We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense 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."With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"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."
"We are a visual effects company, and there have been a number of high profile security issues in our industry. This has brought us to a higher standard of security, which our clients are very keen on these days."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"This solution has increased the level of security, given us more control, provided a deep insight into network traffic, and is a great VPN solution."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"At our peak time, we have reached more than 5,000 concurrent connections."
"The features that I've known to be most valuable are both the web security features as well as the web firewall capabilities. As a partner of Sophos firewall, we have some clients and they are using Sophos firewall UTM and we are using it as well."
"With Sophos, we have not had any incidents this year. The security provided has been good. It has proven to be okay for our needs."
"Monitoring and reporting are areas that need improvement."
"Sophos UTM has a good user interface and granular security controls."
"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."
"It has helped by identifying threats within the company. If there are computers or servers that are compromised, then we are able to identify them right away in the system."
"Has great security features and does a good job of protecting the network."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to administer."
"The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"There are several levels of firewall configuration such as beginner, advanced, and expert configurations. At each level, it becomes more complex and more tricky to set up the firewall. For example, if you want to install the firewall on your computer system, it would be a lot easier if it just tells you that this is the internet NIC and this is the Wi-Fi NIC."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"The solution could be more user-friendly, and the graphical interface needs some work so that someone without an IT background can use the application. I would like the ability to manage the on-premise appliance from the cloud. When I'm not in the office, it would be great to connect to the pfSense server and administer the network remotely."
"I would like to see pfSense integrate WireGuard. Currently, pfSense uses OpenVPN, and there's nothing wrong with it, but WireGuard is a lot leaner and meaner."
"The solution could always work at being more secure. It's a good idea to continue to work on security features and capabilities in order to ensure they can keep clients safe."
"We have not had any problems with it, and we also do not have a need for any new features. If anything, its reporting can be better. Sophos has better reporting than pfSense. Sophos has more detailed information. pfSense is not as detailed. It is summarized."
"If you want to take advantage of all of the solution's options, you need to have a bit of a technical background. It's not for a layperson."
"The ease of use could be a bit better."
"We need a better VPN client for the customers."
"As it stands right now, when we have an internet failure on WAN1, it takes several minutes before our WAN2 connection picks up the traffic"
"During initial configuration, I encountered a few issues."
"When we call support, we get put on hold for a long time."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"Sophos UTM could be simplified, and they can improve on the many other features, like SD-WAN and load balancing. Sophos UTM is missing a few features that their competitors have. For example, if you have multiple branches you would like to connect, the load balancing features aren't available on multilink. If we create a VPM for multiple LAN links, we cannot load balance the traffic."
"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."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. 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 UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall and Untangle NG Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sophos UTM report.
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pfSense is opensource and has been the last 10 years in the top 10 best
firewall solutions in the world, it is free, stable, scalable, and easy to
administer ... and above all very safe, since it is one of the few systems
that could have been violated. It's free.
In fact, Karl, the 50-IP free version is for home use only, and not even then if it also protects business assets. You did a great job of explaining the difference, so I won't comment further.
To the original poster, it's cheaper to hire a Sophos consultant to create your original configuration. It costs twice as much to get a configuration "repaired" that wasn't correctly designed. A Sophos Solution Partner that has a Sophos Certified Architect with plenty of experience and good referrals is probably your best bet.
With Sophos is easy to configure and you have the support from the frabicant, with pfSense you have to learn from the community and learning curve is a little hard, last occasion with pfSense it don't have support for vpn dynamic, with Sophos they have RED equipment that is an extension from the core, only you need the serial number from the remote equipment and you have the vpn , both are great equipment and software, depend of the budget, pfSense is free and they have support if you pay the license very cheap
pfSense is just a basic firewall with VPN and Captive Portal functionality but does its job great. Only needs minimum resources to function. Price is right (FREE)
Sophos UTM is much more, hence the UTM. It does firewall, advance threat protection, VPN, Secure web gateway, email protection (AV, Spam, Encryption, and DLP), endpoint protection, Mobile Device control, Web Application Firewall, User Portal, built in reporting, and central management. It does require more resources but you get a lot more out of it. Two options depending on the size of your office, commercial version or the Free version that you can build on your own hardware. The free version is restricted to 50 IP addresses. (www.sophos.com)
I have used both and both have their place but using Sophos in my environment just because it offers a lot more functionality, nice dashboard, reports, and easy to use through the GUI.
One other big difference is that pfSense is FreeBSD based while Sophos UTM is linux based. It is also worth having a lool on cacheguard which is a proxy oriented product and also Linux based.
I´m afraid I am not able to help in this matter. We´ve decided to for FortiGate as services, based on our relationship with our IT security provider and the FortiGate reviews available on the net.
We used to use pfSence for one particular open network but let the full control on de FortiGate. During the investigation and analysis period we thought of Sophos but felt more comfortable going for FortiGate pretty much based on price and our relationship with our IT security provider. Hence my experience wouldn´t help in this case.
My best advice would is to refer to the article available on:
www.itcentralstation.com