We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Sophos UTM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"The technical support is very good."
"The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"It helps us with protection, with concurrent use of the VPN."
"What I like about Sophos UTM is that it improves my company's security. The solution is easy to set up, which I like, and it's very stable."
"Sophos UTM's best feature is SIM in the cloud, which combines the gateway solution and endpoint solution to send telemetry data to the cloud and provides full contact visibility regarding security."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
"I have no problem with the cost or licensing of this solution. This is a primary reason whay I wanted this solution. It does the same thing cheaper than other name brands."
"The initial configuration is straightforward thanks to the web GUI. In 30 minutes, you can have a running firewall with UTM protection enabled."
"The intrusion prevention is great, and I like dual virus scanning on the network layer because we scan it through Avira and Sophos. Web filtering is also a fantastic option for clients who want to really lock down internet access."
"So far, the solution has been problem-free."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."
"I don't like that anything more than very basic reporting is not included."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"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."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"The solution is not scalable."
"With Sophos UTM, there is a general rule in the firewall when the country blocking can block some countries from accessing your data. In the current version, you still need to add it by putting in the IP range. This feature would be helpful for administrators and it gives them the advantage to block stuff in less time."
"We didn’t find any issues but I know there have been some in the last few years."
"I didn't like it much. It suits only small businesses. It isn't scalable and reliable. There is a very critical issue with the power supply."
"Email spam filtering only works if you have an on-prem Exchange server. It doesn't interface with Office 365 like the XG model. That would be one feature that they could improve. They're not going to do it because they're trying to push us all to XG."
"The pricing is an issue."
"VPN needs IKEv2, but it’s in the roadmap. Also, all new, cool features will only come to the new Sophos XG Firewall."
"Stay away from the wireless models, since you cannot put them in HA. They start to give you some weird issues once you start getting into multiple SSIDs and networks."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. 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 UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, IPFire and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our OPNsense vs. Sophos UTM report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.