ReversingLabs vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

ReversingLabs and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Anti-Malware Tools category. ReversingLabs is ranked #46, while WatchGuard is ranked #7 with an average rating of 8.0. Additionally, 100% of ReversingLabs users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 95% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 9, 2025

WatchGuard Firebox and ReversingLabs compete in the cybersecurity sector. ReversingLabs leads with advanced features, while WatchGuard Firebox is noted for affordability and strong support.

Features: WatchGuard Firebox provides comprehensive threat management, VPN capabilities, and flexible deployment options tailored for small to medium businesses. ReversingLabs stands out with its powerful malware detection and analysis tools, offering significant threat intelligence capabilities, especially for large organizations.

Room for Improvement: WatchGuard Firebox could enhance its advanced threat analysis features and refine its cloud management tools. ReversingLabs may improve by simplifying its deployment process and making its solutions more accessible for smaller enterprises.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WatchGuard Firebox is straightforward to deploy, supported by excellent technical assistance, making it ideal for organizations with limited IT staff. ReversingLabs, although complex, offers comprehensive documentation and reliable support for enterprises with demanding security needs.

Pricing and ROI: WatchGuard Firebox is priced competitively, delivering a strong return on investment for budget-conscious operations. ReversingLabs, with higher upfront costs, justifies this with exceptional threat detection that promises substantial ROI over time.

To learn more, read our detailed ReversingLabs vs. WatchGuard Firebox Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

ReversingLabs vs. WatchGuard Firebox

December 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

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.

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Tim Craig

Forensic Lead, Global Security Fusion Center at a insurance company with 10,001+ employees

Very good malware and goodware repository and enables us to look more deeply at indicators of compromise

The automated static analysis of malware is the most valuable feature. Its detection abilities are very good. It hits all of the different platforms out there, platforms that see the items in the wild. Also, the solution’s object and file analysis provide us with actionable insights. Its malware and goodware repository is very good. It's very robust. It gets all of the different repositories that are out there that do analysis and brings them under one roof where we can statically analyze for those indicators of compromise and look at them more deeply. If we need to go deeper into things, we can do that.

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Syed Pasha

Senior Network Consultant at NETOPS

Makes defining policies simpler but lacks performance and modern features

WatchGuard Firebox is only deployed in one location within my customer's organization, and at the other locations, we are using Meraki and FortiGate. We plan to replace WatchGuard Firebox soon. My impression of the spam blocking capabilities of WatchGuard is not very favorable, as I don't think it is very capable. I haven't noticed effective web ratings or IPS signatures, which may be due to managing an older OS; I'm not certain about the performance of the newer versions. I am not aware of whether the transition to faster ports on WatchGuard Firebox supports maintaining productivity levels during peak usage times. Based on my experience, I would rate WatchGuard Firebox as five out of ten overall.

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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

"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."

"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"

"I would rate the scalability of this product a nine out of ten because it is highly scalable. We have not had problems with customers in terms of scalability."

"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."

"Integrated management is a very valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."

"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include the simple user interface."

"The main benefits that Fortinet FortiGate brings to customers include that if you're going for a single fabric with core switches, access switches, and APs, compared to legacy Cisco or Aruba, the Fortinet FortiGate does not require a controller for the access points."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The automated static analysis of malware is the most valuable feature. Its detection abilities are very good. It hits all of the different platforms out there, platforms that see the items in the wild."

"As far as static analysis information is concerned, we use most of the information that is available in order to determine whether or not we might be dealing with a malware variant. This includes information that is related to Java rules. This is also related to malware families indicated or specific malicious software variants that are labeled by name."

"It offers reports on a great many more file types than the other analysis solutions we have. It can give us a more in-depth analysis and better reporting on a larger number of file types. It also gives us a more comprehensive score on a number of things as well, and that's why we're using it as a front-end filter. It gives us more information... It's valuable because of its depth of information, as well as the breadth it gives us. There aren't a lot of tools that cover all of the different file types."

"As far as the malware repository is concerned, it's extensive. It's a good source for finding samples, where we are unable to find them on other channels or by leveraging other sources."

"ReversingLabs has a large sample size."

"The main reason we went with it was the security protocols. They were more robust on this device."

"All of the features have been valuable. There's nothing on my M270 that I'm not using. If you have remote access, you can see how many users are coming from the outside world to be connected to the systems, through the virus systems that we have behind the firewall, in order to gain access to their files and do their work. We can also see how long they stay online and whether these connections are closed forcefully or for any other reasons, such as a glitch or some kind of misbehavior, to see if internet traffic is optimized and if that particular traffic is under company policies, concerning which websites were visited."

"The alarm system is valuable."

"WebBlocker has the best URL category database ever."

"The most valuables feature of WatchGuard Firebox are the VPNs, and web filtering where we can stop users from going to malicious sites."

"The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser."

"I found several features valuable in WatchGuard Application Control such as the HTTP Proxy, DNSWatch, VPN, and HTTPS Content Inspection."

"Two of the functionalities we use most are the traffic monitoring and the full panel dashboard. Those are two things that are very useful for us... In addition, it provides us with layered security. It allows us to determine what types of access, to which networks, we want to allow or deny."

More WatchGuard Firebox pros

Cons

"The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate IPS could always be improved."

"Fortinet FortiGate SWG can be expensive for some customers."

"In the past six to seven years with the Fortinet FortiGate, we've had two major downtimes, both caused by firmware upgrades."

"There should be more testing before releasing software since it can be a little buggy sometimes when new features come out after updates."

"During a recent upgrade from old devices to the latest ones, corporate IT faced challenges as there was no straightforward migration process, requiring many manual steps."

"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."

"The dashboard is not user friendly so is a bit complicated."

"The solution's real-time connection with the cloud could be improved."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The solution needs to improve integrations."

"I would like to see if we could do a little bit more of bulk uploading of hash sets. Right now, I can only do them individually."

"While the company is very helpful, it would be very much appreciated to have extensive proof of concept scripts for the different APIs available, though not for all the APIs that we have purchased. Respective scripts are available, but those scripts which are available are typically not of very high quality."

"We would really like further integration with our threat intelligence platform, which is called ThreatConnect. We would also really like further integrations with an endpoint protection product we use called Tanium. The reason I mentioned both of these is that ReversingLabs claims to have extensive integrations with both of them, but they did not work for us."

"The product support could be better at times. Sometimes, the resources that they provide could be of higher quality."

"They are working on cloud-based options. However, they do not have the options fully functional in their solution at this time."

"I would like to see the devices made more flexible by adding modules to increase the ports that we can use."

"WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention needs to improve its support."

"The only problem I have with Firebox is the grouping issue. When implementing a rule using a group of IPs, it is not possible to do that directly."

"I'd like a few extra features, especially around threat severity assessment."

"I would like to see faster automatation."

"There could also be better reporting. For example, there should be more out-of-the-box management reports."

"It is also difficult to diagnose issues if any devices get compromised; for example, if someone hacks our system, it becomes hard to trace who made changes or accessed the firewall."

More WatchGuard Firebox cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."

"The product is not very expensive."

"The product is expensive. I rate its pricing a six out of ten."

"We purchased a five-year bundle package, which worked out cheaper than competing solutions."

"For the performance that we get, the price is reasonable. There are cheaper options, but they may not deliver the same kind of performance that we want. For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."

"There is only a standard license cost to use the solution."

"It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."

"The licensing cost is at the intermediate level."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Currently, the license number of lookups that we purchased has not been reached yet, because the integration has only recently been completed. However, our usage is expected and planned to increase over the next couple of months."

"We have a yearly contract based on the number of queries and malicious programs which can be processed."

"The licensing costs are comparatively lower than other providers, and I would rate the pricing as five out of five."

"We license the WatchGuard Firebox annually. There are different types of subscriptions available. We are paying approximately $15,000 annually. The cost can increase if you purchase different subscriptions."

"We only license our corporate one and the one we have at our DR site, we don't worry about the branches. It doesn't pay for us to license the ones at the branches. What they charge for what they call basic maintenance is extremely high for those little fireboxes."

"I usually tell people that it's really affordable as well, particularly compared to Cisco."

"Its cost is okay. It is not too expensive, not too low. I would rate it a nine out of ten in terms of pricing."

"The solution's most valuable feature is its pricing."

"I buy a three-year renewal on the main device, which is usually around $3,000 to $4,000. They usually upgrade the device when I do it. You get a big discount when you do three years."

"The primary reason that we went with Firebox was its cost. It is very economical and it provided us with all the security functions that we were looking for at the time. And the throughput was more than what we required, so it was a very cost-effective device to deploy on our network."

More WatchGuard Firebox pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

13%

Insurance Company

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	92
Midsize Enterprise	25
Large Enterprise	15

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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.

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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We just use it as a secondary WiFi device. We're a small office and we needed to set up a WiFi device for a few of ou...

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What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?

We're a hospital and we use it for developing our incoming and outgoing policies, and we also use it for VPN.

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

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VirusTotal vs ReversingLabs

Compared 16% of the time

JFrog Xray vs ReversingLabs

Compared 11% of the time

MetaDefender vs ReversingLabs

Compared 8% of the time

OPSWAT Filescan Sandbox vs ReversingLabs

Compared 7% of the time

Black Duck SCA vs ReversingLabs

Compared 7% of the time

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OPNsense vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 7% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

Sophos UTM vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

Sophos XGS vs WatchGuard Firebox

Compared 4% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

ReversingLabs

December 2025

Download ReversingLabs product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard Firebox

December 2025

Download WatchGuard Firebox product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

ReversingLabs Titanium, ReversingLabs secure.software

WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

ReversingLabs is the trusted authority in software and file security. We provide the modern cybersecurity platform to verify and deliver safe binaries. Trusted by the Fortune 500 and leading cybersecurity vendors, the ReversingLabs Titanium Platform® powers the software supply chain and file security insights, tracking over 35 billion files daily with the ability to deconstruct full software binaries in seconds to minutes. Only ReversingLabs provides that final exam to determine whether a single file or full software binary presents a risk to your organization and your customers.

RL - Trust Delivered.

https://www.reversinglabs.com

ReversingLabs

WatchGuard Firebox is a high-performance firewall known for its ease of setup, offering robust security with layered protection and centralized management capabilities.

WatchGuard Firebox stands out for its intuitive management and high throughput, addressing security needs with features like VPN, web filtering, and threat detection. Its centralized control and reporting abilities, along with Active Directory integration, make it popular among varied organizations. Its user-friendly interface and ongoing updates enhance usability and reliability. However, there's a call for better cloud-based administration, scalability, and improved integration with third-party vendors.

What are the key features of WatchGuard Firebox?

Ease of Setup: Quick and straightforward installation process.
GUI: User-friendly graphical interface for simplified navigation.
VPN Features: Secure and efficient virtual private network management.
Web Filtering: Advanced filtering for safer browsing experiences.
Threat Detection: Proactive monitoring and detection of cyber threats.

What benefits or ROI should be evaluated?

Centralized Control: Streamlined management from a single point.
High Throughput: Efficient data handling and processing capacity.
Stable Performance: Consistent and reliable operational functionality.
Active Directory Integration: Seamless connection with user directories.
Customer Service: Strong support service for customer inquiries.

WatchGuard Firebox is implemented across industries to secure internet gateways and protect data in multi-site businesses. Its applications span from Unified Threat Management (UTM) and intrusion prevention to compliance support in business environments requiring secure connectivity through VPNs.

WatchGuard

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

Financial services, healthcare, government, manufacturing, oil & gas, telecommunications, information technology

Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence

Buyer's Guide

ReversingLabs vs. WatchGuard Firebox

December 2025

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