WatchGuard Firebox Reviews

The WatchGuard Firebox is our version of a firewall. It has several use cases. 

WatchGuard Firebox's two-factor authentication feature is particularly useful and provides an added layer of protection. It's been a reliable and stable solution for us.

When working with WatchGuard, specifically in configuring Panda Security on the portal for the first time, it was challenging for me. Creating the partner center and setting up the account in Panda Security was not straightforward. Although working with the Panda Security part itself is easy, I faced difficulties in creating the partner center. So, maybe this could be an area of improvement. 

Another area of improvement is the license. The price could be cheaper. 

We currently use WatchGuard Firebox T20 model.

There are around 26 users using this solution. In terms of user capacity, the T20 model can support up to 20 users.

WatchGuard Firebox is easy to use and set up. I work with the solution every day, so I'm quite familiar with it. In my experience, setting up WatchGuard has been straightforward. It didn't require much effort. 

Although I have spoken to others who mentioned that implementing it for the first time can be challenging, I personally found it easy. I had no issues with the setup.

Whether it was deployed in the cloud or locally, it took a month. I maintain the solution and provide technical support. 

I recall when I bought the first Firebox; someone advised me to start by seeking assistance from the WatchGuard support center. I found all the necessary information to implement the solution. That's why I believe it was relatively easy for me to implement it the first time. However, I am aware that many people find it challenging to implement WatchGuard on their first attempt.

Currently, we use an internal lead to sell WatchGuard to our clients. So, the price varies. However, it's worth mentioning that our internal use of WatchGuard includes Panda Security as well.

We do pay for a license. It's a three-year license. It is an expensive solution. The price could be lower.

WatchGuard is not a widely known solution in my country. People here tend to use CheckPoint, Fortinet, and Palo Alto more. However, I believe WatchGuard is a good solution that more people should be aware of and consider. We are actively working to promote it in Angola. In fact, there might be more companies in our country that could benefit from using the WatchGuard solution.

Overall, I would rate the solution an eight out of ten.

We use this for our network, mainly for the configuration of rules, such as VPN connections, remote access connections, and application web filtering. I'm a security engineer and we are customers of WatchGuard.

This is a very flexible product without licensing limitations. They offer good classes through Gartner. 

Although this solution is better than others on the market, I'd like to see improvement in the visibility of network traffic. It feels that the web interface is missing some parts, particularly access and configuration. 

I've been using this solution for two years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable.

We've never had to use the technical support. 

The initial setup is straightforward. 

I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

Our primary use cases for WatchGuard Firebox are routing and VPN, including the integrated firewall. We do not use the SSO system or any other router features.

WatchGuard Firebox was able to help our organization during the pandemic as we were obligated to work from home. We were working remotely, so the VPN feature of WatchGuard Firebox allowed remote work.

The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is the VPN. It's easy to connect to the VPN.

The user interface for WatchGuard Firebox has room for improvement. Right now, it's a bit complex to work with and could be easier. I like Fortigate better because its user interface is nicer and easier to work with than WatchGuard Firebox, so improving the user interface would be great.

I've used WatchGuard Firebox for two to three years and still use it at work.

WatchGuard Firebox is a nine out of ten in terms of stability.

In terms of scalability, WatchGuard Firebox is an eight out of ten.

I didn't have to call the WatchGuard Firebox technical support team, but the support on the website is a six out of ten.

Neutral

The company used Fortinet before using WatchGuard Firebox, though I don't have information on which Fortinet product and why the company switched to WatchGuard Firebox.

I wasn't involved in the deployment of WatchGuard Firebox because I wasn't there when the company chose the product. I just learned to love it.

WatchGuard Firebox was great for remote working, but I have no information on its ROI.

I have no information on WatchGuard Firebox costs.

My company uses WatchGuard Firebox. There's a Watchguard router for the internet and three sites on WatchGuard.

I'm using WatchGuard Firebox M440.

The product is deployed on-site.

I can recommend WatchGuard Firebox to anyone looking into implementing it, but I cannot advise on how to implement the product for your network or environment.

My rating for WatchGuard Firebox is eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is a primary firewall.

The features I found most valuable are probably the built-in VPN functionality and the scalability because they can both be centrally managed. It is very easy to scale. It is also very granular, so you can be as restrictive or as non-restrictive as you like. This means you can be very precise with it.

The area where I think this product can be improved is the user interface and the reporting. It can be quite difficult to find the correct logs and to actually find out what is going on. The digging can be time-consuming.

I have been using this solution for a year now.

I would rate the stability of this solution an eight out of 10, with one being unstable and 10 being very stable.

I would rate the scalability of this solution a 10, on a scale of one to 10, with one being not scalable at all and 10 being very scalable.

We currently have about 200 users.

From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond.

Previously, we used FortiGate. FortiGate is a much more mature product. I feel like FortiGate is a lot easier to work with. Firebox, you're able to achieve the same outcomes, but it can be a lot more complicated to do so.

The initial setup can be somewhat complex. I would rate it a six out of 10, with one being not complicated at all and 10 being very complex.

Our deployment was done through a third party.

I would rate their pricing plan a four, which means it's definitely on the cheaper scale.

I would recommend this product, but you need to make sure that you've got the technical capability to work with it because it can be quite complicated. Overall, I would rate this solution a seven out of 10, with one being poor and 10 being excellent.

We are WatchGuard partners, and we also use it on our own. We are using it for general firewall purposes and vulnerability management. We are also using some of the additional security stacks such as intrusion detection and so on.

We are one version behind the latest version. We have it on-prem at the moment, but some of our customers have private cloud solutions.

I like intrusion detection the most.

I'm pretty happy with it, but vulnerability management could improve a little bit in comparison to other parts, such as Cisco and so on.

There could also be better reporting. For example, there should be more out-of-the-box management reports. These two improvements would be nice.

I have been using this solution for around 10 to 15 years.

It's stable.

It's scalable, but I haven't compared it with others.

There are five people who are using it from an administrative perspective, but everyone is using WatchGuard because of the VPN.

I haven't interacted with them myself, but my colleagues state that their support line is good.

Its setup is of medium complexity. It's not super easy. Everything is in its right place, but it's not as complicated as other vendors. It's in the middle.

The deployment duration varies. Depending on your needs, it could take a few hours.

It's in the medium range. Its price is pretty good considering the functions and add-ons that are used.

I would advise having a proper look at the features because there are a lot of different versions, scales, and limits on different Fireboxes. You have to decide in advance which one is good for you in terms of performance, future needs, and so on. You shouldn't have too many changes in your landscape. 

I would rate it an eight out of ten.

It's mainly an internet gateway that is used for internet gateway protection and remote access.

There is room for improvement in the threat protection, data packet inspection, and performance of the solution. Generally, it's just a lower-end product. It does the job but doesn't do it very well.

Compared to Palo Alto, for example, some of the main differences are zero-day protection, performance, deep packet inspection, and App-ID. I'm not really a fan of WatchGuard. We only use it with one client and we're trying to get them to get rid of it. I prefer to use Palo Alto instead. Industry analysts have voted Palo Alto the number one firewall for the last eight consecutive years, so if you want good protection, it's a no-brainer.

I have been working with this solution for 18 months.

The solution is reasonably stable. 

I do not think the product is scalable.

The set up was quite straightforward and we handled it in-house. It took a few hours to deploy the product. One a scale of one to five, one being very hard and five being very easy, I would rate the set up as a five.

It is an entry-level product, so the price is cheap.

The program requires maintenance, including updates, patching, and subscriptions. 

My advice to someone considering this project would be to look into Palo Alto instead. 

I would rate this solution as a one out of ten.

We provide the solution to our customers. It's primarily used for security.

The reporting aspect of the solution is what is most valuable to us.

The solution is very easy to configure.

The product has been very easy to use.

We've found the stability to be very good.

The scalability is excellent.

The pricing of the product is reasonable.

We've been in touch with technical support and found them to be very helpful.

There are many fantastic features.

Often, customers don't end up using a lot of the features.

They should move more towards integration with other OEMs such as web application firewalls, et cetera. There should be better integration and a way to configure multiple vendors into the same data center in order to offer more flexibility. 

We've been working with the solution for about seven to eight years at this point. It's been a while. 

The stability of the solution is very good. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's quite reliable in terms of performance.

We've found the scalability to be very good. There are no limitations. If a company needs to expand it, they can.

We've contacted technical support in the past. We've found them to be very good. They are helpful and responsive. I would say that we are quite satisfied with the level of support we've received.

The pricing of the product is pretty good. I would describe it as fair. It's not overly expensive.

One of our customers wanted us to compare this solution against Azure Firewall to see which would be better. We're still looking into that.

We are resellers.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten. It's a pretty fantastic solution overall.

We use it to protect our web stations and service. 

We established a branch office VPN to our branch office. Since last month, we have added Mobile VPN tunnels to our headquarter.

We have the ability to use it for connecting to our terminal services, then to the Fireboxes, so we can create user-based policies, which are very important at this time. We can control who has access to management servers and machines that are not for general use by users.

We use a normal packet server. We are also using a proxy service and IPS, so all features are possible with these devices. We have seen many attacks from specific IP addresses that were all blocked. Most times, these were IPS traffic port scans. All this traffic is normally blocked from our side.

The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using Watchguard System Manager on Windows since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom.

With Firebox, the monitoring is good. On the Dimension servers, I can see where the IP addresses send and receive a lot of the traffic so I can analyze it. I am also able to see where attacks are coming from. It's good to see visually what policies are most in use and which traffic was blocked. Its easy to visualize policies. The dimension server shows which policy is used and the data flow through the firebox.

For our requirements, WatchGuard has very good features available in its software.

It is good for administrating devices. It is reliable and easy to use. Most of the time, the results are what I expected.

The performance of the device is good. The time to load web pages has not been slowed down too much. With additional security features, like APT and IPS, WatchGuard Fireboxes need a moment to check the traffic.

For reporting, we use the Dimension server from WatchGuard where we have many options to analyze traffic. It has a good look and feel on all websites that WatchGuard creates. All pages have the same system, so it's easy to use because the interface is uniform throughout the entire solution.

We are using some of the cloud visibility features. What we use on that cloud is DNSWatch, which checks the DNS records for that site. It is a good feature that stops attacks before they come into the network. For most of our clients, we also run DNSWatchGO, which is for external users, and does a good job with threat detection and response. It is a tool that works with a special client on our workstations. 

Sometimes I would like to copy a rule set from one box to another box in a direct way. This is a feature that is not present at the moment in WatchGuard.

I'm missing a tool by default, where you can find unused policies. This is possible when a) you adminstrate the firebox with dimension, or b) you connect it to Watchguard's cloud.

We have been using this solution for a long time (for more than a decade).

The stability is very good. I normally only do a reboot of a Firebox when I upgrade the boxes with new software, so they run sometimes two or three months without a reboot.

It is scalable to many environments. With all our locations, we found this solution works.

For the moment, we have around 80 users total at all our locations. The traffic at our headquarters per day is 300 gigabytes.

Our number of Fireboxes has been constant over the last few years, as we don't have new locations. We are a sports organization, so we are not expanding.

WatchGuard's support is very good. Over the years, there have been only one or two tickets that were not solved.

When you start as a new customer, you should start with a bit of support from your dealer so you have some training on the boxes and how to manage them.

Before using WatchGuard, we had a Linux server with iptables. We switched to Firebox because it is much easier to administrate. It has real boxes with a graphical interface, instead of command line administration.

It is relatively easy to set up a new box. In my experience, you have a basic rule set. When you start with a new box, you can quickly make it work, but you always need to specify the services that you need on the boxes. You need some time to create the right policies and services on the box. This is the process for all Fireboxes that you buy.

When you have a small branch office with a small number of policies, you can make them active in production in one or two hours. With complex requirements at your headquarters where you have several networks with servers, web servers, and mail servers which can be accessed from the outside, the configuration will need more time because the number of policies is much higher.

The implenetation was done by the vendor. For us the solution was ok. At this point my knowledge about firewall was not on the level I have today.

It saves me three or four a month worth of time because it stops malware. I don't need spend time removing malware from the client.

I think the larger firewall packages are much better because a normal firewall is not enough for these times. You need IPS, APT, and all the security features of a firewall that you can buy.

We evaluated some other solutions.

Administration of Fireboxes is only a small part of my job. I have been the network administrator since 1997. While the solution does make less work, I still need a little time to monitor all solutions. 

I would rate this solution as a nine (out of 10).