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."One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"FortiGate improved our security. It's one of the best hardware firewalls."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"It's very fast and easy to configure."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"There is good documentation with a fantastic community and enterprise support."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"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 feature is the IPS. It also protects us from malware."
"It makes it a lot easier for us to maintain things. Prior to it, things were more difficult. This means less time on us. We can focus on other things. The recovery is more in man-hours for us than anything else."
"Advanced protection (Sophos Sandstorm) - Protects against crypto viruses in real-time."
"Stability-wise, I rate this solution a ten out of ten...Scalability-wise, I rate this solution a ten out of ten."
"The management suite is easy and the agent is easy to develop."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the endpoint protection feature."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection."
"It gives us the ability to manage our firewalls from the cloud and deploy a unified configuration onto them. Other competitors like Meraki have that ability, but they fail to optimize it in the way that Sophos has."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The UI could be improved."
"There were quite a few problems with the stability of the system."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"The access control aspect of the product could be improved."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"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."
"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."
"The solution could use better reporting. They need to offer more of it in general. Right now, the graphics aren't the best. If you need to provide a report to a manager, for example, it doesn't look great. They need to make it easier to understand and give users the ability to customize them."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"Sophos UTM's firewall is a bit weak, and some of its features lack depth compared to other products like F5."
"The reporting could improve by providing information on where, or from which device attacks are coming from. We are already given the country where the attack is coming from but more information would be beneficial."
"The pricing is an issue."
"It is a pretty straightforward setup, but it should be some sort of documentation that takes you step-by-step to help set it up for your VPC."
"The solution's technical support for India needs to be improved."
"Sophos UTM could improve if there was no limitation on users."
"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."
"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."
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