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Netgate pfSense vs Trellix Network Detection and Response comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Fortinet FortiGate offers cost-effective security and performance improvements, boosting user productivity and reducing operational costs.
Sentiment score
7.4
Netgate pfSense offers high ROI by reducing costs with older hardware and replacing expensive systems without sacrificing functionality.
Sentiment score
8.5
Trellix Network Detection and Response exceeded expectations by improving threat prevention and detection, boosting productivity and reducing response times.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
We have experienced a positive return on investment by utilizing Fortinet's products.
There's definitely an ROI. Having a centralized way of managing and applying policies across the entire organization always helps.
If they can save their data from attackers then it would save them at least two days of not working plus the cost of recovery, which would be much more than the cost of the system and maintenance.
Since the memory leak fixes, it's been incredibly stable and requires minimal maintenance.
In four years of using it, that payment of 189 dollars per year has already paid off.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Fortinet FortiGate's support varies; praised for responsiveness but criticized for delays, with location impacting experiences and documentation praised.
Sentiment score
8.0
Netgate pfSense offers highly-rated support, yet many users prefer community forums and documentation for troubleshooting over direct help.
Sentiment score
6.8
Trellix's support is praised for responsiveness, but improvements in expertise and incident response promptness are suggested by some.
He explained that it required a command line configuration, as it couldn't be done through the graphical user interface.
I would rate their support for FortiGate a nine out of ten.
They offer very accurate solutions.
When I provide detailed information about the problem, they've been able to reply quickly with a solution or go research the problem and get back to us quickly with a fix.
They are highly responsive.
I couldn't imagine having better support.
Technical support needs improvement as sometimes engineers are not available promptly, especially during high-severity incidents.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Fortinet FortiGate is scalable and flexible, but may require hardware changes and face integration issues with other vendors.
Sentiment score
7.0
Netgate pfSense is scalable for small to medium enterprises, offering flexible deployment, but hardware limitations affect larger expansions.
Sentiment score
7.8
Trellix Network Detection and Response scales effectively in various industries, performing well in large enterprises without latency issues.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
You can choose a cheaper model if you only have 20-30 users, but you will need to spend more money for a FortiGate solution that covers 5,000.
If I put things into a certain context and say that we have a network that has around 100 people, then you don't put up a device that can manage 100 people. Instead, you need to get a device that can manage 150 to 200 people, and then you can create room for growth.
I don't think Netgate pfSense can offer much scalability for big enterprises.
Even with a jump from a 50 megabit to a 500 megabit internet connection and approximately 65 active VPN clients, our firewall operates smoothly without any strain.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiGate is generally stable and reliable, though firmware updates and resource intensity may temporarily affect performance.
Sentiment score
6.8
Netgate pfSense is stable and reliable, with issues usually due to hardware, managed glitches, and improved high availability.
Sentiment score
7.7
Trellix Network Detection and Response is stable and reliable, with consistent performance and high user satisfaction despite occasional minor issues.
Improper handling of these can lead to a memory surge, a well-known bug that can cause the entire system to freeze.
It is less stable than Palo Alto Networks and Check Point firewalls because there are lots of bugs in the latest firmware.
We have not had any problems with the operating systems or maintenance of subscriptions.
I rate the solution's stability a ten out of ten.
I've noticed a substantial improvement in stability and ease of use for upgrades and patching over the past year or two.
When I replace consumer routers with pfSense for small businesses with two or three employees, they are often amazed to discover the router can run for a year without a reboot.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate needs enhancements in stability, interface, pricing, VPN performance, third-party integration, and technical support.
Netgate pfSense needs user interface improvements, enhanced security, better plugin compatibility, and centralized management for streamlined operations.
Trellix Network Detection needs improved customization, integration, AI capabilities, support services, and a more user-friendly interface at reduced pricing.
If I have put 10 GBPS of throughput on a firewall and I enable all of these features available, such as IPS or UTM functionalities, the throughput comes down to 1 GBPS.
By providing an integrated solution, users would have access to all features and functionalities within a single window, eliminating the need to navigate through multiple windows.
Investing in a solution that can accommodate such growth would be more cost-effective than repeatedly purchasing new hardware.
There is some trade-off between having a certain level of security and maintaining acceptable performance.
If I need to go between different VLANs, I have VLAN 19.1 and VLAN 19.2, and I strictly use Netgate pfSense, but it doesn't route very efficiently and works quite slowly.
They should support the idea of configuration management as code from source code and provide a more robust API for managing the pfSense configuration.
There should be improvements in AI intelligence, faster decision-making, and a more responsive technical support team.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate is cost-effective, offers flexible licensing, and includes most features with straightforward pricing despite some high renewal costs.
Netgate pfSense offers flexible, cost-effective solutions appealing to businesses with scalable pricing, including a free version and affordable licensed support.
Trellix Network Detection is costly but effective, with yearly licensing, discounts, and competitive pricing against some competitors like Palo Alto.
Secure SD-WAN is free of charge.
The most expensive part is the renewal of the license subscription.
FortiGate is priced lower than Palo Alto.
The price of setup is approximately €500 to €800, which also includes the initial monitoring.
You can acquire a decent embedded PC for around a hundred dollars and install pfSense on it, effectively creating a robust firewall solution.
The product is free of cost.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate offers robust security and management features, valued for ease of use, cost-effectiveness, and consistent performance.
Netgate pfSense is lauded for its security, flexibility, open-source reliability, and cost-effective, scalable VPN capabilities and customization options.
Trellix excels in threat protection with AI-driven analysis, automation, and enhanced visibility, benefiting security operations and incident management.
The firewall, IPS, and VPN functions are the most valuable features.
FortiGate provides solid protection against viruses, malware, and other threats.
Within the same dashboard, you get to see the security profiles, the type of traffic that's passing through, the top applications that are being consumed, etc.
With pfSense, network configurations adhere to standard practices, facilitating troubleshooting without the need for complex overlays or policies.
The price point is the most valuable aspect of the solution.
I like the tool's flexibility in the sense that you do not have to buy an appliance. You can put it on your own hardware, and it can be very simplistic hardware with simple configurations.
Trellix NDR provides an essential defense by automatically responding to network incidents that firewalls may not catch.
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
328
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (2nd), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Netgate pfSense
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (1st)
Trellix Network Detection a...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (14th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

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.
BiswabhanuPanda - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers in-depth investigation capabilities, integrates well and smoothly transitioned from a lower-capacity appliance to a higher one
The in-depth investigation capabilities are a major advantage. When the system flags something as malicious, it provides a packet capture of that activity within the environment. That helps my team quickly identify additional context that most other tools wouldn't offer – like source IP or base64 encoded data. We can also see DNS requests and other details that aren't readily available in solutions like Check Point or others that we've tried. The detection itself is solid, and their sandboxing is powerful. There's a learning curve – you need a strong grasp of OS-level changes, process forking, registry changes, and the potential impact of those. But with that knowledge, the level of information Trellix provides is far greater than what we've seen elsewhere. The real-time response capability of Trellix has been quite effective, although it's not very fast. The key is this solution's concept of 'preference zero.' They don't immediately act on a zero-day. For example, the solution has seen a piece of malware for the first time. It'll let it in, then do sandboxing. Maybe after four or five minutes, it identifies that specific file's DNX Secure Store as malicious. At that point, they update the static analysis engine, and it gets detected if anything else tries to download the same file. There is that initial 'preference zero' concept, like with Panda. You may not hold traffic in the network. That's standard in the industry; we don't do much about it. To address that, we also have endpoint solutions. We use SentinelOne in our environment, which helps us identify threats like Western Bureaus and others.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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What needs improvement with FireEye Network Security?
The Trellix solution could be improved by enhancing the Central Management Console for faster visibility, which would...
 

Also Known As

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

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
FFRDC, Finansbank, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Investis, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Bank of Thailand, City of Miramar, Citizens National Bank, D-Wave Systems
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls. Updated: March 2025.
848,989 professionals have used our research since 2012.