We performed a comparison between Hillstone E-Series and Netgate pfSense 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."The interface is very good."
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"Five out of five ROI."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"pfSense allows us to spread the hours of connection and do the filtering on the pfSense site."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"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."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"Its price could be better."
"The current usage reporting is very basic."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
Hillstone E-Series is ranked 24th in Firewalls with 6 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 15 reviews. Hillstone E-Series is rated 9.2, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Hillstone E-Series writes "Efficient call processor and overall amazing ROI". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "Feature-rich, well documented, and there is good support available online". Hillstone E-Series is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, OpenVPN Access Server, Sophos XG, Hillstone T-Series and Sangfor SSL VPN, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Untangle NG Firewall and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Hillstone E-Series vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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