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McAfee Application Control 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

McAfee Application Control
Ranking in Application Control
8th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
WatchGuard Firebox
Ranking in Application Control
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
143
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (10th), Firewalls (12th), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (4th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (10th), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Application Control category, the mindshare of McAfee Application Control is 5.7%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of WatchGuard Firebox is 11.0%, up from 3.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Control Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
WatchGuard Firebox11.0%
McAfee Application Control5.7%
Other83.3%
Application Control
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1437648 - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Security Specialist at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Easy to configure, reliable, secure, and has good support
With some specific versions, we are experiencing some issues where the policy configuration has some problems with the parent and child processes. There have been problems with the relationship between the parent and child process, from time to time. I would like to see better reporting and alerting features in the future.
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

"The most valuable feature is the whitelisting; I can test the applications and we can also predefine rules for Windows, rules for the application and control."
"It does its job well, and it's not causing a lot of trouble."
"This is a basic solution; the policy screen is okay, and it's easy to configure."
"We also like the Change Control. We can control how things get executed. It has signatures for different kinds of protocols."
"Firebox operates effectively in the background, blocking potential threats without a need for constant monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is the VPN. It's easy to connect to the VPN."
"It has made firewall configuration really simple."
"The advice I would give to anyone considering WatchGuard Firebox is that it is a good product, despite what they say about it not being in the Gartner quadrant leaders."
"If there is any conflict, the reporting feature will kick out all types of information, which is great."
"We had many bottlenecks before deploying WatchGuard Firebox, but when we switched to a higher version of our firewalls, the bottlenecks were solved."
"The best features that WatchGuard Firebox offers include the combination of WatchGuard and the antivirus service, which together work with the threat sync to detect and block attacks in real-time."
"From a pure cost standpoint, we cut our fees in half by moving to WatchGuard."
 

Cons

"The intrusion detection features should also be improved. It is a very good feature but it should be maximized."
"I would like to see better reporting and alerting features in the future."
"The initial setup is not straightforward, it was complex. The manuals don't have all the information you need to deploy it."
"With some specific versions, we are experiencing some issues where the policy configuration has some problems with the parent and child processes."
"It doesn't offer the best protection and it's incompatible with a lot of China's websites. It makes a lot of mistakes when it is detecting items as it's not recognizing items correctly."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."
"The licensing can be a bit expensive."
"The way Secure Sign-On authentication is happening needs to be improved."
"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."
"We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring."
"The major problem is pricing and licensing loss. In India, the cost for renewal after three years is 75% of the hardware cost, which is a significant problem."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price of the solution is not expensive, it is less than FortiGate."
"Cheap."
"The pricing was in line with everyone else; maybe slightly higher."
"WatchGuard had a very competitive price. It was only 10 to 20 percent more than a single instance device but with that extra cost it provided a second load balancing device... unlike other brands whose method of hardware and software licensing would have doubled our cost."
"They license it. When we buy it, we buy it with a three-year license. That's the most cost-effective way to do it. So, if you're going to buy it, then buy it with the three-year licensing."
"We paid $4000 in AUD for WatchGuard Firebox per year. There were no additional costs."
"For what we use, the tool's price has been reasonable, but it is not the cheapest. The tool has been quite reasonable."
"The cost three years ago was about $800."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Outsourcing Company
13%
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

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

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Contec
Ellips, Diecutstickers.com, Clarke Energy, NCR, Wrest Park, Homeslice Pizza, Fortessa Tableware Solutions, The Phoenix Residence
Find out what your peers are saying about McAfee Application Control vs. WatchGuard Firebox and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.