We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate, Meraki MX, and Netgate pfSense based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls.
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."
"The technical support is great."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"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."
"I like the automatic firmware updates. We use the Active Directory to authenticate VPN users."
"Site to Site VPN: The device can establish a VPN connection to multiple sites in a mesh environment in seconds, and without complex VPN knowledge."
"It has the most advanced security features, for example, layer 3 and layer 7 firewall capabilities and the end team and IPS protection. It also has IPS, and it has very good functioning of cloning services. You don't actually have to touch the device. If you have multiple companies in different countries, you don't really require this device to be touched. You can get it delivered directly to any office of a country, and then you can simply put your configuration over the cloud. It's very simplified and easy to manage. It gives a very good granular visibility about your network. Earlier, a lot of things were lacking in the network. We were unable to identify where the problem was, but after implementing Meraki MX, we are able to dig down and identify where is the problem. We can easily and quickly identify the sources and the root causes of the issues."
"To me, the analytics feature is one of the most valuable in Meraki MX. I also find that it has good usability as it's cloud-based. Another valuable feature of Meraki MX is that it's simple to use and it's user-friendly."
"I love the simplicity of Meraki MX — specifically, the simplicity of the dashboard."
"The solution is easy to set up."
"Deployment takes no more than one working day."
"Very easy to use and navigate."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"Meraki has some hidden features and information that is only privy to their engineers. If that information became available to us, then it would improve our ease of management, and we would be able to make certain adjustments instead of having to go to them."
"You can only have one tunnel in the whole infrastructure — one tunnel with one device."
"Could possibly use deeper configurations."
"MX can only be managed via a web interface, but I'm accustomed to using a CLI or a graphical interface. I would also like to see more reporting features. It doesn't provide enough information for me to know precisely about some clients."
"Pricing is an area where the solution lacks since it is an expensive tool."
"We could have more reporting options and the ability to send alarms to the administrator."
"Direct logging is something that can be introduced. In the absence of cloud management, the possibility of local configurations and on-premise logins becomes restricted. This limitation stands as a primary concern. When it comes to resolving issues, the inability to access login options hampers troubleshooting efforts. The stability is noteworthy; but when compared to alternative products, its stability is comparatively lower. Additionally, certain limitations are observed in terms of remote control. Price-wise, the solution stands out for its competitive and cost-effective nature compared to other alternatives. Operationally, it is user-friendly and requires minimal effort from administrators, making configuration hassle-free."
"We feel that Cisco provides smaller features, with fewer possibilities versus other solutions out there."
"The GUI. There are TONS of plugins for pfSense, as such, if a user wants to add quite a bit of functionality, the GUI will feel a little congested."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"There are several levels of firewall configuration such as beginner, advanced, and expert configurations. At each level, it becomes more complex and more tricky to set up the firewall. For example, if you want to install the firewall on your computer system, it would be a lot easier if it just tells you that this is the internet NIC and this is the Wi-Fi NIC."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
