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."UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"The Fortinet FortiGate local partners were good. I did not have direct contact with Fortinet support."
"Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"The intrusion detection feature is the most valuable. It is an open-source firewall, so there is a lot of material on it. I also find the open VPN capability very nice. It is pretty customizable. The clustering and the high availability are the two biggest things to be able to get out of a firewall."
"I especially like the VPN part. It works like a charm."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"I like pfSense's security features."
"I am happy with the EPLS, the radius, and I am happy with the captive portal."
"The documentation is very good."
"The management suite is easy and the agent is easy to develop."
"The solution is easy to handle and configure."
"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."
"The solution is stable."
"I have no problem with the cost or licensing of this solution. This is a primary reason whay I wanted this solution. It does the same thing cheaper than other name brands."
"It allows our developers to be able to securely log into servers to deploy and manage software."
"The three most important features for us are web protection, web server protection, and network 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."
"I don't like that anything more than very basic reporting is not included."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"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 performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"Their support could be better in terms of the response time."
"I've never tried it in large environments. All my clients are small businesses with a handful of employees, so I am not sure how it works in large environments. I keep up with recent versions, and there's nothing I'm waiting for, and nothing breaks when I get a new version."
"The VPN feature of the solution could improve by adding better functionality and providing easier configure ability."
"Netgate pfSense needs to improve the configuration for a VPN."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"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."
"Improve analysis of logs and dashboards (control panel) with improved alert functionality."
"An area for improvement in Sophos UTM is load balancing because my company cannot use it currently. If Sophos could release a new configuration for the load balancing feature to work for my company, that would be great."
"There can be a delay when it comes to reaching out to technical support."
"The five-factor authentication needs improvement."
"The only time we face a problem or issues is when we place a ticket. We have found that response is very slow."
"When we call support, we get put on hold for a long time."
"I think that additional metrics features are needed to be able to monitor other areas or to monitor as much as you can, at a fine-grain resolution."
"The logs are not clear, which means that you need an additional piece of software in order to read them clearly."
"I don't really have any notes for improvements."
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