IBM Security Network IPS vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

IBM and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category. IBM is ranked #25, while WatchGuard is ranked #4 with an average rating of 7.6. IBM holds a 0.6% mindshare in ID, compared to WatchGuard’s 8.9% mindshare. Additionally, 80% of IBM users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 5, 2025

IBM Security Network IPS and WatchGuard Firebox are two leading contenders in the network security domain. While IBM Security Network IPS is highly valued for its cost-effectiveness and support, WatchGuard Firebox has gained a reputation for its advanced feature set, making it a more appealing option for those seeking comprehensive security solutions.

Features: IBM Security Network IPS is known for comprehensive threat detection, minimal false positives, and seamless inline traffic blocking. It features robust customization capabilities and simple signature-based analysis. WatchGuard Firebox is recognized for versatile security services, seamless integration, and an intuitive GUI. Its advanced threat detection, web filtering, and application control effectively manage diverse security requirements.

Room for Improvement: IBM Security Network IPS could enhance user interface intuitiveness, expand integration capabilities with third-party products, and improve real-time reporting. WatchGuard Firebox might benefit from reducing setup complexity, refining scalability options for large enterprises, and optimizing its VPN deployment efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: IBM Security Network IPS delivers a streamlined deployment process supported by robust assistance channels, favoring organizations with established policies. Conversely, WatchGuard Firebox, with its user-friendly deployment model and responsive customer service, aims for broader appeal and adaptability, making it suitable for organizations with evolving needs.

Pricing and ROI: IBM Security Network IPS typically demands a higher initial setup cost, counterbalanced by its precise threat detection capabilities that promise solid long-term ROI. In contrast, WatchGuard Firebox offers a competitive price point, providing strong ROI through its expansive security suite and comprehensive management tools. The decision between these solutions often hinges on prioritizing initial expenses versus the depth of features for sustainable returns.

To learn more, read our detailed IBM Security Network IPS vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Network IPS vs. WatchGuard Firebox

September 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 17.1%, down from 19.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM Security Network IPS is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 8.9%, down from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	17.1%
WatchGuard Firebox	8.9%
IBM Security Network IPS	0.6%
Other	73.4%

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

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.

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Jacob_Koithra

Project & Program manager at Shell Grp

User-friendly and has a good blocking feature but is quite expensive

Defining the new security rules and policies sometimes becomes a challenge. Integration with other platforms becomes a challenge as well. I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies. XGS 7100 has an end of support for the 30th of December 2022. Many are losing support. All the products of the XGS, including XGS 3100, 4100, 5100, and 7100, support is ending in December 2022. We need to know what is the plan post that? Do we need to spend money on them? Will that be extended? There has been no communication on the website either. It's an expensive device.

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Rajesh Makwana

Regional Pre-Sales Engineer at Roundrobin Tech

Efficient bandwidth management and secure network access with a strong firewall

The primary use case of the Firebox mainly revolves around bandwidth management, unnecessary web blocking, application control, and protection against brute force attacks. It is also implemented for load balancing, SD-WAN, and branch-to-branch connectivity from one location to another. We also use…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."

"FortiGate also makes GRE tunneling possible."

"Before using this solution, we had so many problems accessing our resources because we don't have a lot of internet bandwidth. And by using application control and traffic shaping, we were able to manage user to quickly access services that are important. This tool has aided to the simplicity of our day-to-day management."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."

"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."

"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."

"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."

"FortiGate is easy to configure. We configured one of the units and sent it to Indiana to be installed. We asked them to give us a call when they got it, so we could help them through the process, but they called us back to tell us it works great."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The most valuable feature is its simplicity."

"The initial setup is simple."

"Easy to change the model if you need more performance, with good cohesion in the whole lineup of devices."

"The most valuables feature of WatchGuard Firebox are the VPNs, and web filtering where we can stop users from going to malicious sites."

"If there is any conflict, the reporting feature will kick out all types of information, which is great."

"The most valuable feature is the ease of use of the interface."

"WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response is a reliable solution."

"When you download the executable file from the internet, it automatically sandboxes to make sure it's not doing anything incorrectly."

"The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using NetApp System Manager on Window since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom."

"The most valuable are the VPN and proxy features."

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

Cons

"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."

"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."

"We faced difficulties with the configuration because there are many features we could optimize using Fortinet FortiGate, but our reseller didn't have a good understanding of it. So, we just use it on a basic level, not with the best practice for using FortiGate."

"They could improve the response time and quality of support."

"FortiGate's logging and reporting could be improved. I would also like to see Fortinet add a guest management portal."

"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."

"The interface and product support could use improvement."

"The customization is a little bit difficult."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"In the future, I would like to see a hybrid option so that we can work both on-premises and in the cloud."

"I'd like to see more integration with other tools and technologies."

"The licensing can be a bit expensive."

"I would like to have a little more control over access points and the ability to see the bandwidth that is passing through a specific access point. We are not able to see that. We can see what traffic is passing through the Firebox itself, but we can't identify if it is coming from a particular access point or not."

"I'm not really impressed with the reporting side of it. It may be something I just haven't figured out very well, but it's hard to filter down on reporting of the actual valuable information that you would want. There is a lot of information out there so you have to have some kind of tool capture it and then filter through. So far, I haven't found the reporting side of the WatchGuard to be that user-friendly."

"There is a slight learning curve."

"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients."

"The product can improve in terms of layout to provide easier access and viewing to users, especially for the reports."

"I'd like to have better access to workstation monitoring, connection monitoring, and the amount of time an address is being used, to better gauge proper network utilization. If I knew that something was connected to a particular external location for an extended period that seems abnormal, I'd be able to act upon it."

"One area for improvement is the limitation in the product portfolio compared to competitors like Fortinet, which offers a broader portfolio including Authentication, VPNs, FortiMail, Sandbox, and Email Security."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is an inexpensive solution."

"It's not the cheapest, but it's value for money. Given everything we've got out of it: the DMZ port, the VPN, and the high availability, it's a pretty reasonable price."

"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."

"It is around $50,000 per month."

"Its price is reasonable. They have a clear pricing policy. It is not complicated by the number of VPN users at a time. We know what the price is. The yearly subscription for the security license is rather high, but it is all included for whatever number of users you have and the kind of functions you need."

"It's a year based license."

"The solution is offered as an annual license."

"I had to pay for the license for the firewall, but it is guaranteed to have updates. I expect a good service for it. It was about €1000 for a year, and there was no additional cost."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The cost of operations is very low."

"Each one, for the primary unit, was $8,600 and the High Availability unit was $2,000. That's with three years of subscription and support and the Total Security Suite."

"Its cost is okay. It is not too expensive, not too low. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of pricing."

"I buy a three-year renewal on the main device, which is usually around $3,000 to $4,000. They usually upgrade the device when I do it. You get a big discount when you do three years."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its pricing."

"The price of WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service is pretty reasonable compared to similar solutions."

"The pricing was in line with everyone else; maybe slightly higher."

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

"The price of WatchGuard is very good."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Retailer

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	350
Midsize Enterprise	129
Large Enterprise	187

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	91
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

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

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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...

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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 ...

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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

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

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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...

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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.

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

ExtremeCloud IQ vs IBM Security Network IPS

Compared 100% of the time

More IBM Security Network IPS Competitors

OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos XG vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos XGS vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

More WatchGuard Firebox Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

September 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)

August 2025

Download IBM Security Network IPS product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

August 2025

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Also Known As

No data available

Security Network Intrusion Prevention System, IBM Security Network Protection, XGS, GX

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

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate excels in providing integrated VPN, firewalling, and Unified Threat Management (UTM) with centralized management and high availability. It supports remote access and comprehensive threat protection, making it a preferred choice for securing networks.

Fortinet FortiGate offers a robust security platform with features such as strong intrusion prevention, application control, and web filtering. Its integration with Active Directory and SD-WAN functionality provides scalable solutions for large networks. Users appreciate its ease of use through centralized management interfaces, ensuring robust security with flexible configurations. However, FortiGate could enhance its graphical interface and technical support responsiveness, address firmware bugs and costly licensing, improve logging, integrate better with third-party tools, and strengthen scalability and memory for log storage. Complexity in configuration and the need for intuitive features are noted challenges, and there's a demand for advanced security, zero-trust capabilities, and AI integration.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN: Secure remote access and connectivity.
Firewalling: Protects networks from unauthorized access and attacks.
UTM: Offers a comprehensive approach to threat management.
SD-WAN: Optimizes traffic routing for efficient network performance.
Web Filtering: Controls and monitors web access and ensures Internet security.

What benefits or ROI should be considered?

Centralized Management: Simplifies administration and monitoring.
High Availability: Ensures consistent security and network availability.
Scalability: Adapts to the needs of growing networks.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Provides robust security measures.
Ease of Use: Minimizes the complexity of security management.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries like education, finance, and government. Companies use it for firewall protection, VPN, and SD-WAN capabilities, ensuring secure perimeter and data center security. It facilitates remote access management and traffic routing optimization, offering reliable security and connectivity solutions.

Fortinet

IBM Security Network Intrusion Prevention System appliances are designed to stop constantly evolving threats before they impact your business. This means providing both high levels of protection and performance, while lowering the overall cost and complexity associated with deploying and managing a large number of point solutions.

IBM

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

Equifax, Christian Hospital Centre

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

Buyer's Guide

IBM Security Network IPS vs. WatchGuard Firebox

September 2025

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