We performed a comparison between Hillstone T-Series and WatchGuard Firebox based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"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."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"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."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"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."
"Our security improved from being able to put in rules and close off unwanted traffic."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"The only firewall able to monitor traffic from a CCTV network. Can detect unauthorized devices plugged into the network, which standard firewalls can't do."
"It has been stable so far."
"One of the most valuable features is the Geolocation. Because we aren't a multinational corporation, it allows me to look at things which might be suspicious to make sure that they are legitimate transactions rather than people sniffing around the network."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"We experienced that WatchGuard is easy to setup regarding VPN compared to other firewalls of other brands."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
"As a whole, it has a very low requirement for ongoing interaction. It's very self-sufficient. If properly patched, it has very high reliability. The total cost of ownership once deployed is very low."
"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 solution has many security features. We have an intrusion provision system and filtering and block filtering."
"I like the High Availability features of the newest ones I'm using because they allow a firewall to fail and still be up and running."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"I don't like that anything more than very basic reporting is not included."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."
"Licensing is not cheap."
"Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the hotspot get all the functions, and the security does not work."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
"Cloud-based central administration of all devices from one point would be nice"
"The way Secure Sign-On authentication is happening needs to be improved. When the Secure Sign-On portal is turned on, anybody who comes into the campus, whether he or she is a staff member or a guest, has to go past the initial portal. One of the shortcomings is the username. It shouldn't allow permutations or combinations with upper or lower cases. For example, when there is a username abc, it shouldn't allow ABC or Abc. It should not allow the same username, but currently, two separate people can go in. Therefore, its authentication or validation should be improved, and the case sensitiveness should be picked up. If I have restricted someone to two devices, they shouldn't be able to use different combinations of the same username and get into the third or fourth device. It shouldn't allow different combinations of alphabets to be used to log in."
"I don't think I can get a full-blown DNS client from it. I've been trying to have DNS services. It has forwarding, but I don't get the services of a full DNS client. My main difficulty with it is that I can't run a complete service. I need NTP. I need DNS. I need DHCP for my domain, but I only get forwarding. As far as I can tell, I don't get caching and the kinds of reporting and registration needed to host a DNS for a domain. I have to have a separate solution for that."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"An area for improvement is that when we use a web administration link, there is no security."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"The user interface for WatchGuard Firebox has room for improvement. Right now, it's a bit complex to work with and could be easier."
"There are a couple of things I wished that it would do, but I can't think of those off the top of my head."
Hillstone T-Series is ranked 36th in Firewalls with 3 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Hillstone T-Series is rated 7.4, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Hillstone T-Series writes "Is stable and has a user-friendly dashboard and a good interface". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Hillstone T-Series is most compared with Sangfor NGAF and Hillstone E-Series, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX.
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