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Sangfor NGAF vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 5, 2025
 

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)
Sangfor NGAF
Ranking in Firewalls
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Firewalls
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
85
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th)
 

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…
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.
CarlosArdila - PeerSpot reviewer
Serves as the main firewall for customers' premises and data centers
The initial setup is straightforward. You can deploy it on-premises or using the cloud. If you configure the device to connect to the cloud, you can deploy the Firebox based on templates. You can add a template for a specific client and deploy it for a particular use case. For example, if you're setting it up for a restaurant or a cafe, you can have templates tailored for those businesses. This significantly reduces deployment time, especially if you have several customers of the same type of business. One person is enough for the solution's deployment, but it will run in less than an hour. A network security engineer meets with clients to gather configuration requirements. He prepares a configuration template before the implementation. When he arrives at the site, he turns on the device, applies the template, tests everything, and then migrates the settings from the existing router or firewall to the Firebox.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"We've found the technical support to be helpful."
"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 product is very fast and reliable."
"The tool's performance is good."
"The top functionality is the reporting feature."
"The absolute best part of Sangfor NGAF is their support. It's a 24/7 support channel, and the last time I requested their assistance I got a reply within three minutes. They helped solve the problem immediately."
"Technical support is very good."
"Sangfor's tech features and technologies are more powerful than those of the other solution providers in terms of security. They also have big solutions in terms of cybersecurity."
"If you just plan to use WatchGuard Firebox in your office and not publicly, then it is okay to purchase it. With WatchGuard Firebox, you can manage your users and permissions while also taking care of the basic setup phase in your office."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is the VPN. It's easy to connect to the VPN."
"It protects me against malicious websites, as well as malicious downloads, as a perimeter anti-virus. I've also seen it blocking a lot of pings and different probes."
"If there is any conflict, the reporting feature will kick out all types of information, which is great."
"The main features of the solution are the control of the site-to-site network access and the overall features."
"Because we bought two firewalls... we need a central place to manage the policies and deploy them to both devices. It's good that it provides a system management console that is able to manipulate and manage policies in one place and deploy them to different locations."
"It also provides us with layered security. It has onboard virus scanning features that allow it to scan before something gets to the host. It will also stop a person from going to a site that is known to be bad."
"Easy to change the model if you need more performance, with good cohesion in the whole lineup of devices."
 

Cons

"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"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."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"I would be happy if Sangfor developed a firewall designed specifically for home use, as well as for small businesses such as clinics and so on. A household version of the Sangfor firewall for your personal computer or laptop would be ideal, in my opinion."
"I believe that IAM and NGFW need to merge into a single box, instead of there being two separate box solutions."
"The tool's support is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There is room for improvement in dependency on certain infrastructure, like the DNS dependency on the current DNS server that the company has. It should be standalone. It should not depend on any other DNS server."
"Sangfor could improve by providing better real-time reporting, as the current reports don't offer the level of detail we need, especially for runtime insights."
"Sangfor NGAF could improve by refining its application control policies, especially in addressing challenges with certain types of applications."
"The GUI needs to be improved, lacks logic in some areas."
"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."
"In WatchGuard Firebox, the antivirus and malware detection systems are areas with shortcomings that require improvement since they are the most important elements of a cybersecurity tool."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"The software base, the management piece that goes onto a server, is not as user-friendly as I would like. There are three different pieces that you have to manage, so it's a little bit convoluted, in my opinion."
"Cloud-based central administration of all devices from one point would be nice"
"It's very difficult to find a reseller of WatchGuard Firebox to purchase a license"
"The scalability of the solution needs improvement."
"Sometimes, the writing rules are a little confusing in how am I doing them."
"I would like to see the devices made more flexible by adding modules to increase the ports that we can use."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"They are very competitive, but we like to have the factory warranty taken care of."
"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."
"Fortinet has more device options that are affordable for small businesses than Palo Alto, and its enterprise-level models are also cheaper. Palo Alto also has a separate license for VPN connections and SD-WAN, but FortiGate offers these features standard."
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
"The product pricing is reasonable."
"Its pricing is competitive with other solutions."
"The product is very cost-effective compared to other brands or vendors."
"Price-wise, I would not consider Sangfor NGAF to be a cheap product. It is an expensive firewall solution, though not as expensive as something like Palo Alto, which is costly. However, the higher price point is justifiable given the feature set the tool provides that other firewalls may not offer in a single dedicated appliance."
"It costs about 8 to 10 thousand dollars per year for 500 users, standard licensing fees included."
"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 pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"Sangfor NGAF price is reasonable and there is an annual license. However, the maintenance cost can be a bit high."
"The price falls in the mid-range, neither exceptionally low nor high."
"The solution's most valuable feature is its pricing."
"I spent $600 or $800 on this product and I'm paying a couple of hundred dollars a year in a subscription service to keep the lights on, on it... It works out to $100 or $200 a year if you buy several years at once. It's fair."
"Their price point worked, which is the reason why we stayed with WatchGuard."
"Firebox is priced reasonably."
"It's an affordable tool"
"It has a very good price. It is not the most expensive one, and it is also not the cheapest one. It is just spot-on in terms of price."
"WatchGuard Firebox has good quality, but it is expensive."
"WatchGuard had a very competitive price. It was only 10 to 20 percent more than a single instance device but with that extra cost it provided a second load balancing device... unlike other brands whose method of hardware and software licensing would have doubled our cost."
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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
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Hospitality Company
6%
Educational Organization
6%
 

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 ...
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...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Sangfor NGAF Firewall 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
The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Sangfor NGAF vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
825,609 professionals have used our research since 2012.