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Smoothwall Firewall vs WatchGuard Firebox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 15, 2026

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

Smoothwall Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
43rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Firewalls
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (10th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (10th), Application Control (4th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Smoothwall Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 2.0%, down from 2.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
WatchGuard Firebox2.0%
Smoothwall Firewall0.4%
Other97.6%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Himanshu-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Qualic
Offers good scalability and monitoring features
There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages. For example, if we're creating a rule, we should be able to do everything on the same page. Just a drop-down thing or something. This would improve productivity.
Abhishek Saini - PeerSpot reviewer
Professional Services Engineer at Next7 IT
Centralized security management has improved VPN reliability and simplified daily operations
WatchGuard Firebox is a strong and reliable platform overall, but there are a few areas where improvements could make the experience even better. One area is the user interface and navigation in some management tools. While the platform is powerful, certain configurations and troubleshooting workflows can feel less intuitive compared to some newer cloud-native firewall platforms. Another point is reporting and log analysis. Although the logging features are very useful, deeper analytics and more customizable reporting dashboards would make security monitoring much more effective. Firmware upgrades and policy synchronization can sometimes require careful planning to avoid security interruptions. Overall, the core security and VPN functionality are very solid, but improving usability, reporting, and automation would make the platform even stronger. One area that could be improved is the learning curve for new administrators. While experienced engineers can work with the platform effectively, some advanced networking and security configurations can be a bit complex for junior technicians. More guided configuration workflows, smarter recommendations, and simplified troubleshooting tools would make onboarding easier. Another improvement would be more flexible reporting customization for executive-level and client-facing reports.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It was easy to initially deploy it."
"For sure, in this second three-year term, we got a lot more value for the money with what WatchGuard offered us."
"Simple to move settings between WatchGuard boxes."
"Management and visibility are the most valuable features."
"WatchGuard Firebox has improved our organization one hundred percent from before we started using it."
"The GUI is easy and intuitive."
"It does the job of what it says it does. We set it to what we want it to block and then it blocks it."
"The most important feature of this solution is the SLAs."
"It's pretty simple to use. It's pretty simple to understand, and there's plenty of documentation. It does a pretty good job of what it is meant to do."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages."
"I don't think I can get a full-blown DNS client from it. I've been trying to have DNS services. It has forwarding, but I don't get the services of a full DNS client. My main difficulty with it is that I can't run a complete service. I need NTP. I need DNS. I need DHCP for my domain, but I only get forwarding. As far as I can tell, I don't get caching and the kinds of reporting and registration needed to host a DNS for a domain. I have to have a separate solution for that."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"What could use some significant improvement in WatchGuard Firebox would be its interface and policy management. An additional feature I'd like to see in the next release of WatchGuard Firebox is the ability to modify an existing policy instead of having to recreate a policy when changes are necessary. At the moment, there's no possibility to modify the policy. You have to delete the policy and recreate it."
"They need to stop the VLAN limitation. They have a VLAN limitation on the size of their boxes; it is the worst thing ever."
"While the management of interfaces is straightforward, certain advanced configurations can become complex in large deployments, as it mainly targets small to mid-cap industries."
"It's very difficult to find a reseller of WatchGuard Firebox to purchase a license"
"The usability could be better, but it is definitely manageable. If we have to go to a backup internet connection, that could be a little bit easier."
"There should be better integration and a way to configure multiple vendors into the same data center in order to offer more flexibility."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price is so small that I don't pay attention to it anymore. I think we pay a few thousand dollars for two to three years, so about $100 per month. That's for all of our users. There is an additional cost if we want to go with a deeper licensing model, but we just pay for antivirus, IPS, and main product support."
"Their price point worked, which is the reason why we stayed with WatchGuard."
"The cost was somewhere in the vicinity of $2,000 to $3,000 for each one..."
"Each one, for the primary unit, was $8,600 and the High Availability unit was $2,000. That's with three years of subscription and support and the Total Security Suite."
"Over the years, the costs have increased, especially since I cater to very small businesses."
"It's an affordable tool"
"The price is comparable."
"For what we use, the tool's price has been reasonable, but it is not the cheapest. The tool has been quite reasonable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
16%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business104
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your primary use case for WatchGuard Firebox?
We are providing our services to all WatchGuard customers in the region.
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 our employees.
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.
 

Also Known As

No data available
WatchGuard Threat Detection and Response, WatchGuard Application Control, WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention, WatchGuard Gateway AntiVirus, WatchGuard Intrusion Prevention Service
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: August 2026.
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