Bitdefender Security for AWS vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

Bitdefender and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Anti-Malware Tools category. Bitdefender is ranked #28 with an average rating of 7.0, while WatchGuard is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 100% of Bitdefender users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 94% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 2025

WatchGuard Firebox and Bitdefender Security for AWS are competing in network and cloud security solutions. Bitdefender holds the advantage in advanced security features tailored for cloud environments.

Features: WatchGuard Firebox includes configurable firewalls, advanced threat detection, and robust network control. Bitdefender Security for AWS incorporates cloud-based threat intelligence, adaptive security, and multilayered protection for effective AWS environment safeguarding.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WatchGuard Firebox is recognized for its straightforward installation and responsive customer service, benefiting those who prioritize simplicity. Bitdefender Security for AWS integrates seamlessly with AWS, providing cloud-native support despite its complex deployment.

Pricing and ROI: WatchGuard Firebox is noted for competitive setup costs and positive ROI via low maintenance expenses, appealing to budget-conscious buyers. Bitdefender Security for AWS involves higher setup costs but presents significant ROI by reducing security risks within AWS infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Bitdefender Security for AWS vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Bitdefender Security for AWS vs. WatchGuard Firebox

December 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 881,082 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

Read full review

Abhimanyu Das

Senior Associate at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Policy tuning has improved cloud threat detection while rule creation still needs simplification

Bitdefender Security for AWS provides an agent-based solution that combines antivirus, endpoint detection and response and behavioral detection to reduce the risk of compromised production servers. One of the best features of Bitdefender Security for AWS is its protection for EC2 workloads. It offers centralized management from a single console, allowing users to manage policies, deployments, and visibility across all AWS platforms. This centralized approach simplifies administration and improves efficiency. The anti-malware and behavioral detection features are robust. For both Windows and Linux EC2 instances, Bitdefender provides strong detection capabilities against both known and unknown threats, helping to minimize false positives and accurately identify true positives. It also supports offloading scans to optimize performance. Bitdefender Security for AWS helps secure servers running in AWS while reducing CPU and I/O consumption. Managing physical servers is often more complex since it may require additional hardware, such as memory expansions or system extensions, to maintain performance. In contrast, AWS environments benefit from Bitdefender’s optimized performance, resulting in lower CPU and memory usage, as well as better handling of I/O loads. From a security standpoint, this solution allows for easier management even under high resource consumption. Because it operates within AWS, performance remains stable, making it a reliable and efficient choice for cloud-based security operations.

Read full review

Pedro Soteras

CEO at ajuntament del Prat

Network protection has improved with stronger VPN connectivity but administration remains complex

Deploying WatchGuard Firebox was quite easy, but we have had some problems regarding the VPN and the administration of the tool and the two firewalls that we have. When comparing WatchGuard Firebox with our previous solution, Palo Alto, we have had some problems in administration because of the tools. I think that they have some aspects in their system that are cloud-provided, but they also have an on-premise solution, which makes this combination good. Although I should say that when compared to Palo Alto, we have taken a step backwards. In general, I would rate WatchGuard Firebox around 6-7; it is a good firewall, but they lack good administration tools. We experience many problems with the performance and administration tools on the web, including several issues with VPNs.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."

"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."

"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."

"The most helpful features of FortiGate include its firewall policy, specifically the user-based policy, which I find to be quite beneficial in managing our network security effectively."

"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."

"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."

"Some of the best features of Fortinet FortiGate include the next-generation firewall features."

"The solution provides good threat intelligence feeds."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The protection that it provides is valuable because the biggest problem that people and companies have been seeing in the last two or three years is scams and everything like that."

"The best features of Bitdefender Security for AWS are its EC2 workloads, called elastic compute cloud, which provide a solution from a single console to manage policy, deployment, and visibility across all platforms and across all AWS, so it was easy that way and it was good."

"We have witnessed an ROI as it has helped with security measures."

"There are many fantastic features."

"It is a scalable solution."

"It is something that we need for compliance, and it has been useful. Their support staff is also amazing."

"The Dimension control, the one-spot reporting and control, has been nice. It's been easy to go in and make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that only the right stuff is getting in."

"One of the most valuable features is that when we send emails and it gives a warning, you can configure those email addresses so that they can only send outside the email."

"The solution has a useful traffic monitor."

"The solution is very stable. We've never had any problems with stability. Once a year we do a reboot just as a precaution. The solution never stops running otherwise."

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

Cons

"The price of the solution could be cheaper."

"More SD-WAN features can be integrated into the FortiGate Next Generation Firewall"

"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."

"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."

"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."

"The product keeps hanging."

"Maybe they can offer a smaller scope for a cheaper price for smaller organizations."

"They should do a better job in testing when they put out a new release because when a new software version is released, it is not always stable or does not always have all the previous features working correctly."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"For a small industry, it will be fine, but when you are initiating Bitdefender Security for AWS in a large-scale environment, you need careful planning and tuning with policy tuning, and in a large scale, it will be difficult."

"I remember when they first pushed it to the DBM server, my backup server at the time, it caused a lot of issues because they were supposed to exclude all the folders that they were backing up to and had the storage. I got hold of the security group and asked them to uninstall it. We uninstalled it, ran a script, and then it fixed the problem."

"The ease of detecting where an issue is should be improved."

"WatchGuard technical support requires a license."

"It's very difficult to find a reseller of WatchGuard Firebox to purchase a license"

"It would be wonderful if the WatchGuard team develops nice products for threat intelligence."

"In general, I would rate WatchGuard Firebox around 6-7; it is a good firewall, but they lack good administration tools. We experience many problems with the performance and administration tools on the web, including several issues with VPNs."

"The solution isn't what I would consider feature-rich."

"The control software is currently only available for Windows, which can be a little annoying for Linux users."

"There is no message displayed for the user on the desktop informing them that access to a web page has been blocked by Application Control."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In terms of the market, it's not a cheap product, but it's cost-effective."

"There is an annual license to use this solution. The prices have been increasing over the years."

"Fortinet FortiGate is expensive."

"Its price could be better."

"It is less expensive than a Cisco solution."

"I would rate pricing to be about four or five out of ten, it is reasonable."

"Fortinet prices are around $600 for the small 40F model, and for licenses, the simplest option is about $300 for a year. They sell licenses that can last for 1, 2, 3, or 5 years."

"There is only a standard license cost to use the solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It was included in the account that we had. We didn't have to pay for it."

"The cheapest configuration, for maybe five people, is approximately $500."

"The licensing contract we have is on a three-year basis. There aren't any costs in addition to the standard licensing fees—usually, every three years, we just purchase or renew the same license and we are okay. Every six years, we completely change the firewall, but that's the usual schema. So after three years, we just renew the licenses for another three years, and then after that particular period of time, we just purchase another firewall equivalent to the ones that we currently use."

"The price of WatchGuard is very good."

"The cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $3,000 for each one..."

"The two larger devices are about $1,000 each and the smaller ones are about $500 or $600 each... It's cheaper and you have more control because it's self-managed."

"The pricing of WatchGuard is probably a little higher than the SonicWall, but it makes up for it in dependability. It's worth it to me, especially since it's not much higher. For just a little bit higher price you get the dependability of the firewall with the WatchGuard brand."

"The pricing is competitive."

"WatchGuard offers competitive pricing with attractive margins, benefiting both the company and its partners."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Anti-Malware Tools solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	27
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

See all answers

What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Bitdefender Security for AWS?

Pricing was pretty straightforward and wallet friendly. We went with the pay-as-you-go model through AWS Marketplace,...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Bitdefender Security for AWS?

For a small industry, it may work fine. However, when implementing Bitdefender Security for AWS in a large-scale envi...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Bitdefender Security for AWS?

When I joined the project, it was already in place. I didn’t review what had been implemented previously or what was ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

ZoneAlarm vs Bitdefender Security for AWS

Compared 25% of the time

F-Secure Total vs Bitdefender Security for AWS

Compared 18% of the time

HitmanPro.Alert by Sophos vs Bitdefender Security for AWS

Compared 15% of the time

VirusTotal vs Bitdefender Security for AWS

Compared 14% of the time

Quick Heal Total Security vs Bitdefender Security for AWS

Compared 14% of the time

More Bitdefender Security for AWS Competitors

Sophos Firewall vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

Sophos UTM vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

More WatchGuard Firebox Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Anti-Malware Tools

January 2026

Download Bitdefender Security for AWS product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

January 2026

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

No data available

WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Bitdefender Security for AWS is a security solution designed for the Amazon cloud infrastructure and integrated with the GravityZone Cloud Console. Bitdefender Security for AWS is built for virtualization, offers flexible pricing, and scales to your size and needs for optimal return on investment.

Bitdefender

WatchGuard Firebox is a high-performance firewall known for its ease of setup, offering robust security with layered protection and centralized management capabilities.

WatchGuard Firebox stands out for its intuitive management and high throughput, addressing security needs with features like VPN, web filtering, and threat detection. Its centralized control and reporting abilities, along with Active Directory integration, make it popular among varied organizations. Its user-friendly interface and ongoing updates enhance usability and reliability. However, there's a call for better cloud-based administration, scalability, and improved integration with third-party vendors.

What are the key features of WatchGuard Firebox?

Ease of Setup: Quick and straightforward installation process.
GUI: User-friendly graphical interface for simplified navigation.
VPN Features: Secure and efficient virtual private network management.
Web Filtering: Advanced filtering for safer browsing experiences.
Threat Detection: Proactive monitoring and detection of cyber threats.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Centralized Control: Streamlined management from a single point.
High Throughput: Efficient data handling and processing capacity.
Stable Performance: Consistent and reliable operational functionality.
Active Directory Integration: Seamless connection with user directories.
Customer Service: Strong support service for customer inquiries.

WatchGuard Firebox is implemented across industries to secure internet gateways and protect data in multi-site businesses. Its applications span from Unified Threat Management (UTM) and intrusion prevention to compliance support in business environments requiring secure connectivity through VPNs.

WatchGuard

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Archdiocese, Northstar, SeSa, W&W Informatik, Yamaha Motor Europe

Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence

Buyer's Guide

Bitdefender Security for AWS vs. WatchGuard Firebox

December 2025

Free Report: Bitdefender Security for AWS vs. WatchGuard Firebox

Find out what your peers are saying about Bitdefender Security for AWS vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Bitdefender Security for AWS vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.

See our list of best Anti-Malware Tools vendors and best Firewalls vendors.

We monitor all Anti-Malware Tools 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.