WatchGuard Firebox Reviews

Watchguard Firebox is easy to use and easy to configure.

The reporting could use improvement, because most of the firewalls available in the market come with the reporting built-in, with the memory and the hard disk capacity and all. With WatchGuard, the models we use, none of them support that part. 

I have been using this solution for over 10 years.

It's really good for X and B level organizations due to the cost and the features. As a medium-level businesses, we are satisfied. 

We have a regional office in Hong Kong, and our director and the owner of the company lives there. He prefers this solution so both companies can have the same product. That makes it great for negotiation and troubleshooting.

The initial setup was straightforward. 

We use a local vendor, Blue Chip Sri Lanka, who is very good. 

Our license is for a three year subscription. 

I evaluated Sophos, but the cost was a little bit higher than this solution, so we went with this one instead. 

I rate this solution a 10 out of 10. 

When choosing a product, make sure you understand your organizations requirements. Whatever the product you choose should ultimately match with your organization's number of users plus maintenance costs. 

We are not currently using this solution. Rather, we are reselling, and I have implemented these systems.

The most recent one I implemented was an M200 model that was being used as a gateway firewall to control their internet usage, primarily for URL filtering.

The reports are detailed. Rather than showing the IP address for a query, such as "who is the most active internet user", it will show their name and the specific activities that he or she is browsing on the internet.

The most valuable feature is the Active Directory integration. WatchGuard is very easy to integrate with. The URL filtering is ok, but instead of filtering by IP addresses I usually set up filtering through Active Directory user profiles.

I can import the users directly from Active Directory and create a space for a certain user or a certain group. This is something that is great because I have a lot of trouble setting this up with other products.

I also liked a new feature, the WatchGuard TDR (Threat Detection and Response). This reports malware activity to the cloud.

This solution needs the option to add an external hard drive. The competitors have this. With WatchGuard, you have to get another server, set it up, and then point it to WatchGuard. That is where the logs will be stored.

Some find this tedious because they have to get another server, although I find it advantageous because there is no hard drive needed. It removes another point of failure. In any case, if the customer wants an external hard drive then it would give them the option.

I saw a feature in Cisco that was a historical trajectory of the files, or sets, moving in the network. I would like to see them include this feature in the next release of the TDR.

So far, the solution is stable.

I have two customers who have experienced problems due to a storm. An electrical surge came through the internet line and caused damage to the port. This had nothing to do with the stability of the product itself.

In terms of updates, it is one of the easiest firewalls to update. I just download the latest one and let it work until it reboots.

In the company where the M200 was implemented, they have fifty users.  

Whenever I have a problem I contact the technical support and I normally have to wait at least a day for them to respond. I have opened approximately twenty tickets, and so far, all of them have been resolved.

We used an older model of the WatchGuard solution, the T50 e-series, but we have replaced it. We received a discount on a bigger unit from Fortinet. However, we recently sold a WatchGuard M200 and I had the opportunity to use the product. Comparing what I see now to what it was before, there are a lot of good changes. Not so many in the GUI, so there is familiarity there, but I think that it is faster now.

My customer for this solution did not previously have a firewall. It was just an open internet router.

The initial setup is very easy for somebody who knows the product, so I can't say that it is complex. For someone who is new to the product, of course, they would find it intimidating at first.

The deployment took three days, with the third day being the turnover. I had to train them on how to use it. The first two days were spent setting it up.

One IT person handles maintenance for the solution, just for secondary support.

I took care of the deployment for our customer.

The subscription that was purchased is for three years but it is usually for one year at a time. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

My customer was looking into Sohpos, but because the budget was drained they opted for WatchGuard. It was a cheaper solution.

Based on the reactions from people who I have implemented this solution for, some of them find it difficult to use before they get used to the interface. At the same time, if they later move to another product then they say that WatchGuard is simpler.

I keep hearing that WatchGuard is quite marginal because it is not listed as a leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant. It is listed under Visionary. For a firewall product, I do think that it's a leader. It doesn't cost a lot compared to Cisco, Palo Alto, or others. I think that WatchGuard is good enough.

I would rate this product eight and a half out of ten.

I’m a reseller. The solution is among the top-three solutions in our portfolio.

WebBlocker, because it has the best URL category database ever.

Make WatchGuard Firebox capable of integrating with third-party vendors like FireMon, Splunk, Tenable, etc.

No issues with stability.

Excellent.

Easy.

Cheap.

I rate it 10 out of 10 because it is easy to deploy and use, the best of breed in the UTM firewall concept, creating the best UTM secure platform ever.

It's easy to use.

In regards to price and technology, it's a great solution.

I like that this product has very few issues.

The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it. Also, everything is proprietary with the WatchGuard software and that is a bit of an issue.

The API connection would be a very big improvement to get information from the system or to actually configure it with its own dashboard, for example.

Providing additional features would give it a more up-to-date management interface. They have only just entered the cloud since last year which puts them behind compared to other competitors, such as Fortinet, who has the advantage over that, but they have a disadvantage where they have several zero-day attacks on their devices.

I have been using WatchGuard for six or seven years.

Stability is the most valuable feature of this solution.

It's a very scalable solution, but we are not using it in a very large environment.

We use this solution because they have a very good support team. They are very knowledgeable about ways of implementing this solution in our industry.

Technical support is good.

The initial setup was straightforward.

It's fair pricing, but it could always be reduced.

I would suggest comparing the features of the competitors based on data consumption because that's where Firebox is winning.

Overall, we are quite happy with the Firebox solution and we have not seen any issues so far. This is why we are using it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The solution is lacking a professional website, they should be updated more often.

I have used the solution for five years. 

We found no bugs with the operation of the solution. 

There are no problems with the technical support. If a problem occurs it gets resolved immediately with our technical support partners.

The initial setup is simple and understandable.

I find the solution to be very affordable.

My advice for people that wants to implement the solution is that it is very good, you get value for money, and you will be well protected. Additionally, you should make sure the implementation is done correctly and the configuration is well defined.

I rate WatchGuard Firebox a nine out of ten.