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."Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that."
"The GUI is good."
"Anti-Spam web content filterinG."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"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."
"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 GUI is easy to understand."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"One of the advantages of pfSense is that it is very easy to work with. It is a very good open-source solution, and it works really well. pfSense provides a complete package. For some features, it could be the first solution in the world. It is a very good alternative in the market for a firewall solution. You don't need to go to Cisco or other brands with expensive firewalls. pfSense also allows us to offer some support services."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"The solution has good customization abilities and plenty of features."
"Has great security features and does a good job of protecting the network."
"It is easy to manage."
"The firewall itself is very strong and provides great security."
"So far, the solution has been problem-free."
"It improved bandwidth utilization and provided link load balancing features for internet and intranet lease lines."
"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."
"Advanced protection (Sophos Sandstorm) - Protects against crypto viruses in real-time."
"The most valuable features of Sophos UTM are the ease of use, it is very user-friendly. You can understand what they implement in the new firmware, and it's easy to manage the firewalls."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"The user interface can be improved to make it easier to add more features. And pfSense could be better integrated with other solutions, like antivirus."
"One concern I have with Netgate pfSense is related to packet filtering. Specifically, issues can arise with certain functionalities like GP, and, at times, there may be bugs."
"If a user doesn't have a large amount of experience in Linux systems, they will have problems using this solution. Users need to be highly skilled in troubleshooting competency. Users who do not have such skills will find the product difficult to use."
"Other solutions provide more scope for growth. For instance, we can have only 10 to 20 employees on VPN, but other solutions can support more users. We also have more capabilities to increase the performance of the solution."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"We need a better VPN client for the customers."
"The memory and processing were problematic. The interface could be better."
"The reporting system needs to allow for customizations because many reports do not include details that we expect."
"This product could use some improvement with web filtering. It takes a lot of time and effort to set up and maintain."
"Reporting: We have had to work manually in many of our reports."
"There's an issue that when we deploy UTM on fiber, it automatically upgrades to the latest version without giving an option to stay on the current one."
"They could definitely improve on the support, especially in other countries."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
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