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Forcepoint NGFW vs. Ipanema SD-WAN (discontinued) vs. pfSense

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Forcepoint NGFW

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AForcepoint Next-Generation Firewall delivers network security at scale. They can be deployed from anywhere through the Secure Management Console (SMC) and unify policy management, incident response and reporting.

    $900

    one-time fee for the entry tier Forcepoint N60 (approx)

    Ipanema SD-WAN (discontinued)

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AFrench company Ipanema was acquired in April 2015 by InfoVista, to expand that company's offerings into WAN optimization and became part of Extreme Networks portfolio, after the acquistion in late 2021. But the product line is discontinued, and no longer supported or sold.N/A

    pfSense

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ApfSense 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
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Editions & Modules
    Forcepoint NGFW N60
    $900
    one-time fee (approx)
    Forcepoint NGFW N120
    $1314
    one-time fee (approx)
    Forcepoint NGFW N350
    $7850
    one-time fee (approx)
    Forcepoint NGFW N1200
    $13600
    one-time fee (approx)
    Forcepoint NGFW N2200
    $36000
    one-time fee (approx)
    Forcepoint NGFW N3400 & N3500
    varies
    one-time fee
    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
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Free Trial
    YesNoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional DetailsFirewalls are bought predominately through partners and third-party VARs. Pricing for purchase and lease and support options vary by reseller.——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Considered Multiple Products
    Forcepoint
    No answer on this topic
    Discontinued Products
    No answer on this topic
    Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Would buy again
    16 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    17 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Happy with the feature set
    16 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    14 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    16 Answers
    Features
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Forcepoint NGFW and Ipanema SD-WAN (discontinued) and pfSense
    Feature
    Forcepoint NGFW
    8.1
    1 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Ipanema SD-WAN (discontinued)
    -
    Ratings
    pfSense
    8.9
    17 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Identification Technologies5.01 Ratings00 Ratings8.714 Ratings
    Visualization Tools5.01 Ratings00 Ratings8.714 Ratings
    Content Inspection10.01 Ratings00 Ratings9.316 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls10.01 Ratings00 Ratings8.717 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP8.01 Ratings00 Ratings7.913 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console10.01 Ratings00 Ratings9.516 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging8.01 Ratings00 Ratings8.417 Ratings
    VPN9.01 Ratings00 Ratings9.117 Ratings
    High Availability9.01 Ratings00 Ratings9.416 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection7.01 Ratings00 Ratings10.015 Ratings
    Proxy Server00 Ratings00 Ratings8.415 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Small Businesses
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    SonicWall NSA Series
    Score8.3 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Cisco Meraki SD-WAN
    Score8.6 out of 10
    Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    Score9.6 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    Score9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.3
    (30 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.7
    (8 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Forcepoint NGFWIpanema SD-WAN (discontinued)pfSense
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Forcepoint
    If you are looking for a smaller network/security team, the ease and low complexity create an easy to manage environment. One engineer can easily manage 100 nodes/locations. If you are just starting to get security conscious and predict regular adjustments to policy, routing, and access, this is a very good system for making easy to understand and low impact changes on a regular basis without operations interruption.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Ipanema WAN Optimization solution is best suited for organizations where poor application performance and application visibility are the key challenges. It is effective where most of the customer sites are in areas where bandwidth upgrade is a challenge. Centralised management of devices through Web Server makes it easy to manage & control them.
    Incentivized
    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
    Forcepoint
    • Easy to manage and make changes on - ACL's are done with ease.
    • Easy USB initial configuration - The easy initial setup of a new location and firewall saves massive time. Settings are automatically pushed to new nodes upon contact with the controller.
    • Low Complexity - This system does not have a lot of complexity requiring extra hours, training, or personnel to manage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • Dynamic WAN selection.
    • Application monitoring.
    • WAN optimization.
    • Application performance management.
    • Performance improvement.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Forcepoint
    • Poor Reporting - It exists but even when calling in to support for assistance, they have no idea how to tackle customizing reports or searching for specific data.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • SaaS Applications.
    • Knowledge base on support portal.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Forcepoint
    The Graphical User Interface is very easy to read, understand and work with. The usability of this product is very high.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Forcepoint
    Support has varied over the history of the company. Terro is a name that comes up often with the best of service from this company.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Some of the problem areas where I feel it wasn't easy enough like troubleshooting, digging deep with packet inspection, security. But Dynamic WAN Selection based on the AQS parameters give this solution an advantage on the other products. Newly added features like cloud application performance monitoring is simplified now.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Forcepoint
    There are similar hardware and license costs between the two products. The Forcepoint NGFW product is by far easier to use and manage.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    Customer went through multiple vendors to address their issue related to application performance and WAN performance improvement. We went into discussion with Riverbed and Ipanema. Ipanema WAN Optimization solution fulfilled their requirements as some of the features like teleengine, virtual ipbox extra are an advantage over the Riverbed solution.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Forcepoint
    • Efficiency/Productivity increase. The company moved from Cisco firewall and routing hardware to Forcepoint NGFW. It now takes fewer people and fewer hours to manage the new product. This has allowed the company to put the man-hours to use on other projects and tasks.
    • Long term viability. This has been a concern in the past when the company started as Stonegate, merged to become Stonesoft then got purchased by McAfee, then McAfee got purchased by Intel. However, with Forcepoint the product seems to have found a stable home.
    • Low complexity. The Web GUI based system for management has reduced the cost of personnel and training required. There is no longer a need for the company to have higher trained and higher salary cost employees to manage the system. Mid-level admins at lower salaries are capable of managing the GUI based system with ease.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Discontinued Products
    • This can improve end user experience, which leads to reduced operational cost.
    • Return on Investment in 24 months.
    • Centralised management of devices can ease in management of devices.
    Incentivized
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots