We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy for users to manage the entire solution from anywhere. The solution is very light, stable, and provides excellent real-time control. Users feel OPNsense is not a good product for medium to large businesses, as it has some very limited features and needs better reporting and documentation.
"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"The technical support is very good."
"The IDS and IPS features are valuable. From the usability perspective, there is a lot of good documentation. As IT professionals, we found it very easy to configure the firewall. It was easy to configure and use."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
"The solution has high availability."
"What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted."
"The scalability of Sophos XG is good."
"The valuable features of this solution are the VPN, load balancer, and the QoS for splitting the ISP band."
"The user interface is very good."
"We have found that the simplicity of the XG 210 is its most valuable feature."
"The performance is good."
"It is a very stable solution."
"The solution offers a good firewall endpoint and email encryption."
"Web filtering is easy enough to deploy, manage, or make exceptions to."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"The reporting part could be better."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"I would like better documentation concerning the provided packages and their integration."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
"Sophos XG could improve by making the remote access and VPN better."
"The solution could be improved if it offered more documentation or at least provided more information about the products themselves."
"The weakest point is the technical support because they are difficult to get into contact with."
"In the Sophos XG, the SD-WAN has all the rules done separately, such as net policy routing. In the previous version, they were all in a single rule and everything was done that way. The way it is now is difficult for us because we are not used to this newer version. The firewall rules should be easier to configure and create. Everything should be done with a single click."
"Sophos XG's user interface has some room for improvement."
"Support could be improved."
"I need to open the email to see what it contains and the value of it before I know whether to access it or not."
"The current bandwidth consumption is no longer shown in the XG and XGS."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM, IPFire and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Sophos UTM. See our OPNsense vs. Sophos XG report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.