We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and OPNsense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly regarded for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, and antivirus. Users also appreciate its user-friendly interface. OPNsense is notable for its scalability and ability to accommodate guest access. Its dashboards, IDS and IPS capabilities, and availability of a free version are also highlighted as valuable features.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM could benefit from enhancements in key activation, log management, IPsec failover, monitoring tools, hardening, availability, VPN connectivity, operating system stability, data center clustering, throughput, web application firewall integration, pricing model, troubleshooting forum, and guidance. OPNsense requires improvements in interface simplification, integration, DNS blocking, peer-blocking, installation, deployment, reporting, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: Fortinet FortiGate-VM's customer service has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers appreciate the support team's quick response times and expertise. However, others have faced challenges in obtaining prompt assistance and finding information easily. OPNsense has been commended for its exceptional support, rapid response times, and helpful guidance. Nonetheless, a few users have noted the lack of easy accessibility to the support service and have recommended the addition of an associated support service.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is typically simple. OPNsense is not overly complicated or difficult. FortiGate-VM may take more time for larger deployments, however, it provides a user-friendly installation and configuration experience. Clients can perform the OPNsense setup themselves, and it can be completed within a few hours.
Pricing: Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires licensing fees with no extra expenses. OPNsense, being open-source, doesn't require a license, however, hardware costs are involved.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers enhanced security and stability. Users consider its ROI to be highly satisfactory. OPNsense delivers a quick return on investment, typically within three months, and eliminates the need for ongoing fees.
Comparison Results: The analysis of user feedback indicates that Fortinet FortiGate-VM outperforms OPNsense in various aspects. Users highly value Fortinet FortiGate-VM for its robust security capabilities, user-friendly interface, effortless deployment, scalability, and extensive filtering options. Moreover, users appreciate the availability of support from Fortinet.
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"The product is quite user-friendly so we didn't have a lot of issues that needed to be addressed."
"Primarily, the VPN solution is most valuable. It allows you to have more flexibility in terms of what is there on the end-user device, and what is not there. You can check and make sure that they're current. It has more flexibility than just a straight VPN solution. It works really well. It has the features that 99% of people need."
"FortiGate-VM's firewall is excellent."
"It’s easy to integrate the solution with our network infrastructure."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is very easy to create the user of VPN, allowing them to use it quickly. Additionally, the integration and interface are good."
"The solution can scale well."
"It's a relatively simple product that is easy to use. It's not overly complex."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The solution has high availability."
"I have found the solution has some great features overall, such as guest access capabilities, dashboards, and ease of use. There is plenty of documentation and support and it has the plugins that I needed."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files."
"The GUI could be improved."
"It has a monitoring tool, but it could be improved."
"The solution's web-filtering configuration could be better."
"It should have the SD-WAN feature. This would increase the number of features that are available in the box."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"Some issues with connecting to the VPN from home after firmware updates."
"The interface of the solution could be improved."
"In the first two releases of FortiOS 5.6, we had some trouble with the SSL VPN service. Sometimes it stopped working, and the IPS daemon too."
"I would like to see better SD-WAN performance."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"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."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. OPNsense report.
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