We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: OPNsense is highly regarded for its ability to adapt and grow, its ability to allow guest access, its user-friendly interface, its versatility, its reliability, its intrusion detection and prevention system, and the availability of a free version. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls excel in their incorporation of machine learning, their ability to prevent attacks in real-time, their unified platform, and their robust security capabilities.
OPNsense has room for improvement in interface simplicity, bandwidth management, high availability, logging, integration, hardware updates, reporting, SSL inspection, and learning curve. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls can enhance customization, SD-WAN configuration, logging accuracy, management interface, documentation, VPN availability, training materials, external dynamic list feature, and internet filtering.
Service and Support: Some users find the customer service for OPNsense excellent, while others believe it could be enhanced. Opinions on Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' customer service are divided. Some customers appreciate the support team's expertise and promptness, while others have faced challenges in contacting support.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for both OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is described as straightforward. Users with or without IT experience can easily navigate through either setup. The deployment time for both options can vary depending on specific circumstances. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide training materials that contribute to the simplified and user-friendly setup experience.
Pricing: OPNsense primarily incurs expenses for hardware, while the software is available for free. Additional costs may involve public IPs and underlying VMs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are generally perceived as having higher pricing due to licensing and subscriptions. Nevertheless, this higher cost is deemed reasonable given the level of security and features offered by the product.
ROI: OPNsense delivers cost savings within a short period, eradicating the need for ongoing expenses. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls enhance visibility, reporting, and security, streamlining administration and ensuring a sense of security.
Comparison Results: Based on user feedback, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the preferred choice when compared to OPNsense. Users find the initial setup of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be straightforward and easy. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is highly regarded for its embedded machine learning capabilities, strong security features, and comprehensive logging.
"It can expand easily."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"OPNsense is highly stable."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"I feel that its valuable features are that it is simple and free."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"The technical support is very good."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"It's open source."
"It is pretty important to have embedded machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention, because all these different attacks and threats are constantly evolving. So, you want to have something beyond just hard pass rules. You want it to learn as it is going along. Its machine learning seems pretty good. It seems like it is catching quite a few things."
"With its single pane of glass, it makes monitoring and troubleshooting a bit more homogeneous. We are not looking at multiple platforms and monitoring management tools. It is more efficient from that perspective. It is more of a common monitoring and control system for multiple aspects of what used to be different systems. It provides efficiency and time savings."
"When we put it on the border, it was blocking everything that we were getting ahead of time, and we weren't getting any hits. This includes URL filtering, spam prevention, and anti-virus."
"There are many valuable features, such as wireless cloud features."
"It has a solid network security with some robust tools. We can block unexpected attacks, especially zero-day attacks. Since they use the Pan-OS engine, they can collect attacks from all over the world and analyze them. They can then protect against zero-day attacks and unexpected attacks."
"From my experience, comparing it to other products, the granularity you can have in the application is very good. The application detection is excellent. It's certainly one of the best."
"The WildFire reporting and Cortex XDR platform have huge infrastructures in the cloud that secures the network against threats. So, we have the potential on the system, specifically for users, where we take care of this since the user is the most dangerous. We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis, rather than a daily or weekly update like I used to with different AV vendors. These features can detect viruses and malware more quickly, which is super important."
"The technical support is great."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"The support system could be improved."
"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."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"Everything has been great. More machine learning would be something great to see, but I don't know if it's a priority for Palo Alto."
"The user interface can be significantly simplified."
"From a documentation standpoint, there is room for improvement. Even Palo Alto says that their documentation is terrible."
"Palo Alto has introduced new features in their next-generation firewall, such as SD-WAN. However, the technique of SD-WAN implementation is not easy to understand. It is not easy to deploy at this moment. Maybe, in the future, they can improve the process and how the administrators, partners, or support team can easily deploy this SD-WAN solution on their next-generation firewall. The SD-WAN solution from Fortinet is easy to do. It does not take more than five or 10 minutes. When we talk about Palo Alto, it takes extra effort to implement SD-WAN."
"The solution would benefit from having a dashboard."
"When there was change from IPv4 to IPv6, some of the firewalls still didn't support IPv6. In North America, we have seen most customers are using IPv6, as they are getting the IPv6 IPs from their ISPs. Sometimes, when they go through the firewall, it denies the traffic."
"The solution has normal authentication, but does not have two-factor or multi-factor authentication. There is room for development there."
"The first level of support will usually do nothing for you. If you're an IT company, you're not looking for level one support. You need to escalate. Other vendors have a direct support line for enterprise clients, but not Palo Alto."
More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Pricing and Cost Advice →
OPNsense is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 17 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.8. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "There are lots of capabilities built-in: Few would be High Availability, Proxy, DNS, Intrusion detection/prevention, content filtering, traffic and bandwidth management with 2factor autn. ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "Provides zero trust implementation, more visibility, and eliminated security holes". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and SonicWall TZ, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Azure Firewall, Check Point NGFW, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our OPNsense vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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