Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Hillstone CloudEdge vs Netgate pfSense comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
380
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Hillstone CloudEdge
Ranking in Firewalls
50th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Netgate pfSense
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
217
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone CloudEdge is 0.0%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netgate pfSense is 12.3%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
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.
Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Comprehensive cloud security with robust threat protection and VPN capabilities
Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. This solution has a unified OS system for security products, ensuring that the virtual firewall has similar features to the on-premise solutions. Important features include a VPN, VTech VPN, SSL VPN, QoS, antivirus, threat protection, and sandbox capabilities.
Vincent Hamm - PeerSpot reviewer
I appreciate the depth of what the solution can do and the simplicity of the initial setup
We do a lot of managed services and are currently trying to get people off of L2TP VPN. Apparently, we can download a mobile config file from a configured NetGate device, and we're primarily Apple. We've experimented with it on a device that's not a production device, and we can't seem to get the phase one IPSec set correctly so that the Apple config will accept it. We've tried looking at the documentation but haven't found anything. While it's not the highest priority, it is rather frustrating. We'd like to do this, and the feature is right there, but we can't get it configured. We certainly don't want to try it on a production machine because it will break the current VPN. I would like to download the Apple mobile config so that I can tell it to configure my VPN connection to do that. We have some cross-platform things. So there's also a Windows VPN. You can download a script or a PowerShell, put it on a Windows machine, and it can connect to the VPN. It would be nice if I could say I want Mac only, Windows only, or both. I wish it could configure the IPSec phase one and phase two, or at least give me solid instructions on how to configure that. It doesn't supply out-of-the-box visibility to drive decisions. You get 75 log lines, so if you're trying to troubleshoot something, you have to look at one log and then another. It integrates with SysLog systems, but our customers are not at the level where they want to pay for some third-party SysLog system. Usually, we can get things taken care of fairly quickly. I would like to have the ability to control all my devices from one place. With Ubiquiti, you can get a controller that allows you to control all of your Wi-Fi devices, switches, and routers. From one area, you can switch to that customer and see what's happening in their environment. That's not part of pfSense. I understand why it's not because pfSense is open source and community supported. That's something that someone in the community needs to pick up and run with. It's not something the pfSense can easily implement. If they could, that'd be great.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The best feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the IPS or IDS implementation."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"The interface is very good."
"The product offers very good security."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The solution is very easy to download and configure. The initial setup was very easy. The technical support is very good."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
"I'd rate the solution nine out of ten."
"PfSense is fairly simple to configure and has a good administration interface."
"OpenVPN, IPsec, DHCP, and DNS are the most valuable features."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"The most valuable feature, for instance, is the ease of migrating configurations between different Netgate devices housed in the same box."
"pfSense is a straightforward, feature-rich firewall."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"pfSense provides visibility that enables users to make data-driven decisions. I'd rate the capabilities seven out of ten."
 

Cons

"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"It's one of the more expensive brands."
"The WAF is extremely limited."
"The reports are very basic."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"Performance Optimization Documentation could use improvement. The base setup is great but with higher bandwidth, it is really hard to find good documentation on how to tweak the setup to get the most out of your connection."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"The user interface needs improvement. Even though it's a system that's easy to get working upon installation, the configurations are not intuitive."
"It would be great for the solution to have better logs."
"We take care of more than 60 customers, so it would be nice to have the ability to have all of the pfSense boxes that we deploy under one pane of glass so we can manage them centrally."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"We appreciate the flexibility of the Netgate pfSense solution, but we have waited approximately two years for new updates to the Community Edition. We are now moving to OPNsense."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing cost is at the intermediate level."
"FortiGate's pricing falls within the mid-range when compared to other leading firewall solutions."
"Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."
"Fortinet is reasonable in pricing and licensing. Overall, FortiGate is affordable. The licensing fee can be a little high, depending on the budget for your project."
"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."
"Some of our customers are using Sophos and SonicWall due to price concerns, as they can't manage the pricing of Fortinet FortiGate."
Information not available
"I am using the community version of the solution and it is priced well. There is a cost of learning how to use the solution, if it was free it would be better."
"All costs are low compared to other solutions. The hardware is stable and cheap."
"It is an open source firewall."
"The pricing is lower than some of its competitors."
"pfSense is a free solution."
"pfSense is open-source."
"It is an open source solution. Therefore, the price is good."
"The tool is flexible; even the free, open-source version offers many features. From a cost perspective, even the subscription model for commercial support isn't too costly. However, it's important to have someone knowledgeable about Netgate pfSense to take advantage of it. While there are online resources, a professional or someone experienced can get much more out of the solution. I've heard that the IPS/IDS licenses and other features can be costly."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Educational Organization
6%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What needs improvement with Hillstone CloudEdge?
There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance. M...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone CloudEdge?
Our primary use case is to provide cloud-based security solutions for customers using public cloud platforms. We dist...
Help me find the best open source router
You don't really specify what type of router you are looking for but if you are talking about a gateway router I reco...
How do I choose between Fortinet FortiGate and pfSense?
Fortinet’s Fortigate is a firewall solution we use and are very much satisfied with its performance. We find Fortigat...
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

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
LinkTime
Nerds On Site Inc., RKC Development Inc., Expertech, Fisher's Technology, Ncisive, Consulting, CPURX, Vaughn's Computer House Calls, Imeretech LLC, Digital Crisis, Carolina Digital Phone, Technigogo Technology Services, The Simple Solution, SwiftecITInc, Rocky Mountain Tech Team, Free Range Geeks, Alaska Computer Geeks, Lark Information Technology, Renaissance Systems Inc., Cutting Edge Computers, Caretech LLC, GoVanguard, Network Touch Ltd, P.C. Solutions.Net, Vision Voice and Data Systems LLC, Montgomery Technologies, Techforce, Concero Networks, ASONInc, CPS Electronics and Consulting, Darkwire.net LLC, IT Specialists, MBS-Net Inc., VOICE1 LLC, Advantage Networking Inc., Powerhouse Systems, Doxa Multimedia Inc., Pro Computer Service, Virtual IT Services, A&J Computers Inc., Envision IT LLC, CommunicaONE Inc., Bone Computer Inc., Amax Engineering Corporation, QPG Ltd. Co., IT 101 Inc., Perfect Cloud Solutions, Applied Technology Group Inc., The Digital Sun Group LLC, Firespring
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone CloudEdge vs. Netgate pfSense and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.