We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM had a similar user rating regarding ease of deployment, service and support, and ROI. If pricing is a factor, Sophos UTM is a more cost-effective solution based on user reviews. In terms of features, Fortinet FortiGate users felt the interface was complex, and the reporting feature needed improvements. In contrast, Sophos UTM users felt the solution needed to do a better job at covering mobile devices.
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"Configuration could not be made any easier."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Scaling out cannot be easier, as there are many migration paths."
"This is a very stable product."
"Technical support is very responsive."
"If a computer does get infected the Sophos appliance lets us know via it's Advanced Threat Protection so we can get a much faster response time."
"Configuration troubleshooting is eased by the use of the color-coded, live firewall log."
"I would recommend UTM over XG because it's easier to manage."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"I haven't had a single issue since using Fortinet."
"I think that additional metrics features are needed to be able to monitor other areas or to monitor as much as you can, at a fine-grain resolution."
"The technical support team’s response time could be improved."
"I would like to see the SD-WAN feature improved."
"Needs to improve the certificate management (ex. Let's Encrypt support)."
"There can be a delay when it comes to reaching out to technical support."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"The virus updates will always depend on new viruses that are discovered. Maybe they can send a notification or a reminder for update time."
"The initial setup was straightforward. The full deployment takes approximately two days which could be simplified to reduce the time. The major part of the process is the configuration and the policy setup."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Check Point NGFW, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos UTM report.
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I would have no doubt in recommending Fortinet. I do not know the Sophos UTM product specifically but in general, in companies, we have had unpleasant experiences with Sophos with customers. They typically declare performance values that are overestimated in the field.
We replaced Fortinet with Sophos as our public-facing UTM in 2017 & since then the ride has been extremely rough. I would not recommend Sophos for any mission-critical environment.
Fortinet is easy to manage and it include secure SDWAN as well including many features with easy to configure.
Both firewalls are easy to deploy. But the issue you will encounter when performing troubleshooting. You will not get flexibility in troubleshooting through Cli in Sophos whereas, in FortiGate, we have much more control. Besides if you are deploying a firewall on a large scale where visibility, control, performance as well as the flexibility is important it is better to go with Fortinet rather than Sophos.
I would also like to elaborate on the reporting part in FortiCloud. There is no need to pay any extras. Every box connects to ForticCoud service, and if you want reports to be greater than 7 days (meaning to be kept longer than that in their memory system) then you have to pay. In the meantime, by default Forticloud will send daily emails with reports and once a week you will get 4 to 5 reports, with lots of granular information. These reports are all in PDF with color graphics. In reality, I would be happy to send you some of the reports as in words typed herein would be more than a book. The FortiGate appliance also comes with 10 endpoint security (Forticlient) licences. So you can put this endpoint protection software to servers or clients. It also has a two-factor authentication license included. With these boxes, you can also create VDOM (Virtual Domains, totally separate).
They can afford that as the hardware, as I mentioned before (ASIC) has the power to do that. In 3 years I have had 1 spam message entering my mail server, is that telling you something??? In my first reply, I did tell you that where I work now they purchase Sophos. Well, when the antivirus is set the CPU gets up to 90%. My Fortigate CPU is 0% and peaks during attacks. And I have had quite a few. They were attempting to break into the mail server. More than 2 million attempts in less than 2 hours. Have a look at NSS Labs site. FortiGate is a Rolls Royce, you cannot compare.
Here in Australia, where I work now, the decision was to go with Sophos, ONLY ON PRICE. Yes, great brains. Now they regret that big time. FortiGate is a much more powerful device, especially when it comes to being able to handle the traffic. Most of the models handle throughput via ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) which is nothing more and less than a customer semiconductor. So, this is handled via hardware. It may be initially more difficult to implement. Now, what does "difficult" mean? To me when there is an unknown, difficult comes up till you learn. So if you make a decision on price and because "it is the easiest" to install.
I would not touch Sophos. Simple as that.
Sophos UTM is better by far. but it is more expensive
Done many installations of both Sophos and FortiGate, Sophos is the easiest to install and best in terms of features.
Reporting is free in Sophos while we need an extra subscription for FortiGate. Deep packet inspection, intrusion prevention advanced threat protection, web filtering, app control and email protection are key features of Sophos. Browsing is made safe with phishing protection and new functionality of ransomware protection. Sophos support is brilliant and community website from Sophos answers to all your questions and ease deployment.
I can’t really comment on FortiGate. We’ve been working with Sophos for years and like it’s integration with their endpoint.