Forcepoint 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)
pfSense
Score 8.8 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
Forcepoint NGFW
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
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 NGFW
pfSense
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Firewalls are bought predominately through partners and third-party VARs. Pricing for purchase and lease and support options vary by reseller.
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Forcepoint NGFW
pfSense
Features
Forcepoint NGFW
pfSense
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Forcepoint NGFW
8.1
1 Ratings
7% below category average
pfSense
8.8
17 Ratings
2% above category average
Identification Technologies
5.01 Ratings
8.614 Ratings
Visualization Tools
5.01 Ratings
8.714 Ratings
Content Inspection
10.01 Ratings
9.016 Ratings
Policy-based Controls
10.01 Ratings
8.617 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP
8.01 Ratings
7.513 Ratings
Firewall Management Console
10.01 Ratings
9.516 Ratings
Reporting and Logging
8.01 Ratings
8.317 Ratings
VPN
9.01 Ratings
9.017 Ratings
High Availability
9.01 Ratings
9.416 Ratings
Stateful Inspection
7.01 Ratings
9.915 Ratings
Proxy Server
00 Ratings
8.215 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Forcepoint NGFW
pfSense
Small Businesses
pfSense
Score 8.8 out of 10
Sophos UTM
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 9.1 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
