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."The Intrusion Prevention System and the web filtering are both working well."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"Firewall system for small, medium, and large data networks. It allows you to provide security to your environment: DMZ networks, LAN, WAN, etc."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"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 most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
"Sophos has a single pane of glass which allows me to manage all my VPCs from a single instance, managing all my firewall from one place."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the simple-to-use interface."
"Sophos UTM's best feature is synchronized security."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the efficiency and mail filtering module."
"Sophos UTM provides security for our network here and access through a VPN connection for our remote users. It also offers the flexibility to create different tools for accessibility."
"The implementation with the AWS environment was good."
"The packet filtering's great. You get out what you put into it. It works great as long as you know your security and configure everything adequately. If you just pop one in and it's not configured, then it's basically wide open. It kind of depends on the admin skill, but it's an excellent product."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"The platform's interface could improve."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"There were a lot of features and functionality in Sophos SG UTM but nothing was state of the art in terms of technology. You did not get the latest functions. It was very monolithic as it was based on an old Linux PuTTY system."
"Doesn't provide antivirus for individual computers."
"The product could be simplified and made more self-explanatory."
"Flexibility in pricing could be improved. It's more rigid in its pricing compared to its competitor: Kaspersky."
"Anti-phishing functionality should be improved."
"The technical support team’s response time could be improved."
"Monitoring and reporting are areas that need improvement."
"The solution needs better integration with captive portals and XGs."
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