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Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall vs OPNsense comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
318
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Forcepoint Next Generation ...
Ranking in Firewalls
31st
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), 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 February 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.7%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 13.3%, down from 17.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. 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. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
OusaidAbaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides decent protection for the LAN but complicated interface
We had some licensing issues with its web filtering capabilities. That's why we migrated our web filtering to Cisco Umbrella. Moreover, the interface is complicated. It's difficult to locate all the necessary menus and functions. For example, one of the many issues is with SSH. Even now, we haven't successfully opened the port to connect using SSH mode when we want to change the configuration. It's like a black box—not very open to changes and customization. It's simply not easy to configure. There are other problems, too. For example regarding Forcepoint's Websense component. We had a lot of problems managing the web settings within Websense. That's why we migrated to Cisco Umbrella for cloud-based web filtering. It's not that Forcepoint is inherently bad. The issue is that it's not user-friendly. It is not easy to use. The developers need to redesign the interface (GUI) for better management. It is very difficult to manage. For example, simple actions require too many clicks compared to FortiGate or Palo Alto. That's the main problem.
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

"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"Next Generation Firewall's best feature is that it can be managed on one platform."
"The blocking, based on the signal provided, is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"I like the Firewall and the IPS."
"We find the product to be stable and reliable in terms of performance."
"One of the most valuable features is having the ability to cluster multiple firewalls even if they are different versions."
"I found the initial setup process to be very simple and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is SD-WAN."
"It is stable and scalable. In addition, their support is great. When you ask them for something, they provide support, and if required, they also involve the R&D team to help you to resolve the issues in your configuration."
"I mostly rely on the solution's network intrusion detection and prevention system, along with other systems, CMs, and log management."
"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."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"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."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
 

Cons

"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"The interface is complicated. It's difficult to locate all the necessary menus and functions."
"Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall could change its interface, allowing standard or direct connect modes to be configured."
"The endpoint protection capabilities of the product are an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Management could be better. They can improve the management. I think all our customers can't accept firewalls that have standalone management. So, they prefer Fortinet or Palo Alto. But overall, inspection and other features are working fine."
"They need to improve their alerts."
"The optimization is not really ready. If you want very good optimization, you have to add it to the network."
"Next Generation Firewall's configuration could be improved."
"The solution's support could use improvement."
"The reporting part could be better."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"OPNsense struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic, indicating scalability issues in that specific use case."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."
"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."
"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."
"The initial setup is super straight forward and as far as the licensing goes for the small product that we have, the pricing was pretty competitive. It wasn't as simple and as cheap as a SonicWall but for the service we would get it was a good price."
"It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."
"Pricing is lower than Cisco."
"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."
"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us."
"I believe the licensing fee is for one year, three years, and five years, or something like that. If you wants to increase the support level from a simpler level to platinum, I think that there's a cost. There are differences between every kind of support, but I don't know the numbers."
"There is a license required to use this solution and we can purchase it for one, two, three, or five years."
"The cost is fair, but it could be improved."
"Everything in Forcepoint comes with an individual license, which is kind of a problem. In our last meeting, they said that it may change at the beginning of 2021, and they will try to merge some licenses together. Customers will get more features than what they got previously. We will wait and see."
"Forcepoint is very expensive but it's really secure."
"The big advantage of this solution is that we can select the right model for our requirements, which is not too expensive."
"It requires a yearly subscription."
"The training that they offer to their end-customers. It's quite expensive, I believe it costs roughly $11,000"
"We are using the paid version."
"OPNsense is an open-source solution and it is free to use."
"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."
"It is free."
"OPNsense is open source software so at this time it is free for us to use."
"It is a free solution, and when you compare it to alternatives like FortiGate, which is quite powerful but also costly, the value becomes evident."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us."
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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
18%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
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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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall?
There is a need to make payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The product is not expensive.
What needs improvement with Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall?
My experience with this Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall wasn't very pleasant due to its complexity. For example, ...
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
Forcepoint NGFW, Stonesoft Next Generation Firewall, McAfee Network Security Platform, Intel Security Network Security Platform
No data available
 

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
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
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 Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall vs. OPNsense and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,640 professionals have used our research since 2012.