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."It is easy to use and performs very well."
"The scalability of Fortinet FortiGate is good."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The solution is stable."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"The user interface is relatively easy. The devices are easy to deploy and figure out when you have experience with other security appliances."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"I had some outages in the network and we provide services for our company. We sell mobile credits. The terminal gets access to our own server inside the network and if one internet fails, then the other one is still up and we have a back-up link on the devices."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"I mostly like all of it. Whatever we use is valuable."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"Configuration troubleshooting is eased by the use of the color-coded, live firewall log."
"The initial setup has been fine."
"The product is extremely intuitive."
"The most valuable feature is that it is easy to administer."
"It is a stable product... I rate the solution's technical support a nine out of ten...The initial setup is quite easy because they have all the information on their website."
"It is a very good product. The threat monitoring process is the most valuable feature."
"The implementation with the AWS environment was good."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is reporting, it is flexible. I can monitor the end user's devices, even when they are not on my network. It has good drill-down capabilities."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"Network monitoring and device inventory could use some improvements. I'm using SpiceWorks for this because it never really worked in pfSense."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"There could be a way to remote to it through a mobile app. You can always browse through your browser on your mobile phone or tablet, but it would be good to have a dedicated app. I understand that iOS and Android developers are expensive, but there should be a mobile app."
"I would like to see different graphs available in the reporting."
"It would be great to add more to security."
"pfSense is not user-friendly. I hope to have something to make the interfaces more user-friendly."
"The integration could be improved."
"We'd like to see them offer their services on mobile devices like tablets. I'm not sure if that's an option or not."
"I am going to flat out say technical support is terrible. Being a Platinum level customer, I am not happy with the support."
"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."
"Anti-phishing functionality should be improved."
"Support for IKEv2 is needed in this solution."
"The product could be simplified and made more self-explanatory."
"This product could use some improvement with web filtering. It takes a lot of time and effort to set up and maintain."
"VPN needs IKEv2, but it’s in the roadmap. Also, all new, cool features will only come to the new Sophos XG Firewall."
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