Juniper vSRX vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Juniper vSRX and WatchGuard Firebox 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.
To learn more, read our detailed Juniper vSRX vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: March 2024).
765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good.""The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features.""The pricing is excellent. It's much less expensive than Cisco.""We've found the solution to be pretty stable.""Initial setup is easy to configure.""The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring.""The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring.""Good load balancing feature."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"It's a very powerful solution and the firewalls offer high performance""Juniper is more flexible with the commit check and the commit confirmed command. The design of the forwarding and contract plan in the operating system is very important for the performance when we have very big traffic.""The command feature is valuable.""The hardware is stable.""The features we found most valuable are using the IDS and IPS during protection. The application filtering feature is great.""The architecture of the OS in Juniper is very good. It's flexibility, scalability, and the technicality is also good.""The technical support services are excellent.""The most valuable features are application filtering, content filtering, the intrusion prevention system (IPS), and definitely the application firewall."

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"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 ease of use is most valuable. You can quickly train someone who hasn't seen a firewall in life. You can get people up to speed, and in a few months, they are able to manage this product very easily. It is a very user-friendly, scalable, and stable product. Its price is also spot-on.""It also provides us with layered security. It has onboard virus scanning features that allow it to scan before something gets to the host. It will also stop a person from going to a site that is known to be bad.""The throughput is great. It's perfect. We have no issues whatsoever. The management features are very powerful...""Because we bought two firewalls... we need a central place to manage the policies and deploy them to both devices. It's good that it provides a system management console that is able to manipulate and manage policies in one place and deploy them to different locations.""The firewall aspect and the branch office VPNs are the most valuable features... We don't have any issues with it. We don't have to spend a lot of time maintaining it.""The solution has increased productivity with our outside salespeople being able to connect into their computers and use those remotely.""It's very easy to use, especially compared to similar products. A lot more users use the WatchGuard appliance now than use the SonicWall appliance because of the ease of usability."

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Cons
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes.""The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement.""The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training.""I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool.""One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering.""Technical support for this solution can be improved.""The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture.""When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"The reporting can be improved.""The solution's GUI needs improvement.""The solution should consider improving its licensing policies.""The tool's basic license does not cover everything. It needs to improve visibility and availability.""The security feature must be improved.""The solution could improve its technical support.""Juniper vSRX is expensive.""Right now, we are going through issues and problems where the product gets dropped with the connection or during the authentication initial phase. While it could be our problem, we would like to see more stability in this area."

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"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.""Sometimes, the writing rules are a little confusing in how am I doing them.""The solution is lacking a professional website, they should be updated more often.""It's very hard to get information from their website, for exactly what I need to do. Sometimes I end up having to open a lot of support tickets... It's a navigational issue which makes it hard to find what I'm looking for and it's just so broad.""The software base, the management piece that goes onto a server, is not as user-friendly as I would like. There are three different pieces that you have to manage, so it's a little bit convoluted, in my opinion.""There is a slight learning curve.""They are working on cloud-based options. However, they do not have the options fully functional in their solution at this time.""Last year, I had an issue with one of the Fireboxes going down. It was overheated, because my server room became overheated and this fried it."

More WatchGuard Firebox Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Our experience purchasing the solution through the AWS Marketplace was good."
  • "We like pricing through the AWS Marketplace."
  • "It is not that costly."
  • "After some research, I think that the cost of Juniper is more than Check Point, Palo Alto, and Fortinet."
  • "As a customer, the pricing is good for us."
  • "The pricing is reasonable."
  • "The ongoing licensing cost seems to be pretty standard. There are no additional costs."
  • "The solution could have been cheaper."
  • More Juniper vSRX Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Very competitive pricing regarding throughput compared to other alternatives."
  • "Cheap."
  • "The subscription that was purchased is for three years, but it is usually for one year at a time."
  • "The cheapest configuration, for maybe five people, is approximately $500."
  • "The price is so small that I don't pay attention to it anymore. I think we pay a few thousand dollars for two to three years, so about $100 per month. That's for all of our users. There is an additional cost if we want to go with a deeper licensing model, but we just pay for antivirus, IPS, and main product support."
  • "I haven't seen the pricing since 2017, but it was competitive. SonicWall, Barracuda, and WatchGuard were all about the same price when we did our last pricing."
  • "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."
  • "We only license our corporate one and the one we have at our DR site, we don't worry about the branches. It doesn't pay for us to license the ones at the branches. What they charge for what they call basic maintenance is extremely high for those little fireboxes."
  • More WatchGuard Firebox Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage at… more »
    Top Answer:From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know… more »
    Top Answer:As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite… more »
    Top Answer:People in Bangladesh, including the government and small businesses, have pricing issues.
    Top Answer:The graphical unit is slow. Also, Juniper vendor shipping of UPM devices, support, Bandwidth shift, and other activities… more »
    Top Answer:We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region. 
    Top Answer: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 our… more »
    Top Answer:We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    Juniper vSRX is a virtualized security platform that provides advanced threat protection for virtualized and cloud environments. It offers a comprehensive set of security features, including firewall, VPN, intrusion prevention system (IPS), and unified threat management (UTM). 

    With its scalable architecture, the vSRX can be easily deployed and managed across multiple virtual machines, making it ideal for organizations with dynamic and distributed networks. It also supports high-performance data processing, ensuring minimal impact on network performance. 

    vSRX is designed to integrate seamlessly with Juniper's broader security ecosystem, enabling centralized management and visibility across the entire network. 

    WatchGuard Firebox is a versatile security solution primarily used for security purposes such as firewalling, VPN, and protecting networks from outside and inside threats. It is also used for routing, multi-factor authentication, vulnerability management, and segregating industrial networks from corporate networks. 

    The product is praised for scalability, stability, user-friendliness, reasonable pricing, and good technical support. Some users use it for web filtering and hosting web pages, while others – for remote access connections and mobile VPNs. Firebox offers great protection, good performance, and flexibility without licensing limitations.

    WatchGuard Firebox Features

    WatchGuard Firebox has many valuable key features, including:

    • Policy management
    • Strong security
    • High performance
    • Network configuration for multiple clients
    • Built-in SD-WAN
    • Application control
    • Threat detection and response
    • Network discovery
    • Intuitive interface

    WatchGuard Firebox Benefits

    Some of the benefits of using WatchGuard Firebox include:

    • IT administrators can create and implement policies for content filtering, VPNs, and network inspections.
    • The solution is easy to set up, manage, and maintain.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by WatchGuard Firebox users.

    PeerSpot user Kelly C., IT Manager at a hospitality company, mentions, “One of the most valuable features is the Gateway AntiVirus. We scan all traffic as it's coming through. We also use spamBlocker to scrub spam. We use content filtering, which is critical in any corporate environment to make sure that people don't surf things they're not supposed to. WatchGuard has a very easy VPN and branch office VPN setup, so we use those pretty extensively too.It's very easy to use. In terms of performance, WatchGuard has always worked well for us. 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.”

    A Director of Information Technology at a retailer says, “Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager. It's a stable platform. The devices are pretty rock-solid.”

    Jason M., IT Director at a healthcare company, explains, “The policy monitoring and allowing different traffic flows are the most useful features for us; regulating which traffic comes in and out. In terms of the throughput and performance, we don't have a problem or any bottleneck there. We downgraded the size of our appliance because we're a small facility, and what we had before was actually too big. The one we are now going with seems to be doing a great job.” He also adds, “The management feature is pretty nice.”

    Steve R., President and Owner at Peak Communication Systems, Inc., comments, "It saves us time in the respect that we now have the template built for it so we can get in and get it done. We've had much less problems supporting Voice over IP technologies from different companies. Because our client base has grown over the years, we're probably saving 20 to 30 man-hours a month now that we've got this on a good stable level."

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    Expedient Data Centers
    Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider30%
    Manufacturing Company15%
    Financial Services Firm15%
    Computer Software Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization78%
    Computer Software Company4%
    Financial Services Firm2%
    Comms Service Provider2%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company19%
    Construction Company11%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Real Estate/Law Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government6%
    Retailer5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business56%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise26%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business6%
    Midsize Enterprise81%
    Large Enterprise13%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business65%
    Midsize Enterprise22%
    Large Enterprise13%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise39%
    Buyer's Guide
    Juniper vSRX vs. WatchGuard Firebox
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Juniper vSRX vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    765,234 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Juniper vSRX is ranked 26th in Firewalls with 30 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 77 reviews. Juniper vSRX is rated 7.8, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Juniper vSRX writes "Fast with good usability and fairly scalable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Rock-solid stability and easy to change the model". Juniper vSRX is most compared with Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Cisco Secure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, Meraki MX and SonicWall TZ. See our Juniper vSRX vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.

    See our list of best Firewalls vendors, best Unified Threat Management (UTM) vendors, and best Firewalls vendors.

    We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.