pfSense vs Sophos XG
We performed a comparison between pfSense vs Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The most valuable features are the policies, filtering, and configuration."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"It is very flexible to use."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"Good basic firewall features."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"Its reliability and cost-effectiveness stand out."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"The product’s most valuable feature is the user management system."
"The solution was able to be integrated well with exciting hardware and software and in multiple business sectors."
"It's a product that is in continuous improvement and is following what the customer is asking for. They are taking inputs and designing new releases specifically according to the client and their needs."
"The interface is very user-friendly and it's easy to manage."
"The initial setup is very straightforward and the solution is extremely user-friendly."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos XG is the VBM."
"it's user-friendly, not complex."
"The solution has good performance and is easy to use."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"The UI could be improved."
"Vulnerability scanning could be improved."
"I need user-behavior analytics, to find threat scenarios from inside the organization, insider attacks. That would be very helpful for us. In addition, I would like next-generation features for small and medium businesses. These businesses require UTM, all in one product. Fortinet must include it."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"I've never tried it in large environments. All my clients are small businesses with a handful of employees, so I am not sure how it works in large environments. I keep up with recent versions, and there's nothing I'm waiting for, and nothing breaks when I get a new version."
"A malware blocker should be included. I do not know if it is included yet. However, until now, we have not experienced a large malware invasion."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"It needs to be more secure."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"We are not very happy with the customer support they provide — it's quite slow."
"It would be better if they made their own hardware like Palo Alto and Fortinet. They use their own ASICs and claim it is more secure."
"In the next release, I would like to see improvements made to the policy and simplify the policy-making, as the complexity of it makes it really tough."
"An area of improvement would be the reporting as diagnostic graphs take a long time to load and refresh. If there could be an option to show only select graphs, it may speed up the graphics."
"Better instructions should be provided as part of the technical support so that we can understand the functionalities. This will help us to troubleshoot faster."
"Sophos XG's web server protection and log viewer could improve. They should also introduce sandboxing."
"In feature releases of the solution, I would like there to be an increase in the detection capability."
"It's easy to use, but it's hard to configure exact settings. They need to make it easier to access advanced features."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, KerioControl, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ, Sophos UTM and Meraki MX. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sophos XG report.
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