We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls."Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"There are great templates, so you don't have to customize them if you don't want to. You do have the option to custom create some folders and some reports, however, with what is there, you don't really need to go through extra effort, as they already give you a lot of predefined views of reports and so forth."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The ability to create a VPN allows me to monitor branch offices from a central location."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"The scalability is very good, where you can do an HA configuration and then bring in another box, if necessary."
"The solution can scale well."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"The solution’s interface must be improved."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"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."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"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."
"There are several levels of firewall configuration such as beginner, advanced, and expert configurations. At each level, it becomes more complex and more tricky to set up the firewall. For example, if you want to install the firewall on your computer system, it would be a lot easier if it just tells you that this is the internet NIC and this is the Wi-Fi NIC."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."
More Zyxel Unified Security Gateway Pricing and Cost Advice →
Earn 20 points
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is ranked 10th in Unified Threat Management (UTM). Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is rated 6.0. 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 Zyxel Unified Security Gateway writes "A robust appliance that is reasonably priced and straightforward to set up". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Stormshield Network Security, whereas Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, WatchGuard Firebox, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
