We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and pfSense based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is appreciated for its simplicity, intuitive interface, and robust assistance. It provides functionalities like site-to-site VPN, firewall security, and routing capabilities. pfSense is highly regarded for its capacity to obstruct IP addresses, user-friendly dashboards, and open-source characteristics. It offers features such as secure VPN connections, scanning, filtering, and network security capabilities.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall could use enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. pfSense would benefit from improvements in instructional videos, web interface clarity, stability, mobile application, centralized management, GUI for SMBs, sandboxing, security, hardware support, user-friendliness, log analysis, VPN capacity, documentation, configuration processes, and SD-WAN integration.
Service and Support: Customers have generally praised Juniper SRX Series Firewall's customer service for being helpful and knowledgeable, despite occasional slower response times. pfSense's customer service varies among users, with some having positive experiences with technical support and others relying on clear documentation and community resources.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be done within a day for smaller branch offices, whereas pfSense be set up in just 15 minutes. Juniper may demand familiarity with CLI, while pfSense is commonly referred to as being easy to use.
Pricing: Juniper has extra charges for advanced security features and APS, whereas pfSense provides updates without any additional fees. The specific licensing costs for pfSense are not clearly stated.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides advanced security features and reliable performance, leading to a favorable return on investment. pfSense stands out for its affordability, minimal management expenses, and substantial hardware cost savings. Users also emphasize its superior ROI compared to pricier alternatives such as FortiGate.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product over pfSense. Users appreciate its simplicity, intuitive interface, reliability, scalability, and exceptional customer support. It offers convenient configuration, site-to-site VPN capabilities, and effective firewall protection. Additionally, Juniper SRX Series Firewall is considered a more cost-effective and secure solution.
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"The solution is scalable."
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"It's a reliable firewall and very stable, for both the hardware and applications it is stable."
"Juniper has the "recovery safety feature", so if you perform a "commit confirmed" and the new configuration disconnects you. then there is no "confirmed" command with X mins (default = 10 mins). It automatically reverts (recovers) to the previous configuration. This is handy for when you do not want to make that trip down range just to reboot a router."
"It protects the data behind our switches."
"CLI: Junos CLI is very easy to use, and it is also very easy to find back items in the configuration and to change them."
"It helps us perform our daily jobs."
"The most valuable features are the security cloud ACP and KPP features."
"The rollback option and Commit Confirmed are great features. They give us the security to change configurations without downtime."
"When compared to Palo Alto, Juniper is a better choice when it comes to the enterprise network and connectivity."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"The GUI needs to be easier and more helpful for users who don't have security experience."
"It did not improve our safety because the IDS does not detect some attacks, but our anti-virus software did."
"In terms of other features, I'd like to see a web filter, 10 point control, application control and a DNA filter in the next release."
"I would like to see endpoint control and endpoint testing security."
"Juniper SRX could improve by adding an IPX feature."
"The Juniper SRX product needs to improve in terms of innovation."
"IPS is one that I would definitely want to be improved. I would also like SSL VPN to be integrated."
"The web interface on Juniper SRX is just a short conversion from Junos OS CLI; this is not very suitable for users with little expertise/"
"pfSense has some limitations in detecting site sessions. We want to control internet usage based on sites and their content, and pfSense doesn't perform this function."
"It needs to be more secure."
"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."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"The product could offer more integrated plugins."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 86 reviews while Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Juniper SRX Series Firewall writes "Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW and Meraki MX, whereas Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Netgate pfSense report.
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