Netgate pfSense vs Palo Alto Networks WildFire comparison

Fortinet FortiGate is an innovative line of firewalls that aim to protect organizations from all types of web-based network threats. They come in a wide variety of product types. Fortinet FortiGate’s solutions are available in a large range of sizes and form factors and are key components of the Fortinet Security Fabric, which enables immediate, intelligent defense against known and new threats throughout the entire network.

Fortinet FortiGate provides users with next-generation firewall solutions that provide proven protection with unmatched performance across the network, from internal segments to data centers to cloud environments. You can protect every part of your network without exception. Additionally, your protections can be managed from a single central location. This ensures that the task of protecting your network is infinitely easier to accomplish.

Benefits of Fortinet FortiGate

Some of the benefits of using Fortinet FortiGate include:

• The ability to manage your firewalls from a centralized automated control console. Fortinet FortiGate’s FortiManager enables administrators to exercise control of their firewalls in a streamlined manner. Administrators have full visibility and control over their system from a single location. It utilizes automation that collects information in real time, which greatly simplifies and reduces the cost of running various types of workflows. Administrators can free up resources by automating the most basic tasks.
• The ability to produce uniform, appropriate, and coordinated responses to threats across networks. Fortinet FortiGate’s FortiGuard feature generates system protections in near real time. This allows administrators to address threats to the system with custom-made solutions that can be uniformly enforced.
• The ability to scale up your security to fit your changing security needs. Fortinet FortiGate’s design allows users to accelerate the transfer of data between users and escalate the number of users that are covered without compromising security of performance. This means that users can grow their networks and continue to collaborate without worrying about the system slowing down or coming under attack.

Reviews from Real Users

Fortinet FortiGate’s firewall solutions are cutting edge. They stand out from competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the robustness and power of their firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate’s firewall provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with the solution. These firewalls enable users to use a single piece of software to accomplish tasks that often require the use of multiple pieces of software.

PeerSpot user Eric S., a Solutions Engineer and Consultant at a tech-services company, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface.”

PeerSpot user Jim M., a network admin at Penobscot Valley Hospital, notes the power of Fortinet FortiGate’s security software when he writes, "It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall.”

pfSense is a powerful and reliable network security appliance primarily used for security purposes such as firewall and VPN or traffic shaping, network management, and web filtering. It is commonly used by small businesses and managed service providers to protect their customers' networks and enable remote access through VPNs. 

The solution is praised for its stability, user-friendly interface, scalability potential, open-source nature, free cost, easy installation, firewall capabilities, security features, flexibility, and simplicity. Overall, pfSense is a cost-effective solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees.

pfSense Key Features

pfSense has many key features and capabilities, including:

• Strength and accuracy: pfSense is able to always follow either default or custom rules, making it a stronger firewall than some of its competitors. It also filters traffic separately, whether it’s coming from your internal network of devices or the open internet, allowing you to set different rules and policies for each.
  
  
• Flexibility: pfSense can work both as a basic firewall and as a complete security system because it gives you the flexibility to integrate additional features as code where necessary.
  
  
• Open-source: Because it is open-source, not only is pfSense free to use, but community members can contribute to the code to make it a better software.
  
  
• User-friendly: Usually firewall products are not user-friendly because they often include complex settings, options, and features that require fine-tuning. pfSense’s interface is simple, direct, and easy to use.
  
  
• WireGuard Support: Instead of building your own VPN using pfSense, or settling for a commercial VPN provider, you can directly integrate WireGuard with the pfSense firewall.
  
  
• Speed Management and Fault Tolerance: pfSense’s multi-WAN feature allows your system to continue operating in case components fail.
  
  
• Well-supported: pfSense regularly has security and feature updates. It also has a documentation site and a well-informed and knowledgeable support forum.

Reviews from Real Users

Below is some feedback from PeerSpot Users who are currently using the solution.

Bojan O., CEO at In.sist d.o.o., says, “The classic features, such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."

Another PeerSpot user, a chef at a media company, explains what he finds most valuable about pfSense: "The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is."

T.O., a VP of Business Development at a tech services company, mentions, "What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor."

Palo Alto Networks WildFire is a highly effective cloud-based advanced threat protection (ATP) solution that organizations in a wide variety of fields trust to help them keep safe from digital threats. It is designed to enable businesses to confront even the most evasive threats and resolve them. It combines many techniques to maximize the level of threat protection available to users.

Palo Alto Networks WildFire Benefits

Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy WildFire include:

Proactive real-time threat prevention. Organizations that utilize WildFire can take a proactive approach to their network security. Wildfire’s security scanning software is supported by powerful automation that enables it to run 180 times faster than other similar solutions. It also leverages machine learning to spot and address two times more malware monthly than its competitors. Users can solve issues as they arise, which prevents them from suffering severe harm.

A holistic approach to security. WildFire leverages many of the security features and characteristics that can be found in some of the most effective security solutions in a way that provides users with a powerful protective blanket. It combines such things as machine learning, dynamic and static analysis, and a custom-built analysis environment, and enables users to cover many different potential avenues of attack. In this way, organizations can easily detect and prevent even the most sophisticated threats from harming them.

Reduce overhead costs. Using WildFire cuts the expenses that a business incurs. Its architecture is based in the cloud and, as a result, users do not have to purchase hardware to run it. Additionally, those users do not have to pay anything more than a product subscription fee. They can scale it up as they wish and incur no additional costs.

Palo Alto Networks WildFire Features

Some of the many features WildFire offers include:

Third-party integrations. WildFire gives users access to integrations that can enable them to combine Wildfire’s security suite with outside tools. If an organization thinks that they are missing something, they can easily use Wildfire’s third-party integrations to bolster their capabilities. These integrations can connect to many different types of tools, like security information or event management systems.

URL filtering. Organizations can use a URL filtering feature to safeguard themselves against known threats. When this feature is active, it will scan for traffic coming from specific URLs that are known to be malicious. This keeps them one step ahead of those threats that they know about.

Deep analytics. Wildfire comes with the ability to provide users with a detailed analysis of any threat that it finds across all of their network environments. It gives users insight into everything from their natures to the actions that they have performed.

Reviews from Real Users

WildFire is a solution that stands out when compared to its primary competitors. Two major advantages that it offers are the high speeds at which it can analyze network traffic for threats and the accuracy with which it can pick out genuine threats from false positives.

Ahmad Z., the principal consultant at Securelytics, writes, “The analysis is very fast. The intermittent is a millisecond and has a speedy response time.”

Christopher B., the senior systems administrator at a government agency, says, “It gives a more accurate assessment of a virus in terms of whether it's truly a virus, malware, or a false positive. We have some legacy software that could pop up as being something that is malware. WildFire goes through and inspects it, and then it comes back and lets us know if it's a false positive. Usually, when it finds out that it's not a virus, it lets us know that it's benign, and it can exclude it from that scan, which means I don't even have to worry about that one popping up anymore.”