AWS Firewall Manager vs. pfSense

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AWS Firewall Manager
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
AWS Firewall Manager is a security management service which allows users to centrally configure and manage firewall rules across accounts and applications in AWS Organization. As new applications are created, Firewall Manager brings new applications and resources into compliance by enforcing a common set of security rules. Users gain a single service to build firewall rules, create security policies, and enforce them in a consistent, hierarchical manner across the entire infrastructure.N/A
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
N/A
pfSense is a firewall and load management product available through the open source pfSense Community Edition, as well as a the licensed edition, pfSense Plus (formerly known as pfSense Enterprise). The solution provides combined firewall, VPN, and router functionality, and can be deployed through the cloud (AWS or Azure), or on-premises with a Netgate appliance. It as scalable capacities, with functionality for SMBs. As a firewall, pfSense offers Stateful packet inspection, concurrent…
$179
per appliance
Pricing
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
SG-1100
$179
per appliance
SG-2100
$229
per appliance
SG-3100
$399
per appliance
SG-5100
$699
per appliance
XG-7100-DT
$899
per appliance
XG-7100-1U
$999
per appliance
XG-1537
$1,949
per appliance
XG-1541
$2,649
per appliance
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Features
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Firewall Security Management
Comparison of Firewall Security Management features of Product A and Product B
AWS Firewall Manager
9.2
4 Ratings
13% above category average
pfSense
-
Ratings
Policy planning and rule management10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated Policy Orchestration9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Device Discovery9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Policy Compliance Auditing9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Attack Path Simulation Testing9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Anomalous Event or Behavior Deviation9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Vulnerability Scans9.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall Rule Cleanup10.04 Ratings00 Ratings
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
AWS Firewall Manager
-
Ratings
pfSense
8.4
16 Ratings
3% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings8.513 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings8.015 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.516 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings6.712 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings9.415 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings8.316 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings9.016 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings9.415 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings9.314 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings7.514 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

Sophos UTM
Sophos UTM
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Palo Alto Panorama
Palo Alto Panorama
Score 8.5 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
ServiceNow IT Operations Management
ServiceNow IT Operations Management
Score 8.8 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.5 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(4 ratings)
9.6
(27 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.8
(6 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AWS Firewall ManagerpfSense
Likelihood to Recommend
Amazon AWS
AWS Firewall Manager is well suited for cloud environments that have a lot to manage and maintain. If you have a smaller scale cloud environment or on premise setup this may not be for you.
Read full review
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
I believe PFSense is well suited for both home lab environments as well as up to small to mid-size business environments on a tight budget. However, I would implore that anything in production requires the use of the authorized hardware that PFSense sells to receive support. However, in my experience, PFSense is a solid set-and-forget firewall solution.
Read full review
Pros
Amazon AWS
  • Centralize administration
  • Automatic protection
  • Cross-account protection
Read full review
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
  • Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.
Read full review
Cons
Amazon AWS
  • Its Support team charges are extremely high depending on the case.
  • It has a limit to set up rules.
Read full review
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • I did kind of mention a Con in the Pro section with OpenVPN.
  • When I create a config for an employee other employees are able to login to that config.
  • I could be doing something wrong when I am making it - I am not afraid to admit that as I am pretty new to all of this, but it seems like it builds a key and I would think the key would be unique in some way to each employee, but I could be wrong.
  • I actually do not have a lot of Con's for this software - I did not get to set this up on our work network so I am not sure of any downfalls when installing.
  • I installed this on my personal machine in a Hyper-V environment to get a feel for it before I started working on it at work and it seemed pretty smooth. I didn't run into any issues.
Read full review
Usability
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
The pfSense UI is easy to navigate and pretty go look at. It is much better than some high dollar firewalls that just throw menus you you. The pfSense UI is quick and responsive and makes sense 99% of the time. Changes are committed quickly and the hardware rarely requires a reboot. It just runs.
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Support Rating
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
pfSense+ basic provides "As Available" email support. pfSense+ Pro offers 24 hr turn around email support. pfSense+ Enterprise offers 24/7 phone support.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Amazon AWS
For a
business that doesn't use any software or applications that will generate high
volumes of traffic, AWS Firewall Manager is the ideal choice. The method of
creating an initial configuration and user-friendliness is simple. Along with
other AWS services, we also created portals for the HR division, with a focus
on recruitment. we also created a User Interface and a set of tools. The AWS
Firewall Manager is the only thing we need.
Read full review
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
Meraki has a unified management login for all devices, which is nice. It also has decent content filtering, both areas where pfSense is weaker. Where pfSense far ouclasses Meraki is in the ease of use and the other width of features. These include features such as better VPN interoperability, non-subscription based pricing, auditability, not relying on the infrastructure of a third party, more transparency of what's actually going on, easier to deploy replacements if hardware fails. Additionally, the NAT management for pfSense seems to be a bit better, as you can NAT between any network segment and not just the LAN segments out the WAN interfaces.
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Return on Investment
Amazon AWS
  • Client retention
  • Less need for tedious tasks (cost savings)
Read full review
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • pfSense can be installed on commodity hardware with no licensing fees. With a simple less than 10 minute restore time, on most hardware, it's an extremely inexpensive way to achieve the same results that some of the more expensive vendors provide.
  • The easy to use interface has allowed configuration management to be preformed by lower level technicians with quick and easy training.
Read full review
ScreenShots