We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is appreciated for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and robust assistance. It provides functionalities like site-to-site VPN, firewall security, and routing capabilities. pfSense is highly regarded for its capacity to obstruct IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source characteristics. It offers features such as secure VPN connections, scanning, filtering, and network security capabilities.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall could use enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. pfSense would benefit from improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, centralized management, GUI for SMBs, sandboxing, security, hardware support, user-friendliness, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have generally praised Juniper SRX Series Firewall's customer service for being helpful and knowledgeable, despite occasional slower response times. pfSense's customer service varies among users, with some having positive experiences with technical support and others relying on clear documentation and community resources.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be done within a day for smaller branch offices, whereas pfSense be set up in just 15 minutes. Juniper may demand familiarity with CLI, while pfSense is commonly referred to as being easy to use.
Pricing: Juniper has extra charges for advanced security features and APS, whereas pfSense provides updates without any additional fees. The specific licensing costs for pfSense are not clearly stated.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides advanced security features and reliable performance, leading to a favorable return on investment. pfSense stands out for its affordability, minimal management expenses, and substantial hardware cost savings. Users also emphasize its superior ROI compared to pricier alternatives such as FortiGate.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product over pfSense. Users appreciate its simplicity, intuitive interface, reliability, scalability, and exceptional customer support. It offers convenient configuration, site-to-site VPN capabilities, and effective firewall protection. Additionally, Juniper SRX Series Firewall is considered a more cost-effective and secure solution.
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"The command line in Juniper SRX is extremely powerful, in my opinion. It's one of the best command lines I've used in networking products."
"The scalability is fine."
"The solution is relatively easy and inexpensive to maintain."
"You can scale the solution."
"It is very fast and very easy to maintain. Another nice part of it is that you can easily extract the logs and move them over to a security operations center."
"Security policies in combination with zones: It is very easy to organize the security polices in a logical structure."
"The reason that we picked Juniper SRX is for the scalability, the fit for purpose, the tools that are available, the ongoing support and the ability to monitor, but particularly for the virtual routers in our data centers so that we can quickly upscale them when needed, when we need more throughput."
"It helps us perform our daily jobs."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."
"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."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"Their models for service providers could improve."
"Its logging is very good, but we would like to have an easier way of creating more reports. We would like to be able to manipulate the reports or manage the way the reports are coming out."
"I would like to have a better web UI for administration. Juniper could simplify the web UI and make it more compatible with mobile devices."
"The solution's initial setup process was lengthy as I was new to Juniper."
"As a networking person, I don't really have any major issues with this device. Based on my experience of using it in a cluster, it could be more stable. I had an incident when one of the SRXs in a cluster couldn't learn ARP. It is a good solution, but firewalls don't seem to be an area of development for Juniper. They are focusing on data centers, routers, and switches, not firewalls."
"The pricing strategy of the vendor could improve."
"In the next release, I would like to have a better web interface. It needs to be more user-friendly. Right now, you can only access many features through the console."
"In the future, I would like to see the UI more responsive"
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"The integration could be improved."
"It should integrate with LDAP, Active Directory, etc, to improve the way in which the traces and connections of each IP, or user connected through the firewall, are shown."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 18th in Firewalls with 86 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl and Sophos UTM. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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