WatchGuard Firebox Reviews

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

It helps keep unwanted traffic from coming in, or traffic from going out that we don't want to see out there. If we have unwanted traffic coming in, traffic that we don't need as a facility, then we would be opening ourselves up to security problems and vulnerabilities. It helps because malicious attacks coming in are things I don't have to worry about. So far the WatchGuard has done a good job at blocking all that.

In terms of simplifying my job, the simplest device is one that you can put in place and not have to worry about it. That's the WatchGuard. It's there, it's working. I don't have problems with it so it's "out of sight, out of mind."

It also saves me time, by doing what it's supposed to do. I don't have to mitigate problems that it allowed through. I couldn't tell you how much time it has saved me. It really would depend on what kind of problems I might experience.

The policy monitoring and allowing different traffic flows are the most useful features for us; regulating which traffic comes in and out.

In terms of the throughput and performance, we don't have a problem or any bottleneck there. We downgraded the size of our appliance because we're a small facility, and what we had before was actually too big. The one we are now going with seems to be doing a great job.

The management feature is pretty nice.

I'm not really impressed with the reporting side of it. It may be something I just haven't figured out very well, but it's hard to filter down on reporting of the actual valuable information that you would want. There is a lot of information out there so you have to have some kind of tool capture it and then filter through it. So far, I haven't found the reporting side of the WatchGuard to be that user-friendly. I would definitely like to see better reporting tools from WatchGuard. That would be a very high priority for me.

Also, setting up the site-to-site VPN is pretty easy with the WatchGuard, but the client VPN setup is not very friendly. If you have a client-to-device VPN that you need to set up for a mobile user there are different protocols that they will accept but none of them are a plug-and-play type of option.

The organization has had WatchGuard, different versions, for 12 years. I've used WatchGuard, myself, for about seven years. We got the Firebox approximately three years ago.

The stability is great. I've not had any problems. In three years, we've had to restart the device maybe twice. We've had to restart it more than to clear out any cache, because you don't want anything building up in cache memory. But we've only had two problems where we needed to restart the device. And it actually restarts really fast. It doesn't have much downtime at all.

It's used extensively. This is the only firewall we have in the facility, between the hospital, nursing home, and home health. It handles all the traffic that comes from all three campuses here. I don't see us expanding enough to worry about getting another device. This one seems to be doing exactly what it needs to do.

I've only had to use their technical support twice in quite a few years, so it would be hard for me to rate. But they were responsive when I did have a problem. I haven't had any problems with support at all.

I moved here in 2013 and the company was using the WatchGuard at that point.

With this newest device, the initial setup was pretty straightforward. We were able to copy the configuration from the old device. That's a good thing about it: the configuration file is able to transfer from an old device to a newer device and just continue going. It takes a long time to build up different traffic policies, and to make exceptions for different websites. If you had to do that every time you got a new device, that would be a problem. Luckily, with this, you're able to save your configuration file and transfer it to the new device.

The deployment of this new device took 30 minutes, at most. There are only three people in our IT department, but the deployment only required me to be involved. The other two guys are network technicians. All three of us can go in and modify policies or do whatever we need to do, but it generally doesn't take much maintenance.

I got on the phone with WatchGuard to make sure that everything would transfer over and they assured me that it would. And as far as the switching over to the new device goes, most of the planning required was just letting users know that the internet was going to go down for just a little while. We planned it for a period of slow usage here at the hospital where we could bring it all down, copy the config file, move it to the new device, put it in place, and swap the connections over. It came right up. We had to import the new key and got it activated. But other than that, everything worked.

ROI on this type of solution is a hard number to quantify. We've not had a problem so that in itself is a return on investment. If you don't have an issue how do you calculate what your return of investment would be? How do you quantify the peace of mind? But we've not had to spend a lot of time troubleshooting.

The pricing of WatchGuard is probably a little higher than the SonicWall, but it makes up for it in dependability. It's worth it to me, especially since it's not much higher. For just a little bit higher price you get the dependability of the firewall with the WatchGuard brand. 

And with this appliance you also get a certain number of VPN tunnels. With this one, it's something like 500, not that we would even use that many. Whereas with SonicWall, at the time we were using it, it came with 10 and then anything over that had to be purchased.

Money-wise, it's a one-and-done with the WatchGuard. With SonicWall, there were a few things that you had to pay extra for to get. 

The subscription services with the WatchGuard are pretty nice.

I used the SonicWall at another hospital in southwest Arkansas. 

WatchGuard has come quite a way, as far as the Fireware Web UI goes. The GUI application has become better, making it easier to navigate through setting up policies and setting up VPN tunnels, etc. SonicWall had been there quite a while longer than WatchGuard, in terms of being user-friendly. But I can't complain about the WatchGuard now. When I first moved here, it was very cumbersome to navigate through, but with the Web UI it's really improved.

They do have a client that you can connect to the WatchGuard if you want to use that client. It's still kind of clunky for navigating and I very seldom use it anymore. They call it the WatchGuard System Manager. It's not quite as friendly as the Web UI. It's usable, it's just not really friendly. But the Web UI is very well done.

My advice would be go for it. We've not had any problem with it. We've been very pleased, especially with the newer WatchGuard we've put in place. It's very responsive. It works great. It may have a little bit of a curve on learning it, but once you learn it, it's hard to say you'd want to go back to something else.

It took me a little bit to get used to WatchGuard. I was familiar with SonicWall before I moved into this role. But now that I've used it for almost seven years, I've gotten to know it pretty well and it works great. Once you get used to what I would call the idiosyncrasies of WatchGuard, as opposed to the SonicWall, it's pretty easy to configure. Using the WatchGuard web UI also makes it a lot easier to configure.

It provides us with somewhat layered security. It is the firewall between us and the outside world. With our subscription we do have the Gateway AV, so it does watch for things of that nature. We have certain policies in place that help with the layered part of it. But it's just one of many layers. We have other things in place to help, but it's definitely something I wouldn't want to do without.

It's our perimeter firewall.

We used to have Cisco and Cisco was pretty cumbersome. I actually still use Cisco, but I like WatchGuard for the features it has.

It provides us with Layer 2 and Layer 3 security.

If it didn't work we wouldn't be able to get to the internet and that would be a terrible thing.

All of its features are valuable, although we don't use the antivirus. We do use the web filter.

It's also the ease of configuration that I like. In terms of usability, it just works. And the throughput is 100 Mbps. It's fine.

There are a couple of things I wished that it would do, but I can't think of those off the top of my head.

I have been using WatchGuard Firebox for about 15 years.

It works and just keeps on working.

The scalability is fine.

Their technical support is good. Honestly, I haven't had to call them in five or six years.

We used Cisco previously. Cisco didn't have the features that I needed, like the proxies. A Cisco box would probably do that now, but back then they wouldn't. So we switched to WatchGuard.

The initial setup is straightforward. You just read the manual and follow the directions. It didn't take very long to set up. It was about an hour to have it configured and set up.

I have deployed Firebox to distributed locations. You just plug in the numbers, the IP addresses. That's all you do. It's pretty simple.

We have seen return on our investment. It just works. I may have to reboot it once every two or three years.

The pricing of WatchGuard was pretty comparable to Cisco, but I actually haven't looked at a new Cisco box in quite some time, so I can't say how they compare now.

I would advise that you go with whatever you're more comfortable with. If you're more comfortable with Cisco, then go with Cisco.

Firebox doesn't really save us time because whether you're going to configure a Cisco or you're going to configure a WatchGuard, you still have to configure something, no matter what it is. It is a little easier to configure WatchGuard though.

It takes just one person in our organization to deploy and support it, and that's me. Overall, our environment has about 300 users.

WatchGuard Firebox is our edge firewall.

Currently, we are using the M470 and we have used many models in the past.

The solution provides our business with layered security. An example would be the intrusion protection on anything that is internet-facing. We host our own mail server and I regularly see that WatchGuard has swatted away attempts to get in from bad actors. I have to have that open because people have to connect on their cell phones. Obviously they have to send and receive mail. So I sleep a lot better knowing that something is watching the few things that I do need to present to the internet. I feel much better having something protecting and monitoring all traffic that passes through.

We have an interesting environment. There is actually a completely separate computer domain, an entirely separate network that belongs to a regulatory body. We work at a casino and our gaming commission has to be able to get into some of our systems and monitor some of our activities. Obviously we don't want them to just plug directly into our network, so we have created a DMZ where they can come into our network via the WatchGuard. That way, I get to see all of their activity as well and monitor what they can get to. We give them access to what they need and nothing more.

The solution also simplifies aspects of my job by having automated reports generated weekly, for review. I like the fact that they get delivered and I get to see the actual metrics of what the box is doing. The reporting features reassure me that it is working.

In terms of saving time, I have used Cisco firewalls in the past and I would say that it is easier to construct policies with WatchGuard than it is in Cisco, particularly Cisco's ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager). It probably takes about half the time with WatchGuard. Usually we're just modifying something, adding or removing somebody from a web blocker category. It's very easy to maintain.

As a casino, we have one site and that's it. There are no mobile workers. We usually don't have any remote access and we don't need collaboration tools because we all work in the same building. But now that we're trying to get some people to not come in [due to the Corona virus situation] and we're running on a skeleton crew, we are able to maintain productivity by leveraging the native VPN clients and access provided by WatchGuard. We didn't have to buy anything. We had all the infrastructure ready to go and then I slapped a policy together last Tuesday and we've been using it ever since. It was very easy.

• One of the most valuable features is the Gateway AntiVirus. We scan all traffic as it's coming through.
• We also use spamBlocker to scrub spam.
• We use content filtering, which is critical in any corporate environment to make sure that people don't surf things they're not supposed to.
• WatchGuard has a very easy VPN and branch office VPN setup, so we use those pretty extensively too.

It's very easy to use.

And our internet bandwidth does not exceed its throughput, so it is probably still a little overbuilt. It's definitely not a bottleneck. There is no problem with throughput.

In terms of performance, WatchGuard has always worked well for us. We've gone through about six different models in the last nine years, not all at our primary site. We had a couple of satellite offices that were using smaller models. They have all worked very well. There was only one time that we had a performance issue and it turned out that it was due to a hardware replacement being required, and that was handled expeditiously.

Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change.

WatchGuard could be a little more robust in reporting. I get requests a lot to figure out people's internet traffic. We want to know what people are doing when they are on the internet. There is still a little bit of fine-tuning that can be done to that process.

I took over the admin role here back in 2011, so I've been using it for close to 10 years.

It's very solid. We don't reboot it very often and we don't seem to need to.

We went from a single appliance to a high-availability cluster, just last year. Managing the cluster is just as easy as it was to manage one unit.

It is doing everything we've asked of it so far, but we do plan on increasing usage. There are a few features that came out last year or maybe a little bit before that, features that we want to start using, such as WatchGuard's DNS. That will make sure that we're not asking for any bad players. At the moment we're still using Google DNS. And we haven't rolled out the endpoint security that came with it, but we are going to start using that as well.

I've never had to use their technical support. I've only used their online help. I've been able to find everything I need in the forums and the Knowledge Base.

The initial setup is straightforward. The wizards walk you through it, and I have found an answer to anything that I've ever had a question about in the Knowledge Base online. I don't think I've ever had to call for support personally. The documentation is awesome.

As for setup time, I usually have traffic passing through it within an hour or two. 

I know what traffic I want to allow out and I always start with just the stuff that I need to. I always start with the most restrictive, as far as policies go. The first thing I do is get rid of all the Any-Any rules and then I start locking it down. I love the way that it integrates with Active Directory. I base my internet usage and my web blocker policies on Active Directory security groups, and I can have all of that stuff set up ahead of time before I ever get ready to roll out the appliance itself.

Back in the day, we used to have a warehouse. We used to have a uniform shop that was offsite and I was responsible for setting up the tunnels of those sites. We recently relocated some administrative offices for the tribe that owns the casino that I work for, and we decided when they were moving that we would upgrade the firewall that they had. We purchased a WatchGuard so that it would be manageable, because we were already familiar with it from using it at our site. We dropped it right into place and I had traffic passing through it within minutes. I was done with it, doing all the other rules, within a couple of hours. I was onsite for all of those. I've never preconfigured one and then sent it out into the wild.

We use Variable Path, out of San Francisco. Our rep is Jason Chang. Our experience with them was very good. I would recommend them.

It's hard to measure ROI. But I've never had to go in front of upper management and tell them that we were breached. That is probably the conversation I would least like to have with them.

Otherwise, regarding return on investment, having the infrastructure already here and having more capabilities than we're using right now allow me to react very quickly. As I said, I was able to get some people working from home last week. It literally took us a day from going from zero people with remote access to a core group of about 12 people having remote access.

Getting a WatchGuard for the first three years pays for the hardware. I think it's cheaper to keep doing hardware upgrades at every software renewal, rather than just pay for maintenance to keep a piece of hardware going. I usually tell people that it's really affordable as well, particularly compared to Cisco.

In addition to the standard cost, we usually get the Total Security Suite. We go top-shelf on all of the subscription services.

WatchGuard was brought in by one of my predecessors. I left this company for a little while and went to go work for a credit union, and that was a completely Cisco shop, so I got to experience both of them at different times.

I don't think I've actually used anything other than the Cisco ASA. With the WatchGuard it's easier to create policies, that's for sure. I like the flexible stability of being able to leverage objects in Active Directory. I also like being able to not have to create all my policies using IP addresses, and that I can actually do web domain name lookups every time. That's very handy for large, distributed stuff where you have no idea where the actual source is going to be coming from. The cloud bounces traffic from all over nowadays. So crafting rules with fully qualified domain names, FQDN, is definitely something that I did not have in my Cisco ASA.

The Cisco was a little less confusing and more straightforward. It didn't do all of the things that the WatchGuard does, so in that sense it was a little bit easier to understand. That is particularly true once you start getting into proxy actions and setting up: "Okay, cool. Once this rule gets triggered, what actions have to happen?" I do know a few people who use WatchGuard and they still have to get assistance when they look at that. So I would file that as a con for WatchGuard. Proxy actions can be a little bit complicated.

Invest in some Professional Services. Although you can absolutely pull it out of the box and deploy it — and we've done that before — it's always good to have somebody that you can ask about best practices and run a few scenarios by them. We ended up purchasing four Professional Services from our local reseller. It was good. Although they didn't really provide any answers, they were there to say, "Oh no, you're doing the right thing." It was more reassurance than anything. But I would definitely recommend springing for some Professional Services. That will make the whole process go a lot easier.

A small subset of my staff, maybe three or four people, is involved in deploying and maintaining the solution. They're all IT administrators.

We use it to prevent any unnecessary stuff from getting into our network. It's for the usual security features. We do utilize the VPN and there are quite a few people on the VPN right now.

It gives our business layered security. Attack vectors it secures for us include denial of service attacks, people spoofing our network, as well as preventing malware from getting in — the typical attack vectors. We're satisfied with it overall.

Also, there was a phishing scheme going around a while back. WatchGuard caught it and we were able to mitigate it. That was very good. It keeps us from not having to worry about our network being under attack. It keeps us secure.

It saves us on the order of three hours a month. The solution just works.

• The set up of the VPN is pretty straightforward. Being able to build VPNs on the fly for certain users, if need be, is also valuable.
• The traffic monitoring is very nice.
• I also like the ease of blocking certain websites from getting in or users from getting to stuff they don't need to be at.

We're satisfied with the performance, as well as its reporting and management features.

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. Other than that, I really don't have any complaints about it.

I've been using WatchGuard for three years. That's how long I have been with the company. The company has been using it upwards of 10 years, I believe.

It's very stable.

It's scalable. We are probably going to be doing another area for some of the outer branches and the WatchGuards will be part of that. I can't say how soon it's going to happen, but there have been discussions about it.

I have no complaints about WatchGuard's technical support. If you have a question, they answer it.

As far as I know, WatchGuard is the only one that our company has used. We like the product enough. We're buying another appliance because our support ran out on one of our boxes. We're continuing to buy WatchGuard stuff because it does what we need it to do, it's priced reasonably well, and we like the support and usability.

We have deployed this product to distributed locations. We have a couple of branch offices and we've set them up in all of our locations. We set it up, we configure it to our network settings, we put in all of the information we need, and we go from there. We usually take a configuration from an existing and apply it. It's straightforward. The documentation goes step-by-step on how to set it up. The last time I did one it took about an hour.

In terms of maintenance of WatchGuard there are three people in our department. Whoever sees a problem or hears about an issue takes care of it. Two of us are system analysts and the third is our director of information technology.

It keeps our network secure and that's a good enough return for me.

I feel that the pricing is fair for all of the security you get. That's one of the reasons we went with, and continue to go with, WatchGuard.

Go ahead and implement it and don't think twice about it.

We're not using the cloud visibility feature at this time. Maybe we will in the future.

There are 75 users of our environment, in total. They range from mechanics to accountants to our COO and CEO. Everybody in the organization uses it.

We have a web server on the optional network. Then, on the trusted side, we just run all our computers out through the Internet. We don't do anything too elaborate with it.

We do have some technicians and some design center salespeople who call in. This is best usage that we get out of the solution.

We don't host our website internally anymore. We used to host our website and it did help with that, getting everything set up. We have just recently removed that and gone to a third-party. But, that was something which was very useful, setting up our internal website and NATting IPs.

The solution has increased productivity with our outside salespeople being able to connect into their computers and use those remotely.

We are able to limit where users can go, what they can do, and what they can access, so they are not wasting time doing things that they shouldn't be doing. It does help to save time, e.g., limiting Facebook. 

We are able to segment our FTP website off on the optional, setting up the rules specifically. There are certain outside IPS coming into our computers where we have different machines out there setup where technicians can remote in, etc. Being able to set those up to specific IPS, not just allowing full access, is probably our main use for setup.

The usability is good. I like it. I don't have any issues. Most everything that we have tried to set up for what we use it for is pretty straightforward and easy to use.

We have probably had it for the last 10 years. I have been here the entire time.

The stability is very good. We haven't had any issues with ports or anything else. Everything has been very good as far as the stability and issues.

The performance and throughput that the solution provides is good. We haven't had any issues as far as when we have connections and things going on. So, it's very good.

The stability is good as far as our use. I feel like we do have room. We have extra ports on it. We can set them up if we need to, but we don't need to use them. However, I feel we have room to expand and grow, if needed.

We have probably 75 users setup. Mostly, they are authenticating through to get out to the Internet. We do have some protections on it: virus stuff and different websites that users can and can't get to. We have groups setup for that. That is our main use from the inside with most of our users going out. Then, we have five or six users who remote into computers and other things.

There are not necessarily plans on expanding anything at the moment. We are pretty much set where we are. Usage is not too heavy, as it's mostly users getting in and out with us restricting what they can get to.

I have only had to call once or twice for anything in any of the time that we have had the solution. Most of the time, if I do have a question or something, I can hop onto the forum and there is an answer, then away we go. As far as my experience with the forum and just a few calls, it has been very good. We haven't had anything that has hung us up for a long time.

WatchGuard was pretty much our first solution like this. We did not use anything else before it.

The initial setup was straightforward. It walked through everything as far as the configuration. Everything that we needed was right there. So, I didn't have to search for anything. It was easy set up.

We went from a different version to this version. Even from that to this version, it was probably up and running within an hour.

I usually set it up.

We didn't consult anyone. We didn't really have an implementation strategy per se. We just set it up (like the old one), then went through and looked at some of the new features and things we might want to use.

I maintain it and and set up whatever needs to be set up. The other IT guys can come in and do stuff if I'm not here. Generally, it doesn't take too much time to get anything set up that we need.

It saves us a couple hours a week.

We don't have any other costs other than the licensing stuff.

We did look around at a few different things. We just kind of settled on WatchGuard. It seemed to have the features that we needed, so we went in that direction.

I'd give it a 10 (out of 10). I haven't had any issues. The few issues that we have had, such as not knowing where to go, they have been answered quickly. I am going to give it a 10 because of its easy to use. If we have a question, it's easy to get an answer. Also, it's very simple. For most of everything that we do, we have been able to do them pretty easily. We are very happy.

If we were to ever look at something else, I would look for something that has ease of use, simplicity, and ease of setup. That is what I like about this. Everything is pretty straightforward and easy to find. The interface being easy to use and find has been very helpful.

We don't use a lot of the logs. Generally, we don't need to. If we do need to go look at something or pull something up, the information is there in HostWatch or the logs. I have been happy with it.

We're not using the cloud.

It's our primary edge firewall at the home office. We have two M470s running Active-Passive. We have about 100 users in total here. Everything runs through the firewall, so the users run the gamut from analysts to accountants to executives.

It protects us from viruses and intrusions.

It has also saved me time, about an hour per month.

The most valuable feature is the ease of use of the interface. The usability is good. It's a firewall, it does its job and it does it well.

The throughput also seems to be good. I don't have any issues with throughput.

The management features are good.

The reporting is a little on the weak side. I would like to see a better reporting set and easier drill-down options.

I've been with the company for a year and they were already on WatchGuard when I got here.

The stability is good. It runs well.

I haven't had reason to scale it. It's the edge firewall and it's used extensively. We're a pretty small environment with a couple of hundred devices.

We pay yearly.

It's just me who is responsible for deployment and maintenance of the solution.

We use this solution as an edge firewall and layer-3 routing internally.

This solution has provided ease and speed of rules. It has unparalleled troubleshooting with excellent reporting.

The most valuable features of this solution are live logging, rule setup and maintenance, and VPN creation.

We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring.

There is not a product that compares to this one.

We use it to keep people out and we use it for a VPN.

The only thing that we care about is that we're kept safe from any attacks. That is important. The VPN is very secure and that's of huge importance because we have remote users who depend on it to do their jobs. So that's crucial.

The improvement it's provided is to our security. We don't have issues with rogue access, with people coming in here, or having access to our, data who shouldn't. That is huge, of course.

The solution simplifies my job. I don't even have to think about it. Everything is set and I leave it alone. And it just does its job. I would estimate it saves me at least 20 hours a month because I don't have to worry about things. It's set and it just runs.

WatchGuard has increased productivity because our VPN is stable. It's up. It doesn't go down. We used to have an issue with remote connectivity but that's no longer a problem. Having a VPN is very big for us.

• We have firewall policies in place to keep safe from malware and we rely heavily on it for our secure VPN.
• In terms of usability, the web interface is great.
  
• The throughput is great. It's perfect. We have no issues whatsoever.
• The management features are very powerful, although I don't use the reporting features at all.

The software base, the management piece that goes onto a server, is not as user-friendly as I would like. There are three different pieces that you have to manage, so it's a little bit convoluted, in my opinion. For people who use it all the time, it's great. But I don't use the management interface all the time.

Overall, it's powerful enough, so that is something that we can overlook.

It's very stable and it meets our needs. The stability is huge. It's rock-solid.

It's been able to handle anything we've thrown at it so far. We've never had an issue.

We upgrade as the models we have become obsolete. We upgrade to newer ones and they're usually on a three-year rotation, which is fine for us.

I haven't had to use technical support very often, but when I have they've been great.

We tried a software-based solution. I don't even remember what it was now.

The initial setup wasn't too bad. We didn't have any problems with it. It took a couple of hours.

We planned ahead of time, put the policies in place on paper and then tested them out. We then went live with it and fine-tuned it as necessary.

Our reseller helped with deployment. Our experience with them was great. We still use them.

We pay about $3,500 every three years. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.

We looked into offerings from Dell EMC, from Fortigate, and Cisco. But it was just going to be too much of a nightmare.

Rely on your vendor.

For us, it's in use every day. it's 24/7.

We're not using the solution's cloud visibility feature. That's something you have to pay for, and we haven't. I would love to, but there's a wireless piece and it's just too expensive. They have a wireless product that integrates perfectly with the WatchGuard appliance. But that's just not a reality for us because of the cost of those appliances. We would love to but just can't.

In terms of users, we've got about 15 people worldwide. They do support, testing - all of them use remote access. And then we have our internal users as well. It keeps us safe internally and our remote users are able to work with a reliable connection. It's very reliable.

I'm the only one who manages the firewall. If I need any help, there is a local vendor that helps me out as well. We're a small company but it's been great for us. I'm not that technical but I just know it works.

WatchGuard is a ten out of ten for me, because of its reliability.