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Netgate pfSense vs Sangfor NGAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025

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)
Netgate pfSense
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
214
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sangfor NGAF
Ranking in Firewalls
21st
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netgate pfSense is 15.2%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor NGAF is 1.2%, up from 0.8% 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.
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.
Zaid Farooqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced threat detection with integrated security features and good support
We are using application firewalling, WAF, and SD-WAN. The capabilities are mostly within the box. For example, you will get web application firewall WAF as part and parcel of this. SD-WAN is also bundled. It integrates with their SIEM and SOAR solutions very nicely. Lastly, the pricing point is very cost-efficient as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"Layer-3 firewall and routing are the most valuable features."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"FortiGate is more feature-rich and has a broader range of hardware. T"
"It's very easy to configure."
"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Good basic firewall features."
"The open-source nature of pfSense, paired with the amount of support we receive, has been great."
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"I like the versatility of pfSense. Compared to other products I have used for home and small businesses, this is the easiest to understand."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"An incomparable stability is achieved with other firewall systems."
"The capabilities are mostly within the box."
"I think Sangfor NGAF is more valuable than Cisco products because of its simplicity and ease of management. If I compare it with Palo Alto and Cisco, both are quite complex products. And if I compare it with FortiGate firewalls from Fortinet, I have also used all these products. Fortinet and Sangfor NGAF are similar products because the applications behind the application and policy layers are almost identical."
"It's a very simple to use product."
"So far, the performance and reliability of the product have supported our company's critical network traffic."
"The VPN connectivity feature is really nice."
"The stability of Sangfor NGAF is good."
"You might try Sangfor if you are on a tight budget. The price is affordable, and Sangfor offers a lot of features. We don't have any complaints about Sangfor."
"The most valuable features are the WAN optimization, the internet access gateway (IAG), and the central console, which allows us to implement on their firewall."
 

Cons

"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"The anti-malware engine could use an upgrade."
"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."
"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."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to 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."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"They should become more MSP-centric."
"I would like to see an additional wizard added to pfSense when you add some of their other packages. You can add a package from pfSense to do a particular task, but you need to be a product expert or willing to spend time on the Internet for hours and hours to figure out how to configure some of those features correctly."
"The overall documentation has room for improvement."
"It would be nice if the solution had a wizard for some of the complex functions."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"pfSense would be much more efficient if it allowed exporting the entire configuration of a device after it's been set up."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"We're doing a lot of OpenVPN tunnels, and some of the fields in the OpenVPN setup on the server side do not lend themselves to multiple sites. It's kind of ugly. It's a big list of allowed IP addresses. I'd much rather see that via the table individually."
"The GUI needs to be improved, lacks logic in some areas."
"It has an issue with the Sangfor Cloud Platform rather than the firewall. When we run a virtual machine, the window tabs display Chinese characters."
"The setup phase is quite complex."
"They need to increase the number of ports in the firewall."
"Sangfor has recently increased their prices."
"Our experience with its customer support was quite challenging."
"The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardware scalability, allowing for more storage and memory capacity."
"Sangfor could improve their interface capacity on the 5100 series model and upgrade their hardware from one gig to 10 gig. This would improve the overall throughput."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is fair."
"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."
"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."
"The pricing is perfect."
"FortiGate's pricing falls within the mid-range when compared to other leading firewall solutions."
"Pricing is lower than Cisco."
"In the Asian economy in which we operate, FortiGate is expensive."
"The price of the license and warranty can be better because it is very expensive."
"The licensing model needs improvement, especially for home users. There should be more flexibility to change licenses with hardware changes. The pricing model could be more accessible for home users."
"Netgate pfSense is competitively priced."
"I am using the free version of pfSense."
"We are using its Community Edition, which is free. My company is a government school, and we don't have much budget."
"This solution provides enterprise-level features at a fraction of the cost of an enterprise firewall."
"PfSense is reasonable for a business but a little pricey for home use. With the time savings and reliability, it pays for itself. I've been more than happy with the unit we've gotten here for the capacity we need. However, it'd be nice to have nice to have some nice home units that aren't a thousand dollars."
"The price point is highly competitive."
"Netgate pfSense offers good value for its price."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"-"
"We purchased one year technical support and return to factory support, and we also purchased one-year technical support services. So those were additional."
"The license of Sangfor NGAF can be purchased at different interval lengths, such as annually or three years. They offer a range of packages to choose from, such as combo or hybrid packages. We are using the complete solution package which includes IM, NGF and SSL VPN, and WAF."
"If you know you have around 200+ computer users on your network, then the Sangfor NGAF 5200-F-I model would be the minimum recommended model for that amount of users. This model includes modules for packet filtering, deep packet inspection, malware scanning, DSCP filtration, and many other features."
"The price falls in the mid-range, neither exceptionally low nor high."
"It is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"For four to five physical appliances for a licensed firewall, it costs approximately $4,000."
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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
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Educational Organization
7%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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How do I choose between Fortinet FortiGate and pfSense?
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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 Sangfor NGAF?
I think Sangfor NGAF is more valuable than Cisco products because of its simplicity and ease of management. If I comp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor NGAF?
The licensing cost is quite high compared to other available firewalls in the market.
What needs improvement with Sangfor NGAF?
The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardwa...
 

Also Known As

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

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
The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate pfSense vs. Sangfor NGAF and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
841,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.