Stateful firewall - A Stateful firewall is AWARE of the connections that pass through it. It adds and maintains information about users connections in STATE table, referred to as a connection table. It than uses this connection table to implement the security policies for users connections. Example of stateful firewall are PIX, ASA, Checkpoint.

Stateless firewall - (Packet Filtering) Stateless firewalls on the other hand, does not LOOK at the state of connections but just at the PACKETS themselves. Example of a packet filtering firewall is the Extended Access Control Lists on Cisco IOS Routers.

Stateful firewall - A Stateful firewall is aware of the connections that pass through it. It adds and maintains information about users connections in state table, referred to as a connection table. It than uses this connection table to implement the security policies for users connections. Example of stateful firewall are PIX, ASA, Checkpoint.

Stateless firewall - (Packet Filtering) Stateless firewalls on the other hand, does not look at the state of connections but just at the packets themselves. Example of a packet filtering firewall is the Extended Access Control Lists on Cisco IOS Routers.