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OPNsense vs Sangfor NGAF comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 13, 2025

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
6.9
Number of Reviews
411
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sangfor NGAF
Ranking in Firewalls
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 11.6%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor NGAF is 1.3%, up from 1.0% 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.
Akram Zaki Hussein - PeerSpot reviewer
Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support
The interface is user-friendly, but there's room for improvement in terms of intuitiveness. The bundle management aspect requires additional attention to make it more intuitive, especially for inspecting high-level traffic. This is crucial, especially for larger companies where the existing features might not be the most optimal choice, given limitations like printer constraints. For high availability, it's crucial to have a method in place where a designated component oversees the entire process. Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine. It would be beneficial if OPNsense supported additional virtualization platforms like Hyper-V from Microsoft and VMware, similar to how Kaspersky has integrated them.
Zaid Farooqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced threat detection with integrated security features and good support
We are using application firewalling, WAF, and SD-WAN. The capabilities are mostly within the box. For example, you will get web application firewall WAF as part and parcel of this. SD-WAN is also bundled. It integrates with their SIEM and SOAR solutions very nicely. Lastly, the pricing point is very cost-efficient as well.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the FortiGate Sandbox to detect zero-day vulnerabilities, such as anomalies or malware, that are unknown and have not yet been discovered."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"Good load balancing feature."
"The key features include SD-WAN, firewall use, intrusion prevention, intrusion detection, and application control."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"There is a tool called FSSO, which is a single sign-on user ID agent that works perfectly."
"The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly which makes the product easy-to-use."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"It is a very good solution. I like the dashboard. I can see what is going on and manage it as I like it."
"The tool's integration is more like a button press."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"Sangfor NGAF specializes in ransomware detection and helps to protect our network from ransomware threats and malware."
"The most valuable feature of Sangfor NGAF is its integration."
"The product is very fast and reliable."
"The VPN connectivity feature is really nice."
"Sangfor NGAF works accordingly with our customers. The solution has good performance, easy to use, and integrates well with the endpoints."
"The level of support provided to local companies is good. They transform their application control and other settings according to that country."
"We've found the technical support to be helpful."
"The top functionality is the reporting feature."
 

Cons

"With the standard support subscription, if the device goes down, the customer has to first ship the box, and then Fortinet sends the replacement. With the higher support, the customer has to ship the device after they have the replacement. It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription."
"The configuration part was challenging, especially converting configurations from another OEM to FortiGate."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"In their datasheet, they put the throughput as huge, but once you enable all the features of the box, the performance is impacted dramatically."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"Performance on the box and technical support are areas where Fortinet FortiGate can be improved."
"The scalability needs improvement."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"The solution should be able to work in a hybrid setup."
"It does not offer any recommendations on how to mitigate or control attacks."
"The GUI needs to be improved, lacks logic in some areas."
"Sangfor need greater exposer in the market because the market is mainly saturated by Fortinet. The user experience of Fortinet is quite different compared to NGAF. If we want to switch our users from Fortinet to NGAF, we have to convince them that the user experience will be much easier once once they start to use it."
"The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardware scalability, allowing for more storage and memory capacity."
"The tool's support is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here."
"The web interface needs to be improved, making it more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."
"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."
"The initial setup is super straight forward and as far as the licensing goes for the small product that we have, the pricing was pretty competitive. It wasn't as simple and as cheap as a SonicWall but for the service we would get it was a good price."
"It is somewhat expensive compared to other solutions such as Sophos."
"At the time we bought them, I was satisfied with their pricing; I don't know how the new pricing will be."
"It is not the cheapest one, but its price is very competitive."
"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."
"It is free."
"OPNsense is an open-source solution and it is free to use."
"It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
"It is open source and free."
"We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us."
"It costs about $1000."
"It is a free solution, and when you compare it to alternatives like FortiGate, which is quite powerful but also costly, the value becomes evident."
"Its pricing is unbeatable in comparison to other firewalls. You can have a small instance that could be €80 a month with the hardware underneath. Azure Firewall and FortiGate are out of the question at this price. If you are on a public cloud, you need the underlying infrastructure. Other than that, there is no additional cost. If you have it on-prem, you have to buy the server or the appliance. The hardware cost is replaced with the infrastructure cost in the cloud. You also have costs for the public IPs and underlying VMs, but that's not related to OPNsense. It would be the same for a FortiGate deployment on Azure. You need a FortiGate license, and you need the underlying infrastructure that scales up depending on your needs."
"In my opinion, the price of the tool is good in the Pakistani market. We can easily get discounts if needed."
"When it comes to the price of firewall solutions, Sangfor NGAF takes the cake."
"For four to five physical appliances for a licensed firewall, it costs approximately $4,000."
"We purchased one year technical support and return to factory support, and we also purchased one-year technical support services. So those were additional."
"The solution has a TCO that is 32% to 50% less than Sophos, Fortinet, and SonicWall."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"Sangfor NGAF price is reasonable and there is an annual license. However, the maintenance cost can be a bit high."
"For over 2000 users, the cost is around 5000 to 6000 USD. If you want a web application firewall, you have to purchase an additional license for it."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
15%
University
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 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...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
The pricing is competitive when compared to vendors like Palo and FortiNet.
What do you like most about Sangfor NGAF?
I think Sangfor NGAF is more valuable than Cisco products because of its simplicity and ease of management. If I comp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor NGAF?
The licensing cost is quite high compared to other available firewalls in the market.
What needs improvement with Sangfor NGAF?
The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardwa...
 

Also Known As

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

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
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
Find out what your peers are saying about OPNsense vs. Sangfor NGAF and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
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