Juniper SRX is a firewall offering. It provides a variety of modular features, scaled for enterprise-level use, based on a 3-in-1 OS that enables routing, switching, and security in each product.
N/A
pfSense
Score 9.9 out of 10
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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
Juniper SRX
pfSense
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
Juniper SRX
pfSense
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Juniper SRX
pfSense
Features
Juniper SRX
pfSense
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Juniper SRX
8.7
Ratings
1% above category average
pfSense
7.6
Ratings
13% below category average
Identification Technologies
9.00 Ratings
5.00 Ratings
Visualization Tools
7.00 Ratings
7.00 Ratings
Content Inspection
8.00 Ratings
4.00 Ratings
Policy-based Controls
10.00 Ratings
10.00 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP
8.00 Ratings
7.00 Ratings
Firewall Management Console
7.00 Ratings
9.50 Ratings
Reporting and Logging
8.00 Ratings
8.00 Ratings
VPN
10.00 Ratings
10.00 Ratings
High Availability
10.00 Ratings
10.00 Ratings
Stateful Inspection
10.00 Ratings
7.00 Ratings
Proxy Server
9.00 Ratings
6.10 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Juniper SRX
pfSense
Small Businesses
pfSense
Score 9.9 out of 10
Sophos UTM
Score 8.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.6 out of 10
Quantum Firewalls and Security Gateways
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Score 10.0 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Virtualized Next-Generation Firewalls - VM Series
Juniper vSRX is an excellent edge gateway device. The combination of Tunneling protocols supported and the advanced routing & security features makes it perfect for this kind of deployment. It is available in physical, virtual appliances as well as support on multiple clouds so you can have the same box be your edge gateway in multiple environments for consistency.
It can also work as a Internet Gateway, DMZ Firewall/Router and it would function just fine.
While it can also work as a DC firewall (North-South), the poor GUI will make it harder in the day to day administration for the multiple policies in a DC.
pfSense is incredibly budget friendly and capable for organizations of all sizes. My specific scenario, working for a non-profit organization, requires budget consciences decisions without compromising security and function. pfSense has helped tremendously in accomplishing this. It specifically tackles advanced routing, static routing, remote access, intrusion prevention, in a single platform, mostly available for free.
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.
There is no API for making changes. This can be a hindrance in environments where auto-deploying something needs firewall rules or HAProxy configs updated. Since all settings are stored in an XML file and then configs are generated from that, even manually updating config files cannot be done.
Beware that some network cards can have issues. pfSense is based on FreeBSD, so it's best to look on their compatibility list before deploying.
pfSense can be a very elementary firewall but can also be as comples as you want, according your needs. I'd always reccomend a HA solution when used in a company and, for bigger companies, commercial license is recommended. It's also very adptable to everyone's needs.
This is the one area where I have a beef with Juniper. When I called into Cisco TAC, 90% of the time, the first person I spoke with was able to resolve my issue. With Juniper TAC, 90% of the time, the first person I speak with is not able to resolve my issue, seems to almost be reading from a script, and must escalate my ticket. All of which takes time.
Equipment prices ran about the same. Performance and management were also more or less equal. The biggest deciding factors for going with Juniper were (1) fewer security incidents related to SRX firewalls and (2) technical support costs were significantly less.
PFSense is not a fully featured and supported enterprise-grade solution; however, it does offer a lot of similar functionality at a fraction of the cost for more minor requirements.
It is a workhorse for our field operations. It provides the last touch for an ISP to the customer. The customer has no view of the device, but with the repeatability of the device, they do not need to.
The ability to roll out a dynamic routing protocol attached to a security zone allows elasticity to the environment that supports growth.
VLAN support on the inside interfaces allow this to be the only device in some smaller deployments we install these in.
pfSense has only had positive impacts on our company. We are not a huge company so not having to buy licenses to get all these features have been excellent.
I was not around when our current sysadmin decided to use pfSense, but I am assuming from day one it was probably a 100% return on investment since it does everything we need it to and it was open source software.
