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Fortinet Logo
120,425 views|88,209 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
OPNsense Logo
105,864 views|93,109 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
Sophos Logo
59,794 views|42,752 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 6, 2022

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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions relate that they are easy and straightforward to deploy.
  • Features: OPNSense users say it offers good reporting and visibility and that it is a good option for home and small business use. Many users feel the solution could be more secure and user friendly. It can be a challenging solution to use for the complete novice.

    Sophos XG offers VPN, solid firewalling, robust intrusion detection, and content blocking. Users find it easy to use and manage. They find the interface user friendly and very intuitive. They would like to have improvement to the SD-WAN, GDPR capabilities, and better integrations.
  • Pricing: OPNsense is open source and free to use but provides limited features. Paid versions can be pricey. Sophos XG users find the price to be reasonable.
  • Service and Support: For the most part, users of both solutions are happy with the service and support.

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.

To learn more, read our detailed OPNsense vs. Sophos XG Report (Updated: May 2024).
769,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The customization potential is quite impressive.""Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution.""The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall.""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 web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features.""It's user-friendly and easy to operate.""I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud.""The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me.""I have found the solution has some great features overall, such as guest access capabilities, dashboards, and ease of use. There is plenty of documentation and support and it has the plugins that I needed.""The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use.""OPNsense is easy to use and open source.""The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities.""We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable.""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 solution has high availability."

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"The SL VPNs are the most valuable feature. I have a lot of systems out of the head office that need to connect to the local networks, and they all connect wirelessly via the Sophos VPN client.""The two most valuable feature of Sophos XG is, one the option to filter according to different applications and two, the integration with the Active Directory.""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 most valuable feature is the Intercept X. It is the advanced features that are used for malware detection, and antivirus.""All of the features are amazing, especially Sandstorm, which prevents bad traffic or downloaded files from reaching our customers' and partners' networks.""Good security and a good interface.""The most valuable feature is the VPN aspect.""The most valuable feature of this solution is that the license offers everything."

More Sophos XG Pros →

Cons
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved.""The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity.""We'd like more management across other integrations.""They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs.""Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away.""We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine.""Fortinet doesn't provide multiple virtual firewalls which would facilitate end users and customers.""The solution is very expensive."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"You will need additional training before you can actually start to use it.""The logging could improve in OPNsense.""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 support for OPNsense is good because we have documents available on the internet. The support could improve a little.""On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option.""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 reporting part could be better.""I would like better documentation concerning the provided packages and their integration."

More OPNsense Cons →

"Their support is fairly good, and they come back to me. I've had an issue once or twice where I couldn't understand what the support person was saying because those calls were probably routed to India. They were a bit difficult to understand, but it is generally not an issue.""There are issues with electricity with this solution.""It's easy to use, but it's hard to configure exact settings. They need to make it easier to access advanced features.""It could offer a DNS Filter for blocking botnet networks.""The user interface could be better.""I would like to see the performance 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 solution should have the ability to be up to date with the most recent threats."

More Sophos XG Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us."
  • "It costs about $1000."
  • "There are no licensing costs for OPNsence."
  • "OPNsense is open source software so at this time it is free for us to use."
  • "OPNsense is a well known open-source tool."
  • "It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
  • "OPNsense is an open-source solution and it is free to use."
  • "The solution is not expensive."
  • More OPNsense Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "For licensing the XG 210, we paid approximately $3000 for three years. There are no additional fees on top of this."
  • "It's a suitable price and license."
  • "We are paying about $1,500 yearly for the Enterprise Plus. As far as I know, there aren't costs above this standard fee."
  • "The Sophos pricing, in general, is better than SonicWall, Fortinet, WatchGuard, or anybody else."
  • "We paid for our licensing for three years, upfront, and there are no costs in addition to the standard fees."
  • "The price is cheaper than that of some competing vendors."
  • "The pricing is flexible. Sophos looks at a country's economy and offers flexible pricing. This is how they have managed to penetrate the market."
  • "It's approximately $6,000 for each device."
  • More Sophos XG Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage at… more »
    Top Answer:From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know… more »
    Top Answer:As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite… more »
    Top Answer:Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and… more »
    Top Answer:What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
    Top Answer:Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat… more »
    Top Answer:Hi Arvind P ,  The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form… more »
    Top Answer:The Sophos UTM is a UTM and Sophos XG is the NGFW. First, you must know about the difference between a UTM and NGFW… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Learn More
    OPNsense
    Video Not Available
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    OPNsense is a user-friendly, fast-track, open-source FreeBSD-based firewall and routing platform. This software offers features that are generally available from costly commercial firewalls, with the added benefit of open and verifiable sources. The firewall provides users, developers, and organizations with an advantageous environment through transparency. The development of this project is driven by a strong focus on security and code quality.

    The solution offers a variety of components, such as:

    • Weekly security updates. These updates provide the user with the ability to reach new emerging threats in a timely manner through small increments.

    • Two major releases every year. These yearly releases are on a fixed release cycle and provide organizations with the ability to plan ahead of an upcoming upgrade.

    • A roadmap of instructions. Each major release provides a guide and a set of clear goals.

    A team of professionals developed OPNsense. Other professional and experienced software architects, engineers, and developers are encouraged to join in the development of the solution to make it as successful as possible. OPNsense offers a variety of rich features with each release. Each upgrade is based on FreeBSD for continual, long-term support and utilizes a freshly advanced MVC framework based on Phalcon. OPNsense is committed to helping businesses, school networks, remote offices, hotels, and other markets in keeping their data protected.

    OPNsense Core Features

    OPNsense continually offers a free, complete, high-end security platform with new releases and features. With each release, OPNsense focuses on providing more unique and better security features in a timely manner. These features include:

    • Captive Portal
    • Built-in reporting and monitoring tools including RRD Graphs
    • Network Flow Monitoring
    • Traffic Shaper
    • Support for Plugins
    • Granular Control Over State Table
    • Dynamic DNS
    • Two-factor authentication throughout the system
    • Netflow Exporter
    • Encrypted Configuration Backup to Google Drive
    • Forward Caching Proxy (transparent) with Blacklist Support
    • Stateful inspection firewall
    • DNS Server & DNS Forwarder
    • High Availability & Hardware Failover (with configuration synchronization & synchronized state tables)
    • DHCP Server and Relay
    • Virtual Private Network (site to site & road warrior, IPsec, OpenVPN & legacy PPTP support)
    • Intrusion Detection and Prevention
    • 802.1Q VLAN support

    Reviews from Real Users

    OPNsense is a favorite security solution among reviewers for a number of reasons. Two of those reasons include the user-friendliness of the solution, which makes it easy to use, and its ability to easily scale.

    For many, a user-friendly solution is essential. FiorindoDi A., a system administration specialist at a tech vendor, says, "The graphic user interface is very good and it is user-friendly, which makes the product easy-to-use."

    Peerspot reviewers speak of the scalability of the solution. For example, an anonymous cloud and infrastructure manager at a venture capital and private equity firm reviewer notes, "OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."

    Sophos XG Firewall is a complete firewall solution that provides all the real-time security and insights you need to protect your network from ransomware and advanced threats. Sophos XG Firewall provides visibility into suspicious users, unknown and unwanted apps, encrypted traffic, and other threats. With its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, Sophos XG Firewall immediately identifies potential risks and intrusions on web servers and networks.

    Sophos XG Firewall Features

    Sophos XG Firewall offers a wide range of security features, including:

    • Application control: Prevent widespread infections with XG’s Security Heartbeat. XG Firewall automatically identifies the source of an infection on a network and automatically prevents it from accessing other network resources.

    • Synchronized user ID: Eliminate the need for client or server authentication agents by sharing user identification between the endpoint and the firewall through Security Heartbeat.

    • Centralized management: Easily manage all activities with Sophos Central. The XG cloud management platform allows users to easily set up, manage, and monitor XG firewalls along with other Sophos products. Some of Sophos Central’s features include alerting, backup management, one-click firmware updates, and rapid deployments of new firewalls.

    • Lateral movement protection: Automatically isolate compromised systems at every point in the network to stop attacks dead in their tracks.

    • Network protection: Protect networks from attacks and threats while providing secure network access.

    • Web protection: Gain clear visibility and control over all users’ web and application activity.

    • Web server protection: Solidify web servers and applications against hacking attacks while providing secure web access.

    • Email protection: Consolidate email protection with anti-spam, DLP, and encryption. XG’s Live Anti-Spam provides protection from the most recent spam campaigns, phishing attacks, and malicious attachments. Data Loss Prevention automatically triggers encryption on sensitive data in outgoing emails.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sophos XG Firewall stands out among its competitors, among other reasons, for its intrusion detection capabilities, its user-friendly management platform, and in general, for being a complete and robust firewall solution.

    Niranjan P., a network & system support engineer, writes, “Sophos is a comprehensive solution which allows me to configure all the attendant products, such as Sophos's firewall, endpoint, and encryption features. A nice feature of Sophos is that it offers in sync and heartbeat security. When my clients have a perimeter involving Sophos firewall and endpoints with Sophos Endpoint, they can communicate with each other.”

    Antonio D., sales manager at INFOSEC, notes, “The product has a console that is based in the cloud for all their products. In this console, they have email security, firewall security, endpoint security, et cetera. All of the products on offer in the console are very useful for us. The solution is stable. The solution works well for enterprises and large-scale organizations.”

    Antony M., ICT/HMIS supervisor at a healthcare company, writes, “The VPN feature is the most valuable. It has come in handy during this period when people are working from home. The filtering feature is also valuable because you can easily filter the sites that you don't want to visit. You can also set timely surfing quotas”

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider24%
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Logistics Company12%
    Aerospace/Defense Firm6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government8%
    Educational Organization6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Healthcare Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Government6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business71%
    Midsize Enterprise12%
    Large Enterprise18%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business33%
    Midsize Enterprise18%
    Large Enterprise49%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business61%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise15%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise43%
    Buyer's Guide
    OPNsense vs. Sophos XG
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about OPNsense vs. Sophos XG and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    769,976 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    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.

    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.