We performed a comparison between Juniper SRX Series Firewall and OPNsense 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 highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, ease of use, and exceptional support. It boasts advantageous features such as site-to-site VPN functionality and a robust command line. OPNsense is appreciated for its scalability and remarkable features such as guest access capabilities and dashboards. Additionally, the availability of a free version is highly valued. OPNsense also offers features such as IDS and IPS, effortless configuration, and compatibility with pfSense.
Juniper SRX Series Firewall would benefit from enhancements in capacity limitations, reporting and alerts, user interface, device reliability, documentation, and feature enhancements. OPNsense needs improvements in the interface, bandwidth management, high availability, logging, integration, updates, IPS solution, hardware updates, installation, reporting, SSL inspection, and learning curve.
Service and Support: The customer service for Juniper SRX Series Firewall is highly regarded for its knowledgeable and supportive technical assistance. However, there have been occasional delays in response times. OPNsense's customer service has garnered both positive and negative feedback, with some users describing it as exceptional while others believe there is room for improvement.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Juniper SRX Series Firewall can be challenging and time-consuming, depending on the environment and integration needs. OPNsense provides a simple and quick setup that can be accomplished within a few hours, even by individuals without IT expertise.
Pricing: Juniper SRX Series Firewall has a relatively simple setup process, although configuring security settings may require additional time. OPNsense is a cost-effective open-source solution that does not necessitate licensing fees. However, there are associated expenses related to equipment, installation, resources, personnel, and training.
ROI: Juniper SRX Series Firewall provides reliability, consistent operation, and advanced security capabilities, leading to a favorable return on investment. OPNsense delivers a return on investment within a short timeframe of under three months and eliminates the need for ongoing payments.
Comparison Results: Juniper SRX Series Firewall is the preferred product in comparison to OPNsense. It offers a simple and fast setup process, a user-friendly interface, great support, and a wide range of useful features. Users appreciate its stability, scalability, and competitive pricing.
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"The solution is extremely reliable."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"Technical support is good. They quickly respond, and they even have local help here. They can actually give you an answer very quickly."
"It'sa very secure device, it has good attack prevention capabilities using UTM."
"The solution's stability is very good."
"The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple."
"It's a reliable firewall and very stable, for both the hardware and applications it is stable."
"The solution is relatively easy and inexpensive to maintain."
"We mostly use the Layer 4 firewall functions: Access rules, NAT, and site-to-site IPsec VPN."
"Technical support is perfect."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"The technical support is very good."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"OPNsense is highly stable."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"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."
"Monitoring and reporting could be better."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"The user interface and the GUI need improvement."
"The solution isn't very granular or detailed."
"The reporting is lacking."
"To compare with Fortinet, Juniper needs to improve their security features."
"I would like to have a better web UI for administration. Juniper could simplify the web UI and make it more compatible with mobile devices."
"The interface could be more user-friendly."
"The visibility/reporting could be better. To see something, you have to export the log to a syslog and then process with another product."
"We purchased three devices and all three have been replaced under RMA."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"You will need additional training before you can actually start to use it."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 86 reviews while OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews. Juniper SRX Series Firewall is rated 7.8, while OPNsense is rated 8.4. 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 OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". Juniper SRX Series Firewall is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Azure Firewall, whereas OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire. See our Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. OPNsense report.
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