 0.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 14.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
Ruud Jansen - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides a high level of security; have not had any issues with it thus far
I would like to see the connection improved. We now have a one gigabyte connection and the old firewall has 500 MBs. That's not enough, which is why we are also buying a new firewall for at least one gigabit, which will give us a faster line and faster internet. In the next release, I'd like to see more security for viruses and similar things and also block DDOS.
Eddy Ramirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use
The security has improved as we can isolate the network. We can do attrition prevention via a tool that comes with the solution. We can have a VPN solution in place for those that work from home, outside the network, in a secure manner. We also like that it offers good authentication. It offers radius-based authentication, which has been useful for the company. The main platform is under the Open VPN firewall. The solution has high availability. When we have different ISPs, we can actually load balance those links or actually put some priority or even classify the traffic that might go into one ISP or another.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"The solution is scalable."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The performance is good."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"If an employee tries to get or move a file that is not permitted to them - for example if he wants to copy it to a USB - he will not have the right to do that, because Barracuda manages who has the right to copy, and what you copy to a USB. The USB is encrypted with a specific code from Barracuda and will only be decrypted into any other laptop in the company if they allow it to see it."
"Add-on features such as Virus Scanning, ATP, and web filtering add another level of protection and block malware before it gets to the end user."
"When you are sending information to an external email address, Barracuda can warn you when you are trying to access a private or personal email, or trying to upload information and not allow you to do that."
"Easy integration with some other systems like LDAP or Active Directory to manage other permissions and the division of external access and internal access."
"What I like best about this product are the support and the features."
"One of the big benefits of the product is that it allows you to manage big environments with fewer resources."
"The features I find most valuable is the VPN and the fact that we can apply our policies to the program."
"Since implementing the Barracuda CloudGen Firewall, we've seen significant benefits, particularly in stopping a lot of unnecessary or dangerous emails. One key feature we value is the ability to train the solution with emails categorized as threats, giving it a learning capacity."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"I feel that its valuable features are that it is simple and free."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
 

Cons

"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"​Sometimes we have a need for detailed reports. Barracuda NG Firewall does not have a reports module and uses a satellite application."
"The features are a bit limited compared to other vendors."
"A rule for email announcements, when configured hits occur, would be a great improvement for a more efficient experience."
"Can be underpowered if you choose to use all available add-on features. Just be careful when sizing your unit. Make sure you take into account what features you will be turning on, and work with your sales rep to get the model that can handle that load."
"We would like to see a solution that is focused on container deployment, which is very important right now."
"The biggest issue that I have with this solution is that it is not super intuitive. Once you know what to do, things make sense, but you can't just open the program and start doing things. It would be great if there was a little bit more guided usage inside the program."
"It's a little bit complex in terms of handling. If you implement a change, there is a specific point where you have to commit it. It's not like you just push a button and it's always committed. If you don't know to check whether your commit command has been executed or not... that is something Barracuda needs to work on."
"The technical manuals, at times, have images that don't match the actual screens and are not always as clear as they could be on the configuration."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"It's an expensive solution."
"The license is too expensive to renew. The license renewal process is also complex."
"The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
"Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable for an SME."
"It is a product with a very transparent model of licensing. In the sense of hidden expenses, they do not exist with this model. ​"
"The 600 series is about USD $10,000 a year and the 80 is USD $400 a year."
"The pricing is very cheap compared to Cisco ASA, which we used before, and compared to Palo Alto Networks and Fortinet. Barracuda has different solutions for different people. So for my SMB-level infrastructure, Barracuda has given me a proper solution that is half of the price of Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"Purchasing through AWS Marketplace was good. We did it because it was easy."
"It's not the most expensive, but it's certainly not cheap."
"In general, it tends to be cheaper than most solutions."
"Pricing is good. Licensing is pretty much automatic if using Control Center."
"The product is a bit cheaper than some solutions."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
"I've used the free version. My computer with two network cards at home allows me to try as many different software options as I want. I did pay for the license, but it was for the Zenarmor license, which is the packet inspection tool. They use AI for packet inspection, which integrates with OPNsense and pfSense."
"OPNsense is a well known open-source tool."
"We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us."
"We are using the paid version."
"Its pricing is unbeatable in comparison to other firewalls. You can have a small instance that could be €80 a month with the hardware underneath. Azure Firewall and FortiGate are out of the question at this price. If you are on a public cloud, you need the underlying infrastructure. Other than that, there is no additional cost. If you have it on-prem, you have to buy the server or the appliance. The hardware cost is replaced with the infrastructure cost in the cloud. You also have costs for the public IPs and underlying VMs, but that's not related to OPNsense. It would be the same for a FortiGate deployment on Azure. You need a FortiGate license, and you need the underlying infrastructure that scales up depending on your needs."
"I'm using the free version of OPNsense. I didn't check the pricing for the solution because I still need to test it before getting the approval to purchase OPNsense, and it isn't easy to get approval from the higher-ups."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Government
8%
Construction Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
The encryption and the security standards are valuable.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
When the corporation purchases something, it follows a request-for-proposal process and the best price wins. So, I th...
What needs improvement with Barracuda CloudGen Firewall?
However, the solution isn’t perfect. It sometimes lets through emails incorrectlycategorized as safe but malicious. I...
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products. However, as a free firewall p...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Barracuda NextGen Firewall, Barracuda CloudGen Firewalls
No data available
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
ARZ, Bauer, CBCX Technologies, Diamant-groep, Eissmann Group Automotive, European Youth Olympics, Exalo Drilling, FineLine Technologies, Geocell, Grimaldi, Infront Sports & Media, Odlo, Schenker Deutschland AG, Tilak, Verbandsgeneinde Zell, Conservas El Cidacos S.A., Institute for Emergency Medicine and Medicine Management, Erwin Muller GmbH, Info-Tech: NGF is Champion, Schoellerbank, IZB Informatik-Zentrum, RHI AG, Berglandmilch, Antenne Bayern, Sanochemia
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. OPNsense and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.