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 application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"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 most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly which makes the product easy-to-use."
"I have found the feature allowing you to manage everything from a centralized location beneficial."
"Sophos began with a basic version and evolved into something more efficient in terms of performance."
"I've tried out Sophos XG a little. It has a good interface that's very user-friendly, but I haven't used all of its functions because I'm only configuring and running the system."
"It is stable, flexible, and easy to use. It has got a web management portal that can be accessed from anywhere."
"I like the web filter, application filter, and VBA."
"Excellent product, meets most of the security needs of companies of various sizes. You can buy it without fear."
"What I have found most valuable with the Sophos XG is it's a key component of the Intercept X EDR environment. You have to have it to receive the full benefit. If you've you are using Sophos SG firewalls, they're great firewalls and in many ways, I prefer them to the Sophos XG. Since I have set them up, programmed them, and manipulate firewall rules, et cetera, the Sophos SG's a better interface. However, the Sophos XG's very powerful. I prefer it over other solutions I have used, such as Cisco Meraki and SupportNet, I don't like them. They're not very friendly to people who have to set them up and implement them."
"The most useful aspect of the solution is the concept of integrated security."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"There are SD-WAN network monitoring, SD-WAN features, Industrial Databases, Internet of Things, Detection, etc., however, we do have not licenses for those features. We thought that if you bought a product, you should have all of the features it offers. Why should you need to make so many extra purchases to enable features? They should have one price for the entire offering."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I would like better documentation concerning the provided packages and their integration."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"The only issue that Sophos XG now needs to improve is the product's reporting capability."
"Technical support can be slow to respond, which is something that should be improved."
"Sophos XG could improve the connectivity with Microsoft 365 or Azure Active Directory(AD). It doesn't work directly as other solutions do, such as Fortinet FortiGate. The client needs a separate AD server which is a problem."
"The first area that needs to be improved is customer support."
"Sophos XG could improve by coming out with more innovative feature developments."
"The pricing can be high unless you choose a longer contract."
"The UTM itself needs improvement. When you're navigating it seems like it takes forever to load anything. The hardware is okay. It's just the software that could be more responsive."
"There have been some issues when upgrading. For some reason, parts of the configuration become unconfigured, I then have to reconfigure it. I should not need to keep reconfiguring it after upgrades."
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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