We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Zscaler Internet Access based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"I handle the scanning for the finance department. I recently encountered an issue with the PCL bills, our company bills. I resolved the matter, cleared the bill, and received calls regarding it using pfsense.The user interface is extremely user-friendly, which is why we use it across various plant sites. Our IT representatives at the plants find it easy to use and manage because of its straightforward interface."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"There is no lag in service when accessing the internet."
"The solution offers a distributed organization to master and to control all of the endpoints."
"After a proper implementation, the maintenance is very low."
"SSL inspection is a valuable feature."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to drop packets."
"Overall, we're very happy with our product."
"We don't have to buy equipment to use it. And when our engineers set it up on our side, we just configured a few settings and we were in."
"Zscaler Internet Access's roaming user feature is most valuable and is much better compared to other secure web gateways."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"I would like to see SD1 integration into the software. That would be fantastic."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"Many people have problems setting up the web cache for the web system."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."
"If they can also integrate with the multi-factor authentication to prompt users to do another, second-factor authentication, that would be ideal."
"In terms of usage, here in the GCC, it's still growing a growing market, so the combination of DLP, data leak prevention, to a certain extent is fine. But what it requires is user-based access or role-based access. The solution needs to grow into that, which definitely takes time. There's not an easy way to integrate it, when you have a cloud-based solution."
"The main issue with Zscaler Internet Access is proxy IP detection, which sometimes makes sites inaccessible."
"The reporting functionality could be a bit easier to use. There is a reporting function, but it's quite hard to do any good reporting, from a user-management perspective. For example, if a department manager wants to know how his department is using the web, there is a way to get the data, but it's quite cumbersome to get it and show it well. And that's true for comparing between departments."
"Zscaler should continue to make the user interface better. They should also improve the backup network and continue to expand it so that it can handle larger numbers of customers."
"Zscaler Internet Access could improve by adding a VPN feature."
"What could be improved in Zscaler Internet Access is its price. It could be cheaper."
"Zscaler needs to add client-to-client communication. It's always client-to-server communication. The cloud and branch connectors could be improved because we're still dependent on traditional firewalls. They should eliminate this. They should also provide WAN devices should to compete with the SD-WAN solutions also."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Zscaler Internet Access is ranked 2nd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 46 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Zscaler Internet Access is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zscaler Internet Access writes "Provides integrated CASB and file sandboxing but could be less expensive ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Zscaler Internet Access is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Appgate SDP. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Zscaler Internet Access report.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
