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."What's most important is the ease of use."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"Virtual Domains (VDOMs) are a feature that we found valuable."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Its features rival many of the high cost solutions out there."
"Improved service performance and availability through redundancy."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"The solution is very easy to use and has a very nice GUI."
"The ability to perform packet captures on the command line and via the GUI is useful for diagnosing problems."
"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."
"Scaling out cannot be easier, as there are many migration paths."
"It's easy to use."
"Sophos SG UTM had all the basic functionality that you needed. It is user-friendly and easy to manage for any integrator."
"It helps us with protection, with concurrent use of the VPN."
"The stability of Sophos UTM is very good. The solution has been stable since Sophos took over Cyberoam which was the original company providing this solution."
"Sophos UTM has improved the porting section. It has improved security by seeing the gaps. For example, when you discover that an entry has been using a certain application, with Sophos UTM acting as a Layer 7 firewall, you can block the application, not the port."
"Brings greater visibility into the network traffic coming inside and passing away from the company."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"They've become quite expensive."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"pfSense could improve by having a sandboxing feature that I have seen in SonicWall. However, maybe it is available I am not aware of it."
"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."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"Also, the GUI is helpful, but it's not user-friendly. It's complicated. It should be more intuitive for the average user and have an excellent graphical view. Of course, the user will typically know about network administration, but it still should be easy to understand."
"Support for IKEv2 is needed in this solution."
"They could definitely improve on the support, especially in other countries."
"Sophos UTM's firewall is a bit weak, and some of its features lack depth compared to other products like F5."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"It needs a better user interface. The one they have is not so good."
"Initially, there were issues with the wireless network as wireless access points were disappearing from the dashboard after some time."
"Sophos UTM could be simplified, and they can improve on the many other features, like SD-WAN and load balancing. Sophos UTM is missing a few features that their competitors have. For example, if you have multiple branches you would like to connect, the load balancing features aren't available on multilink. If we create a VPM for multiple LAN links, we cannot load balance the traffic."
"Sophos should improve its ability to check something like bandwidth consumption for users or something more real-time."
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