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 pricing is great and very reasonable."
"The solution is stable."
"The web filtering feature and the intrusion protection system are the most valuable. It is a resilient appliance. I never had an issue with it in terms of any security breaches."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"The SD-WAN function is very developed. It has SD-WAN functionality with security features in one device. We can manage from one single console SD-WAN and the security policy."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"It is very easy to use. The interface is quite understandable. There is a good community, and I can take over at any time I want. If there is anything wrong with it, I could just reinstall the whole thing and start all over again, and I'll be up again in less than a few minutes"
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"Great extensibility of the platform."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"The VPN is my favorite feature."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"Sophos UTM is the simplest of these products to setup."
"Good basic firewall functions with advanced firewall scanning."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the efficiency and mail filtering module."
"It is easy to manage."
"It's easy to use."
"I like the web filtering options."
"Advanced protection (Sophos Sandstorm) - Protects against crypto viruses in real-time."
"What I like about Sophos UTM is that it improves my company's security. The solution is easy to set up, which I like, and it's very stable."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"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."
"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."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"The hotspot and the portal feature in this solution are not stable for WiFi access. We use it at least once or twice every day and it crashes. Some modules can be better by improving detection and having new updates. Additionally, we have some issues with clustering and load balancing that could improve."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"It is a little too CPU resource intensive, so we would like to see improvements there."
"It does have built-in policies, which enable you to disable USB devices, etc. It would be nice if they had more policies because there are not that many of them."
"During initial configuration, I encountered a few issues."
"I would like them to move from the Classic Load Balancer to the Network Load Balancer. This would make it easier to do certain things with Amazon. They are able to do some enhancements with Network Load Balancer that they are unable to do with Classic Load Balancer."
"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."
"It would be nice if it had basic features, such as DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"The integration capabilities could be better."
"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