We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highly regarded for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, and antivirus. Additionally, users appreciate its intuitive interface. pfSense is praised for its ability to block IPs effectively and its user-friendly dashboards. Furthermore, its open-source nature and cost-effectiveness are also seen as valuable attributes.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM needs enhancements in key activation processes, log management, cloud management, MFA offerings, web filter options, application inspection, IPsec failover, monitoring tool, hardening guidelines, product availability, setup and configuration, firmware updates, GUI capabilities, and technical support. pfSense requires improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, VPN functionality, reporting, integration, WAF knowledge, URL filtering, centralized management, GUI version for SMBs, sandboxing, documentation, user-friendliness for non-IT users, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have provided mixed feedback on the customer service of Fortinet FortiGate-VM. Some commend the support team for their prompt responses and expertise, while others express a need for improvement in technical support. pfSense's customer service also receives mixed reviews as well. Certain users appreciate the technical assistance they received during the setup and configuration process, while others highlight limited support for the open-source nature of the product.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is generally easy and straightforward, with support and assistance available. It may require knowledge of Fortinet products. pfSense is considered user-friendly and intuitive, with a straightforward installation. However, some users recommend clearer guidance or a configuration wizard.
Pricing: Fortinet's cost is competitive and encompasses licensing fees, whereas pfSense provides a free open-source solution, albeit with a learning cost. Fortinet's pricing is adaptable and may rise with scaling, while pfSense does not entail additional fees for updates.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM provides enhanced security and stability, leading to a favorable return on investment. It is important to select the appropriate size initially to prevent any monetary drawbacks. pfSense is a cost-efficient option that enables businesses to maximize profits and attain a substantial ROI.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred product when compared to pfSense. Users appreciate Fortinet FortiGate-VM for its strong security capabilities, such as geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and intrusion prevention systems. They also find it easy to use, deploy, and scale, thanks to its intuitive interface.
"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"The best part about FortiGate-VM is its strong security."
"The policies are very valuable. They allow me to secure and manage future traffic effectively."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the ease of use, IPS system, application filter, web filtering, and email security. Additionally, there is a migration tool that other vendors do not provide. We only need to upload the configuration file to the tool, and it converts everything, except the passwords, and gives us the new configuration, which we can directly upload on the firewall. This migration process takes a maximum of 15 minutes."
"There is an interesting possibility of building a tunnel to a firewall from access points. We use this feature for small branch offices with one to two employees with access to central RDP servers."
"Initial setup is very straightforward with a wizard, if needed."
"The most valuables features are the ease of use and deployment."
"The most valuable feature is the UTM, which gives them an advantage over other firewalls."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"Good basic firewall features."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It works. I put pfSense in, and it works. I can't think of any trouble I ever had with it. It runs on heat-sensitive appliances. They don't need a fan, so they don't overheat. It is affordable, fast, and very high-speed. It is built on BSD Unix, and it pretty much runs on any Intel processor."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"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."
"We have lost some information and we do not know how that happened through the solution. So that needs improvement."
"We are experiencing a failed login issue. There should also be improvements in functionalities we store to enhance our services."
"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."
"his is not a good solution for enterprises. It's better for smaller companies."
"Their offering for MFA isn't the cleanest."
"Technical support could be better."
"There were challenges during setup, and many of them were self-inflicted."
"In the next release, I would like to see integration capability with SIEM tools, such as QRadar, and LogRhythm."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"Layer 7 advanced firewall features are not included in the solution."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"As an open-source solution, there are so many loopholes happening within the product. By design, no one is taking ownership of it, and that is worrisome to me."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Netgate pfSense report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.
