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 features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"The solution is stable."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"pfSense helped us during COVID-19 because we used OpenVPN to connect from home."
"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."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"It allows me to easily connect with more than forty-five remote sites and more than fifty remote users between IPsec and SSL VPN, applying the web filter and application filter to ensure a secure connection."
"It is easy to manage."
"The solution can scale."
"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."
"Technical support is very responsive."
"The product is extremely intuitive."
"The cost of the solution is very reasonable."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"The solution could be more user friendly."
"The integration with third-party tools may be something that they should work on."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"My only observation is about the quality of the IPSec logs, which are difficult to interpret and are poor in filters."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"There are several levels of firewall configuration such as beginner, advanced, and expert configurations. At each level, it becomes more complex and more tricky to set up the firewall. For example, if you want to install the firewall on your computer system, it would be a lot easier if it just tells you that this is the internet NIC and this is the Wi-Fi NIC."
"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."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"When we call support, we get put on hold for a long time."
"The logs are not clear, which means that you need an additional piece of software in order to read them clearly."
"The technical support team’s response time could be improved."
"Support for IKEv2 is needed in this solution."
"The application control is really bad. It needs a lot of enhancements. The traffic shaping and bandwidth control, and application control need a lot of work."
"Sophos should be more user-friendly, have more dashboards, and an easier implementation."
"Flexibility in pricing could be improved. It's more rigid in its pricing compared to its competitor: Kaspersky."
"I would like to see Sophos UTM add support for all the new threat-detection technologies and the ability to respond to novel security threats that come along every day."
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