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."Initial setup is easy to configure."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"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."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"Good load balancing feature."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"The features I have found best are ease of use, GUI, and performance."
"We like the fact that the product is open-source. It's free to use. There are no costs associated with it."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The initial setup is easy."
"It's a good solution for end-users. It's pretty easy to work with."
"It is a better firewall than others and it has better features."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"Sophos SG UTM had all the basic functionality that you needed. It is user-friendly and easy to manage for any integrator."
"It meets our compliance needs in an elastic computer environment."
"The firewall itself is very strong and provides great security."
"Good basic firewall functions with advanced firewall scanning."
"The isolation of infected machines is a big feature. Also, the ability to detect external sources that change files on a file server is really big."
"The cost of the solution is very reasonable."
"Has great security features and does a good job of protecting the network."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the simple-to-use interface."
"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"The usage reports can be better."
"Adjustment in the interfaces: I had to adjust those interfaces manually and of course that is a great feature that you can restore it but it is immediately also one point for improvement. If you don't have to adjust, if it's just stamped and it works, that's great."
"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."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"There is more demand for UTMs than a simple firewall. pfSense should support real-time features for handling the latest viruses and threats. It should support real-time checks and real-time status of threats. Some other vendors, such as Fortinet, already offer this type of capability. Such capability will be good for bringing pfSense at the same level as other solutions."
"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."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"The solution requires a lot of administration."
"The virus updates will always depend on new viruses that are discovered. Maybe they can send a notification or a reminder for update time."
"Updates come out agonizingly slowly, a trickle."
"It is a little too CPU resource intensive, so we would like to see improvements there."
"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."
"This product could use some improvement with web filtering. It takes a lot of time and effort to set up and maintain."
"Finding information about Sophos’ sizing guidelines can actually be difficult. Also, Sophos does not make it clear what they mean by “users” when you are sizing a firewall, which then leads to undersized implementations."
"Needs to improve the certificate management (ex. Let's Encrypt support)."
"The scalability of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
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