We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Sangfor NGAF 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."We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"Fortinet FortiGate's ease of management is the most valuable feature."
"It's very easy to configure."
"It's very easy to set up, it's very easy to make policies and, for an organization, that means you don't need IT expert in firewalls. You just need to have somebody who knows a little bit of IT, and that's it. With other products, you need someone with a "Masters" degree in firewalls."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"The GUI is good."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The performance and functionality are good."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"The documentation is very good."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"You might try Sangfor if you are on a tight budget. The price is affordable, and Sangfor offers a lot of features. We don't have any complaints about Sangfor."
"The absolute best part of Sangfor NGAF is their support. It's a 24/7 support channel, and the last time I requested their assistance I got a reply within three minutes. They helped solve the problem immediately."
"The most valuable features are the WAN optimization, the internet access gateway (IAG), and the central console, which allows us to implement on their firewall."
"It's a very simple to use product."
"We've found the technical support to be helpful."
"Sangfor NGAF works accordingly with our customers. The solution has good performance, easy to use, and integrates well with the endpoints."
"I think Sangfor NGAF is more valuable than Cisco products because of its simplicity and ease of management. If I compare it with Palo Alto and Cisco, both are quite complex products. And if I compare it with FortiGate firewalls from Fortinet, I have also used all these products. Fortinet and Sangfor NGAF are similar products because the applications behind the application and policy layers are almost identical."
"The stability of Sangfor NGAF is good."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"The initial setup is complex."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"It does not offer any recommendations on how to mitigate or control attacks."
"I would be happy if Sangfor developed a firewall designed specifically for home use, as well as for small businesses such as clinics and so on. A household version of the Sangfor firewall for your personal computer or laptop would be ideal, in my opinion."
"Sangfor NGAF could improve by refining its application control policies, especially in addressing challenges with certain types of applications."
"The firewall system needs gradual improvements because there are more threats and challenges every day."
"An area for improvement would be the number of ports defined on the box. In the next release, I would like them to develop their provisioning stage of enrolling end devices."
"An area of improvement for Sangfor NGAF could be in the field of reporting and logging."
"The interface and user experience are horrible."
"I believe that IAM and NGFW need to merge into a single box, instead of there being two separate box solutions."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Sangfor NGAF is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 31 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sangfor NGAF is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sangfor NGAF writes "Affordable, easy to configure firewall with fast, responsive support". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Sangfor NGAF is most compared with Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Check Point NGFW, Fortinet FortiOS and SonicWall NSa. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sangfor NGAF report.
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