Menlo Secure vs Netgate pfSense comparison

Menlo Security and Netgate are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Menlo Security is ranked #54, while Netgate is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.8. Menlo Security holds a 0.1% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Netgate’s 10.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Menlo Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 93% of Netgate users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Netgate pfSense and Menlo Secure offer robust cybersecurity solutions with distinct advantages. Netgate pfSense is well-regarded for its user satisfaction in pricing and deployment, while Menlo Secure stands out with its advanced threat protection and overall feature set.

Features: Netgate pfSense is praised for its customizable firewall functionalities, extensive plugin support, and flexible nature. Menlo Secure is valued for its advanced threat isolation capabilities, seamless integration with existing IT infrastructure, and innovative security features.

Room for Improvement: Netgate pfSense users seek better documentation, enhanced technical support, and improved knowledge resources. Menlo Secure users desire improved scalability options, lower false positive rates in threat detection, and fine-tuning in its operational efficiency.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Netgate pfSense users report a straightforward deployment process but have mixed experiences with customer service responsiveness. Menlo Secure is noted for smooth deployment and excellent customer service support.

Pricing and ROI: Netgate pfSense is favored for its cost-effectiveness and satisfactory return on investment. Menlo Secure's higher setup costs are balanced by its superior security features, promising better long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Menlo Secure vs. Netgate pfSense Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Netgate pfSense

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 October 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.4%, up from 19.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netgate pfSense is 10.8%, down from 18.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	20.4%
Netgate pfSense	10.8%
Menlo Secure	0.1%
Other	68.7%

Firewalls

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.

Read full review

Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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Jean-Pierre DAREYS

Director, Latin America at Bradmark Technologies, Inc.

Easy to use, configurable, flexible, excellent user group support

I'm not knowledgeable enough to suggest new features. The use has been very straightforward. Whatever questions I've had, I've found videos to help me on YouTube, or I've been able to ask the forums. I've also reached out to technical support and I've received help although there could be more videos or tutorials from Netgate, in addition to third parties who have already implemented it, which is great. I have suffered a lot of problems over time but I don't think the problems are related to the hardware or the software. I am convinced that the problems have been related to hacking during configuration. During the setup process, while experimenting, the device would stop working or the password would suddenly not allow access, requiring re-installation and re-configuration, it was very slow going until I moved to the cloud. The dashboard is a little bit slow and the reporting isn't always current or immediate but acceptable. I'm not sure I can make data-driven decisions due to insufficient volume. I would need enhanced reporting, statistics, playback. I haven't looked at the reports a lot since because you have to access the log files, time is an issue, I use it in a home office environment.

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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 most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."

"One of the features I appreciate the most is application control which offers great flexibility."

"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."

"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."

"On a scale of one to ten, I rate this solution 10 out of 10."

"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."

"I rate this solution a nine out of ten."

"The solution is easy to use."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"For me, pfSense is a ten out of ten."

"I had some outages in the network and we provide services for our company. We sell mobile credits. The terminal gets access to our own server inside the network and if one internet fails, then the other one is still up and we have a back-up link on the devices."

"PfSense is relatively easy to set up and just runs. It's easy to use."

"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."

"It is a stable solution."

"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."

"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."

"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."

More Netgate pfSense pros

Cons

"From my experience, I see that the datasheets of the Fortinet FortiGate portfolio need to be more accurate because correct sizing is essential."

"If I had any criticism that I would give FortiGate, it would be that they need to stop changing their logging format. Every time we do a firmware upgrade, it is a massive issue on the SIM. Parsers have to be rebuilt. Even the FortiGate guys came in and said that they don't play well in the sandbox."

"Its pricing can be better."

"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."

"The solution has many heightened points which we cannot get to without working on CLI."

"I see problems with the licensing. If I have to add a new feature, we need to add a license."

"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."

"The initial setup is medium complex and takes between five days and a week."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."

"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."

"The configuration could be a little more intuitive."

"It would be very useful if we could place pfSense appliances in customer environments and remotely manage them."

"I'd love a centralized management system for multiple pfSense appliances."

"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."

"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."

"Another thing that's primarily an issue for us is that Netgate may soon stop production of the 1100. That's what we use for our telephony gateway. It doesn't need to be high performance, but it does need to be low cost. If they stop it and make the 2100 the lowest, that will be problematic for us. We will need to start using something else because it will become too expensive for our purposes."

"This product needs improvements with respect to reporting and auditing."

More Netgate pfSense cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."

"Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."

"It is more affordable than Check Point and Palo Alto. Another thing is that all the features and the OS remain the same irrespective of the size of the device. Pricing-wise, Fortinet typically provides one-year support with the firewall appliance. There is also an option for three years which is how their licensing works."

"I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable."

"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."

"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."

"The pricing is fair."

"Cost-wise, there is not much difference from Sophos, but feature-wise, we get more features."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

"I am using the free version."

"The solution is free. However, you need to pay for support."

"Its price is fair. I buy the Netgate hardware so that I can support pfSense and Netgate and I have somebody designing the next layer of software for me in the future. I like their model. It is a high-value piece of equipment with a great team behind it."

"It is free. It is open source."

"Its price is pretty fair."

"The price of pfSense is on par with everything else. It depends on how big an appliance you buy and whether you're purchasing it directly from Netgate. Some rack-mounted systems are expensive—a couple thousand bucks. The one that I use at my house was $700."

"pfSense is open-source."

"I use the product's free version."

More Netgate pfSense 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

Computer Software Company

16%

Manufacturing Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Retailer

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

13%

Educational Organization

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	166
Midsize Enterprise	33
Large Enterprise	28

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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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 needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto....

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What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some ...

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Help me find the best open source router

You don't really specify what type of router you are looking for but if you are talking about a gateway router I reco...

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Fortinet’s Fortigate is a firewall solution we use and are very much satisfied with its performance. We find Fortigat...

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What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?

Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...

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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

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 17% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 16% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

Silo by Authentic8 vs Menlo Secure

Compared 6% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

OPNsense vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 41% of the time

Sophos XG vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 3% of the time

KerioControl vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 3% of the time

Sophos UTM vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 2% of the time

More Netgate pfSense Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

October 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

September 2025

Download Menlo Secure product report

Buyer's Guide

Netgate pfSense

September 2025

Download Netgate pfSense product report

Also Known As

No data available

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

No data available

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

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Netgate pfSense is widely leveraged by organizations for its comprehensive capabilities in firewalls, VPN servers, and bandwidth management. It suits LAN, WAN, and DMZ networks, offering secure, scalable, and efficient networking solutions.

Netgate pfSense stands out in diverse environments with its enterprise-grade features and cost-effective operations compared to competitors like Cisco. Deployed as an edge device, it optimizes routing, ad-blocking, content filtering, and traffic shaping. Users benefit from its versatile configurations, robust firewall protection, VPN functionality, and ISP load balancing. The open-source nature allows for extensive customization, integrating plugins like Snort and pfBlockerNG, and compatibility with third-party tools enhances its utility. The intuitive GUI combined with detailed logging and centralized management fortifies network security.

What features define Netgate pfSense?

Firewall: Provides robust network security through advanced filtering and stateful packet inspections.
VPN: Ensures secure remote access with high-performing VPN capabilities.
Load Balancing: Efficiently distributes traffic across multiple ISPs, ensuring uptime and performance.
Customization: Supports various plugins for enhanced functionality, tailor-made to specific needs.
Scalability: Adapts easily to varying network demands, providing high availability and flexibility.

What benefits should be considered for ROI?

Cost-Effectiveness: Delivers premium features at a fraction of the cost of traditional network appliances.
Flexibility: Offers a customizable solution that integrates well with existing infrastructure.
Community Support: Backed by a strong user community offering insights and troubleshooting resources.
Security: Supports VLAN segmentation, enhancing protection and management of network traffic.

Organizations in industries such as finance, healthcare, and education find Netgate pfSense integral due to its advanced security features and cost benefits. Its scalable architecture and strong VPN support are crucial for industries requiring stringent data protection and reliable remote access. The adaptability of pfSense makes it suitable for dynamic environments seeking comprehensive, secure networking solutions.

Netgate

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

Information Not Available

Nerds On Site Inc., RKC Development Inc., Expertech, Fisher's Technology, Ncisive, Consulting, CPURX, Vaughn's Computer House Calls, Imeretech LLC, Digital Crisis, Carolina Digital Phone, Technigogo Technology Services, The Simple Solution, SwiftecITInc, Rocky Mountain Tech Team, Free Range Geeks, Alaska Computer Geeks, Lark Information Technology, Renaissance Systems Inc., Cutting Edge Computers, Caretech LLC, GoVanguard, Network Touch Ltd, P.C. Solutions.Net, Vision Voice and Data Systems LLC, Montgomery Technologies, Techforce, Concero Networks, ASONInc, CPS Electronics and Consulting, Darkwire.net LLC, IT Specialists, MBS-Net Inc., VOICE1 LLC, Advantage Networking Inc., Powerhouse Systems, Doxa Multimedia Inc., Pro Computer Service, Virtual IT Services, A&J Computers Inc., Envision IT LLC, CommunicaONE Inc., Bone Computer Inc., Amax Engineering Corporation, QPG Ltd. Co., IT 101 Inc., Perfect Cloud Solutions, Applied Technology Group Inc., The Digital Sun Group LLC, Firespring

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Netgate pfSense

September 2025

Free Report: Menlo Secure vs. Netgate pfSense

Find out what your peers are saying about Menlo Secure vs. Netgate pfSense and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.

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