WatchGuard Firebox Reviews

Actually, we do not use WatchGuard Firebox, we just sell and sometimes deploy and install it for the customer. We usually set up a few basic policies then give it to them to continue on.

The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser.

The other feature is the side to side VPN. We have a bank client and they use a WatchGuard device for their headquarters and other WatchGuard devices for their branches. Setting up those IP's and VPN's was quite easy because the relay was at the branch office where the VPN resides. So that was quite handy to set up.

In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing.

We have seen other products like Sophos, Checkpoint and Palo Alto that were much easier to set up their web built setting than it is with WatchGuard. So aside from all other features, including the VPN security policies, the only feature that is quite confusing is the web block feature.

They could make the web blocker much easier to set up.

In terms of scalability, they have models like the 5,000 series and 6,000 series. We have not reached that yet. We are only a small company and our customers are only small and medium businesses. So no enterprise companies yet. But I think if we need a bigger box, we would go with the 5,000 series.

Right now we're only at about 200 hundred users. Sometimes we are trying to push for the 300 series or 500 series, but not yet.

We require a staff of one or two for deployment and maintenance.

I think technical support is okay. When I log a case, they usually respond within a day. Then, if they need to do some things for the client, they are quite flexible and do it based on the client's schedule. So no problem with the support. They are good. So far all our issues we have raised, and we have large cases, have been resolved. So their tech support is quite good.

We switched because WatchGuard is cheaper. An old product that we previously sold was quite expensive, especially the security renewal after every year, but WatchGuard offered quite a competitive price and in a bundle that was much easier to understand. Cyberoam, for example, was quite complex to set up under licensing. Cyberoam was bought by Sophos. So we switched to WatchGuard for the price.

The main highlight is price. The client has quite a tight budget so we can offer much more with WatchGuard.

Setup was easy because the manual was there and it was quite easy to connect to a particular port. It's very understandable. Setup was very straightforward, nothing complex.

Deployment could take only a few minutes or up to an hour and we can already set up a few basic policies. But the thing that drags longer is teaching the client to use it and to set up their own security policies. Sometimes they don't have enough experience at setting up WatchGuard, it's still new to them. But maybe after a few hours of lectures from us they get it. We still continue to support them after initial set up, for example if if they want to set up a policy we can assist them with that.

I have seen a return on investment, especially for the client. They have less problems in the bandwidth because the users are not going to unnecessary sites. So productivity should be better. Clients would not be tempted to browse unnecessary sites, games, download movies, because there is a firewall with restrictions in the policies. So therefore, the users would be performing at their best.

The box costs 180,000. One third of the price of the box goes to the yearly renewal fee, around 50 or 60, for the basic. There is the advanced feature which is half of the box, but the basic is quite enough for most of our brand, which is why we have not used the TDR yet.

And the response comes free for the advanced features and advanced licensing.

The advice I would give to anyone considering WatchGuard Firebox is that it is a good product, despite what they say about it not being in the Gartner quadrant leaders. It performs well. It's fast. The only downside would be the web filtering side of things. If the client wants a good web filtering device, they have to go to another vendor, but just for Firewall IP and VPN, I think WatchGuard will be good.

I'm not saying that the web filtering for WatchGuard is really bad, just confusing. Some clients don't want to do something that's confusing for them, they prefer something easy, but if they can live with a little confusion, then it's okay. But it is good to have a good partner, someone like us, in case the client has a problem setting up their policies, especially in the web filtering, we can help.

Speaking on behalf of the client, I think they are okay with the solution. They are still continuing to use it past a year already, and they continue to renew. They are satisfied with its performance and what it is capable of doing.

On a scale of one to ten, I'll give WatchGuard Firebox an eight.

It's our firewall for the internet.

The most valuable feature is the NAT-ing, the IP addresses. What the firewall does is that it NATs through the IP addresses for different servers. We can direct the traffic where it needs to go. We can control the traffic.

It's fairly easy to use. I don't think we have any trouble with it.

We've also never had any trouble with the throughput or performance. We've just recently upgraded the internet and we're getting our router upgraded. Once we get that in place, we'll see how the Firebox responds. To date, we've never had any problems.

It also provides us with layered security.

I would like to see more tutorials on setting up the Firebox.

I've been Using WatchGuard for well over 10 years.

The stability has been fine. We've had no issues with its stability.

We haven't scaled it.

There are about 40 users, anywhere from plant production to purchasing to the president, and accounting. They all go through the firebox to get to the internet of course. It's used by all management in the organization, for sure.

We don't have any plans to increase usage of the solution.

There is just one person who handles the deployment and maintenance of the solution. He's a programmer.

We didn't have a previous solution. It's always been a Firebox.

I don't believe we had any trouble with the initial setup. 

My gut feeling is that we have seen ROI. It keeps us secure and it allows us to get out to the internet. As opposed to having no protection, it has provided ROI.

I've had no problems with the licensing.

It works for us.

In terms of simplifying any aspects of my job, there's nothing I can specifically say because I've used WatchGuard for so long that I don't have anything to compare it against.

It's our perimeter firewall.

We used to have Cisco and Cisco was pretty cumbersome. I actually still use Cisco, but I like WatchGuard for the features it has.

It provides us with Layer 2 and Layer 3 security.

If it didn't work we wouldn't be able to get to the internet and that would be a terrible thing.

All of its features are valuable, although we don't use the antivirus. We do use the web filter.

It's also the ease of configuration that I like. In terms of usability, it just works. And the throughput is 100 Mbps. It's fine.

There are a couple of things I wished that it would do, but I can't think of those off the top of my head.

I have been using WatchGuard Firebox for about 15 years.

It works and just keeps on working.

The scalability is fine.

Their technical support is good. Honestly, I haven't had to call them in five or six years.

We used Cisco previously. Cisco didn't have the features that I needed, like the proxies. A Cisco box would probably do that now, but back then they wouldn't. So we switched to WatchGuard.

The initial setup is straightforward. You just read the manual and follow the directions. It didn't take very long to set up. It was about an hour to have it configured and set up.

I have deployed Firebox to distributed locations. You just plug in the numbers, the IP addresses. That's all you do. It's pretty simple.

We have seen return on our investment. It just works. I may have to reboot it once every two or three years.

The pricing of WatchGuard was pretty comparable to Cisco, but I actually haven't looked at a new Cisco box in quite some time, so I can't say how they compare now.

I would advise that you go with whatever you're more comfortable with. If you're more comfortable with Cisco, then go with Cisco.

Firebox doesn't really save us time because whether you're going to configure a Cisco or you're going to configure a WatchGuard, you still have to configure something, no matter what it is. It is a little easier to configure WatchGuard though.

It takes just one person in our organization to deploy and support it, and that's me. Overall, our environment has about 300 users.

We use it to prevent any unnecessary stuff from getting into our network. It's for the usual security features. We do utilize the VPN and there are quite a few people on the VPN right now.

It gives our business layered security. Attack vectors it secures for us include denial of service attacks, people spoofing our network, as well as preventing malware from getting in — the typical attack vectors. We're satisfied with it overall.

Also, there was a phishing scheme going around a while back. WatchGuard caught it and we were able to mitigate it. That was very good. It keeps us from not having to worry about our network being under attack. It keeps us secure.

It saves us on the order of three hours a month. The solution just works.

• The set up of the VPN is pretty straightforward. Being able to build VPNs on the fly for certain users, if need be, is also valuable.
• The traffic monitoring is very nice.
• I also like the ease of blocking certain websites from getting in or users from getting to stuff they don't need to be at.

We're satisfied with the performance, as well as its reporting and management features.

The usability could be better, but it is definitely manageable. If we have to go to a backup internet connection, that could be a little bit easier. Other than that, I really don't have any complaints about it.

I've been using WatchGuard for three years. That's how long I have been with the company. The company has been using it upwards of 10 years, I believe.

It's very stable.

It's scalable. We are probably going to be doing another area for some of the outer branches and the WatchGuards will be part of that. I can't say how soon it's going to happen, but there have been discussions about it.

I have no complaints about WatchGuard's technical support. If you have a question, they answer it.

As far as I know, WatchGuard is the only one that our company has used. We like the product enough. We're buying another appliance because our support ran out on one of our boxes. We're continuing to buy WatchGuard stuff because it does what we need it to do, it's priced reasonably well, and we like the support and usability.

We have deployed this product to distributed locations. We have a couple of branch offices and we've set them up in all of our locations. We set it up, we configure it to our network settings, we put in all of the information we need, and we go from there. We usually take a configuration from an existing and apply it. It's straightforward. The documentation goes step-by-step on how to set it up. The last time I did one it took about an hour.

In terms of maintenance of WatchGuard there are three people in our department. Whoever sees a problem or hears about an issue takes care of it. Two of us are system analysts and the third is our director of information technology.

It keeps our network secure and that's a good enough return for me.

I feel that the pricing is fair for all of the security you get. That's one of the reasons we went with, and continue to go with, WatchGuard.

Go ahead and implement it and don't think twice about it.

We're not using the cloud visibility feature at this time. Maybe we will in the future.

There are 75 users of our environment, in total. They range from mechanics to accountants to our COO and CEO. Everybody in the organization uses it.

We use this solution as an edge firewall and layer-3 routing internally.

This solution has provided ease and speed of rules. It has unparalleled troubleshooting with excellent reporting.

The most valuable features of this solution are live logging, rule setup and maintenance, and VPN creation.

We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring.

There is not a product that compares to this one.

This was an upgrade from WatchGuard XTM 505. We have and are using many different WatchGuards between locations for (among other things) VPN between firewalls. We are using this Watchguard as an endpoint firewall at an office location.

• Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process.
• The client is easy to use and stable.
• Simple to backup settings.  
• Simple to move settings between WatchGuard boxes.
• The GUI is easy and intuitive.

Ease of setup. All WatchGuards are pretty much the same to setup and manage.
We experienced that WatchGuard is easy to setup regarding VPN compared to other firewalls of other brands.

Client-based administrative tool. Cloud-based central administration of all devices from one point would be nice (although there is always an added risk regarding this).

No.

No.

The few times we have contacted Watchguard. They reply promptly without delays.

We previously used Juniper and SonicWall.

Switched at the time because we had IT personnel working for us with WatchGuard expertise and preference.

The setup was straightforward with a simple GUI-based administrative tool.

Used in-house experience.

Not measured.

Very competitive pricing regarding throughput compared to other alternatives.

We evaluated between WatchGuard and what we already had at the time.

The Juniper that we had at the time, which was fine, was complete overkill for our needs, but when realised it was already sunk cost.

I'm a system administrator and we have a partnership with WatchGuard. 

The solution has a useful traffic monitor. You can check if the packet in the unit works and analyze the proof quickly. It's very easy to use and provides good security. 

We've found that sometimes the solution is not easy to understand and we need to bring in some specialist assistance. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The solution is very stable.

We haven't needed to scale so I can't comment on that. 

The support is good but we've had some difficult situations because not everyone in support is good when it comes to specific problems such as VoIP. 

We previously used Cisco but there came a time when we needed to move to a more updated product. 

The solution is difficult to implement without a specialist, especially the first time. It requires an IT technician. It's become easier for us to deploy ourselves now that we've had some experience.

Licensing costs are very reasonable and paid annually. If you need additional options they can be bought separately. 

I mainly use Firebox for SSL, VPN, internet proxy, site-to-site tunnels, and intrusion protection.

Firebox's best feature is the access portal.

Firebox would be improved with integration for endpoint protection solutions.

I've been using Firebox for three years.

Firebox is generally stable, with only some glitches here and there, and its performance is okay.

Firebox is scalable.

WatchGuard's technical support is okay, but they could do more to push knowledge so the customer could solve their own problems.

Neutral

The initial setup was straightforward.

We used an in-house team.

Firebox is priced reasonably.

I would give Firebox a rating of seven out of ten.