Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Netgate pfSense vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series comparison

Sponsored
 

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)
Netgate pfSense
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
206
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
31
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 Netgate pfSense is 18.6%, down from 23.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is 0.3%, up from 0.0% 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…
Vincent Hamm - PeerSpot reviewer
I appreciate the depth of what the solution can do and the simplicity of the initial setup
We do a lot of managed services and are currently trying to get people off of L2TP VPN. Apparently, we can download a mobile config file from a configured NetGate device, and we're primarily Apple. We've experimented with it on a device that's not a production device, and we can't seem to get the phase one IPSec set correctly so that the Apple config will accept it. We've tried looking at the documentation but haven't found anything. While it's not the highest priority, it is rather frustrating. We'd like to do this, and the feature is right there, but we can't get it configured. We certainly don't want to try it on a production machine because it will break the current VPN. I would like to download the Apple mobile config so that I can tell it to configure my VPN connection to do that. We have some cross-platform things. So there's also a Windows VPN. You can download a script or a PowerShell, put it on a Windows machine, and it can connect to the VPN. It would be nice if I could say I want Mac only, Windows only, or both. I wish it could configure the IPSec phase one and phase two, or at least give me solid instructions on how to configure that. It doesn't supply out-of-the-box visibility to drive decisions. You get 75 log lines, so if you're trying to troubleshoot something, you have to look at one log and then another. It integrates with SysLog systems, but our customers are not at the level where they want to pay for some third-party SysLog system. Usually, we can get things taken care of fairly quickly. I would like to have the ability to control all my devices from one place. With Ubiquiti, you can get a controller that allows you to control all of your Wi-Fi devices, switches, and routers. From one area, you can switch to that customer and see what's happening in their environment. That's not part of pfSense. I understand why it's not because pfSense is open source and community supported. That's something that someone in the community needs to pick up and run with. It's not something the pfSense can easily implement. If they could, that'd be great.
Deminda Dilan - PeerSpot reviewer
Good for enterprise-level businesses and offers many features like URL filtering and antivirus capabilities
Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7. Currently, I don't think it's available. If they can improve that, it would be better. We wouldn't need to purchase a separate WAF solution because they already have advanced URL filtering. But I don't think that advanced URL filtering has the same features as a dedicated WAF, like F5 or other solutions. That is an area for improvement. If they can improve the WAF feature, customers won't have to buy a separate WAF solution. They could do it with the same Palo Alto firewall, perhaps through a subscription-based model. So the web application firewall feature has to be improved.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"It can expand easily."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"The technical support is great."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"The initial setup was simple and fast."
"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"Content protection, content inspection, and the application level firewall."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"It functions very well in data centers."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I like the tool's security and web filtering features."
"The solution is easy to manage."
"It offers a seamless transition from one option to another, making it exceptionally versatile and user-friendly in an enterprise setting."
"The documentation is great."
"Palo Alto Networks firewalls offer single-mode panel processing with live scanning."
"The reporting feature and application ID functionality within Palo Alto Networks PA-Series are incredibly valuable to us."
 

Cons

"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"​It needs to improve its ISP load balancing.​"
"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."
"​Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"The only thing that could be better is the hardware compatibility for LTE devices."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"We do not have a single pane of glass management."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"I saw there was a list of features at the bottom of product page, so I had to select the features I wanted, but I couldn't have all the features at the same time, and the website would prevent me from adding extra features, which actually was the cause for the order to fail."
"I would like a management console to manage multiple pfSense installs. We have five or six pfSense hardware devices installed. As far as I know, there is no single, unified pane of glass that I can use to manage multiple appliances. That's the one thing I wish I had, just having a good single unified configuration interface for each install."
"Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7."
"As we migrate fully into the cloud, additional features like capacity upgrading and improvements to hardware resources will be necessary, especially since our equipment consists of older-generation switches and routers."
"I experienced some problems with AWS cloud parameters connected to Palo Alto firewall."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is complicated to configure compared to one of its competitors."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"I had opened a case before with the tool because I could not create a wildcard for the security address. We can create wildcards for security addresses in Fortinet, but this feature doesn't exist in the product."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining this process for smoother transitions."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved because it is an expensive solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."
"The price could be lower."
"The price range is quite acceptable and normal."
"The price for the device and software is high. However, the solution is of good quality and has a lot of features."
"The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."
"I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable."
"Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"It is about €1,000. It is a one-time payment. I do not have a monthly or yearly subscription. I don't subscribe to any subscription because I hate cloud services. There are no additional costs."
"They have a free community version and a paid version. The free version works if you are a home user who needs a fixed cost, but that's not my use case."
"If you are a technical person, it is a pretty cheap solution because first of all, the Community Edition (CE) is free. I am in Australia, and my pfSense license is about 200 dollars. It is not bad because it is per year and not per month. It is cheap compared to other solutions."
"We just have a yearly support subscription."
"We are using the open-source version which is free. We are testing the solution to see if we are going to go to the enterprise version which requires a license and is not free."
"There are a few features not included, and when you have to use those features, you have to pay for them."
"The price of pfSense is on par with everything else. It depends on how big an appliance you buy and whether you're purchasing it directly from Netgate. Some rack-mounted systems are expensive—a couple thousand bucks. The one that I use at my house was $700."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The cost varies depending on the device model, with entry-level firewalls priced around $1,300 to $1,500, while higher-end models can reach prices of several hundred thousand dollars."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series's price is much higher than other firewall brands."
"The pricing is fair."
"The pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The prices are pretty high, definitely on the upper end."
"From my perspective, managing the price is important, especially because we're a small business. For larger organizations like Barclays, we provide our requirements to the client, and they place the order on BigFix. It's their responsibility to consider their budget and make decisions accordingly. We appreciate the features we get, but the cost-sharing still depends on the client."
"The solution's pricing is high compared to that of Cisco and Fortinet."
"Palo Alto is more expensive than FortiGate."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
20%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
10%
Comms Service Provider
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?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
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 ...
Help me find the best open source router
You don't really specify what type of router you are looking for but if you are talking about a gateway router I reco...
How do I choose between Fortinet FortiGate and pfSense?
Fortinet’s Fortigate is a firewall solution we use and are very much satisfied with its performance. We find Fortigat...
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 Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
The reporting feature and application ID functionality within Palo Alto Networks PA-Series are incredibly valuable to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
It's not cheap. In Sri Lanka, it's expensive compared to other firewalls. But considering the features and the potent...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7. Currently, I don't think it's available....
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Learn More

Video not available
Video not 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
Nerds On Site Inc., RKC Development Inc., Expertech, Fisher's Technology, Ncisive, Consulting, CPURX, Vaughn's Computer House Calls, Imeretech LLC, Digital Crisis, Carolina Digital Phone, Technigogo Technology Services, The Simple Solution, SwiftecITInc, Rocky Mountain Tech Team, Free Range Geeks, Alaska Computer Geeks, Lark Information Technology, Renaissance Systems Inc., Cutting Edge Computers, Caretech LLC, GoVanguard, Network Touch Ltd, P.C. Solutions.Net, Vision Voice and Data Systems LLC, Montgomery Technologies, Techforce, Concero Networks, ASONInc, CPS Electronics and Consulting, Darkwire.net LLC, IT Specialists, MBS-Net Inc., VOICE1 LLC, Advantage Networking Inc., Powerhouse Systems, Doxa Multimedia Inc., Pro Computer Service, Virtual IT Services, A&J Computers Inc., Envision IT LLC, CommunicaONE Inc., Bone Computer Inc., Amax Engineering Corporation, QPG Ltd. Co., IT 101 Inc., Perfect Cloud Solutions, Applied Technology Group Inc., The Digital Sun Group LLC, Firespring
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate pfSense vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
823,875 professionals have used our research since 2012.