We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and WatchGuard Firebox 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."This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"The simplicity of the configuration and the stability of the product are most valuable. The VPN concentrator is very useful."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"We like the fact that this product can provide multiple layers of protection depending on our clients requirements, and can be configured to whatever level of protection and the specific protocols that they want."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is pre-sales and post-sales because of the support and relationship building."
"I like all the threat alerts and WildFire. I also like scanning because everything that comes into our network via customers is scanned. We're an electric company, so every one of the bills is scanned and emailed in and out of our network."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls enable efficient application search, viewing, and configuration access across various services for different user groups within our company."
"The solution is very stable."
"The most valuable features are application inspection and sandboxing. Application inspection decides where traffic is transmitted. If I have a perimeter report for a particular service, then other services or malicious services cannot use an open port. In this way, application inspection is doing a fantastic job. We also have a very good sandbox with almost no rate limit. It will inspect any file that comes in and goes out in a dedicated patch to identify malware. Therefore, these two things help me to protect our organization from any bad actors."
"I love the Policy Optimizer feature. I am also completely happy with its stability."
"Decryption is one of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' best features because we can decrypt by category. For instance, we can decrypt everything except for bank traffic so that we don't interfere with the passwords and two-factor authentication of those checking their bank accounts at work. We can still monitor for malware and other threats that come through a secure channel. It's seamless for users. The URL filtering and IPS are both great as well."
"The ease of use is most valuable. You can quickly train someone who hasn't seen a firewall in life. You can get people up to speed, and in a few months, they are able to manage this product very easily. It is a very user-friendly, scalable, and stable product. Its price is also spot-on."
"I could still keep the data rates really high, up near the two gigahertz data speeds, without compromise on the security perimeters being acted simultaneously."
"The ports that I have assigned appear to be unattainable to outside 'mal-actors,' unless they have an address registered on the internet that this thing is expecting. That's a layer of security."
"The most effective and helpful features of WatchGuard Firebox, especially when purchased with the full suite of applications, are its bundled applications and subscriptions for comprehensive protection against various threats."
"Simple to move settings between WatchGuard boxes."
"Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process."
"If there is any conflict, the reporting feature will kick out all types of information, which is great."
"Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change."
"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."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"For an upcoming release, they could improve on the way to build security rules per user."
"Its stability can be better. Their technical response from the support side can also be better."
"The pricing could be improved. They need to work on the setup over the firewall, VLAN, and PPPoE."
"The reports it provides are not helpful."
"Currently, they don't have email protection. They can maybe add it in the future. Currently, if you want to do so, you need to go with another solution."
"There is a bit of limitation with its next-generation capabilities. They could be better. In terms of logs, I feel like I am a bit limited as an administrator. While I see a lot of logs, and that is good, it could be better."
"There is a web-based GUI to do management, but you need to know how the machine or firewall operates. There are hundreds of different menus and options. I have used other firewalls before. Just implementing or designing a policy with Palo Alto, if you want a certain port to be open to different IP addresses, then that could take 20 to 25 clicks. That is just testing it out. It is quite complex to do. Whereas, with other places, you tell it, "Okay, I want this specific port open and this IP address to have access to it." That was it. However, not with Palo Alto, which is definitely more complex."
"There has been a recent change in the graphical interface. For the monitoring part, they could have a better UI."
"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 reporting is a little on the weak side. I would like to see a better reporting set and easier drill-down options."
"The level of support from WatchGuard is not as good."
"I haven’t dug deeply into the reporting features yet or if they are working well. However, I have generated several reports and there was too much unnecessary information, in comparison with the reporting features in the Sophos firewall. Sophos' reporting is more readable and easier to configure."
"WatchGuard Firebox could improve the speed of updates, such as new features or improvements. However, they are frequently improving the solution in many areas, such as geo-locations, definitions, and web blocking."
"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."
"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."
"The product's technical support services need improvement."
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Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense and SonicWall TZ. See our Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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