McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

McAfee and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) category. McAfee is ranked #26 with an average rating of 8.0, while WatchGuard is ranked #10 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 76% of McAfee users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 5, 2025

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention and WatchGuard Firebox compete in the security software category. WatchGuard appears to have an advantage due to its comprehensive feature set, including threat detection and layered security, justifying its higher cost.

Features: McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention provides strong data protection, effective user control, and virtual machine security with its USB control and incident reporting features. WatchGuard Firebox offers intuitive management, robust VPN capabilities, and strong security measures like URL filtering and intrusion detection complemented by seamless integration abilities.

Room for Improvement: McAfee requires improvements in pricing and support. Its interface can be considered confusing and resource-intensive, needing better modern virtual desktop integration and enhanced threat detection. WatchGuard could improve its reporting features and user interface, offering more third-party integration options and simplifying its cloud-based management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Both products offer versatile deployment options, with WatchGuard standing out for additional cloud deployment flexibility. McAfee’s support experiences mixed reviews, often requiring third-party assistance, whereas WatchGuard provides consistent support and ease of deployment, which enhances its integration in various environments.

Pricing and ROI: McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention is viewed as expensive with layered costs, despite some users reporting good ROI. In contrast, WatchGuard Firebox is considered competitively priced for small to midsize businesses, offering good ROI through effective security management, despite its initially higher cost.

To learn more, read our detailed McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: November 2025).

Buyer's Guide

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention vs. WatchGuard Firebox

November 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

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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Kamal Abdelrahman

Country Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Has provided strong data protection capabilities while offering valuable policy customization options

I find unique value in McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention specifically in controlling the application from a DLP perspective; when a computer downloads a package, you can understand where it downloaded this package from, and you can create a policy regarding the source of the download. This is actually an important and valuable feature, specifically in enterprises where they download, upload, and export critical reports from their business applications. I appreciate the customized policy features in McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention because we didn't find these features in other competing applications. This may be a requirement from business customers who have important or critical applications; they expect to understand that these are critical files because this is a critical application. This cannot be done although we are with Trellix or McAfee solution.

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Syed Pasha

Senior Network Consultant at NETOPS

Makes defining policies simpler but lacks performance and modern features

WatchGuard Firebox is only deployed in one location within my customer's organization, and at the other locations, we are using Meraki and FortiGate. We plan to replace WatchGuard Firebox soon. My impression of the spam blocking capabilities of WatchGuard is not very favorable, as I don't think it is very capable. I haven't noticed effective web ratings or IPS signatures, which may be due to managing an older OS; I'm not certain about the performance of the newer versions. I am not aware of whether the transition to faster ports on WatchGuard Firebox supports maintaining productivity levels during peak usage times. Based on my experience, I would rate WatchGuard Firebox as five out of ten overall.

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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

"We use it to avoid unwanted traffic."

"The usability of the solution is its best feature."

"The solution is scalable."

"Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment."

"Having IPS helps in ensuring that our network is protected from potential threats, which is crucial as we implement our payment gateway."

"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."

"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."

"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The solution has good stability and endpoint."

"This solution has a rich set of policies."

"Offers some good protection features."

"The interface showcases threat incidents very well."

"The solution is stable."

"Everything in this DLP is great. It"

"McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention works perfectly as a DLP solution; it is a matured and established solution that may have a shortage in applying AI, but it has good new approaches in data classification, built-in solution, and also re-architecture for the OCR solution inside the application."

"The overall features of McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention are very good."

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention pros

"The most valuable features are the VPN and web blocker security."

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

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

"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."

"Firebox's best feature is the access portal."

"[A] valuable feature would be the branch office. We have five offices throughout the United States, and it coordinates the connections of those offices."

"If you just plan to use WatchGuard Firebox in your office and not publicly, then it is okay to purchase it. With WatchGuard Firebox, you can manage your users and permissions while also taking care of the basic setup phase in your office."

"The most important feature of this solution is the SLAs."

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

Cons

"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."

"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."

"The support package being an additional extra, even with an enterprise package purchase, is pathetic. Though I haven't had direct experience with support, the fact that it doesn't come by default, which is very misleading compared to other brands, warrants a rating of two out of ten."

"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."

"The software is a bit expensive to renew."

"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."

"They can add automation for monitoring and policy optimization on the firewall. I think using AI to do some optimization on the policies would be beneficial, such as providing alerts about policies that haven't been used for a long time or identifying overlapping policies."

"The things we require are already sorted out, so there isn't any scope for improvement as far as our requirements go. However, its price can be better."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"McAfee needs to clarify its rules."

"The product fails to offer automatic classification capabilities to its users."

"I would like the solution to improve the AI features for anti-virus detection. I also want the software to include a tool for malware detection."

"McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention could improve by making the customer aware of the benefits of the solution which would increase the adoption. Additionally, if there were features to suit multi-cloud environments it would be helpful. If the solution can intelligently identify which is important data for the organization and should not be released from the organization without authorization would be a benefit."

"We faced many issues with the solution's customer support, and it should be made customer-friendly and more responsive."

"We need to do a lot of configuration."

"In my experience, it's not really user-friendly for me, in terms of how I navigate with the ePolicy Orchestrator. They need to upgrade their management console."

"McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention needs to improve the resources it uses for CPU and RAM."

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention cons

"The next release should have better software and configuration systems that can also be used on Linux."

"The UI is not as user-friendly as the model that I had used before, which was from Check Point. The design of the Firebox UI is restricted and needs an experienced network guy to understand the format and settings."

"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."

"The UI and web view aren't nice."

"Multi properties could be added to the solution in the future to make it better."

"The usability could be better, but it is definitely manageable. If we have to go to a backup internet connection, that could be a little bit easier."

"The data loss protection works well, but it could be easier to configure. The complexity of data loss protection makes it a more difficult feature to fully leverage. Better integration with third-party, two-factor authentication would be advantageous."

"Reporting is something you've got to set up separately. It's one of those things that you've got to put some time into. One of the options is to set up a local report server, which is what I did. It's not great. It's okay... Some of the stuff is a little complicated to get up and running. Once you do, it becomes very user-friendly and easy to work with, but I find there are some implementation headaches with some of their stuff."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"No comment."

"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."

"The price is high compared to some of the other solutions."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate when compared to other solutions is high. However, my knowledge of the price is from third parties and I am not sure how accurate it is. I typically work in the technical area of my organization."

"Fortinet FortiGate is reasonably priced."

"The pricing is perfect."

"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."

"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The price of the solution could improve."

"The price of the solution could improve, it is expensive. We typically sell one and three-year licenses."

"I would rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"If the client purchases the entire suite of McAfee Endpoint, the license is included."

"The pricing seems expensive both for the license and the support."

"There is an annual license to use this solution."

"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."

"The price is high for this type of product."

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention pricing and cost advice

"The price is very good."

"I usually tell people that it's really affordable as well, particularly compared to Cisco."

"The solution is cheap."

"The two larger devices are about $1,000 each and the smaller ones are about $500 or $600 each... It's cheaper and you have more control because it's self-managed."

"There is a license required to use the solution and we pay annually. The price could be reduced because it is a bit expensive."

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

"The price is comparable."

"WatchGuard Firebox is a cheap solution."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions are best for your needs.

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	350
Midsize Enterprise	130
Large Enterprise	187

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	18
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	7

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	15

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

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 do you like most about McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention?

The tool focuses on endpoints rather than networks. Endpoints cover everything. It wouldn't be possible to steal conf...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention?

I rate the pricing for McAfee as competitive compared to other companies; they are in the same range, not a cheap pro...

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What needs improvement with McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention?

I see enhancement in reporting for McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention as a potential area of improvemen...

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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.

See all answers

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...

See all answers

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.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 8% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

HP Wolf Security vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 75% of the time

Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 5% of the time

Trellix DLP vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 4% of the time

Symantec Data Loss Prevention vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 3% of the time

Digital Guardian vs McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

Compared 3% of the time

More McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention Competitors

OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos XGS vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

More WatchGuard Firebox Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

November 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention

October 2025

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention report

Download McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

October 2025

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Also Known As

No data available

McAfee Total Protection for Data, McAfee Total Protection for DLP, Total Protection for Data, Intel Security Total Protection for Data

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

McAfee Total Protection for Data solution suite protects your data using a combination of powerful encryption, access control, and user-behavior monitoring.

McAfee

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

Kleberg Bank

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

Buyer's Guide

McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention vs. WatchGuard Firebox

November 2025

Free Report: McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention vs. WatchGuard Firebox

Find out what your peers are saying about McAfee Total Protection for Data Loss Prevention vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.

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