pfSense vs Sophos XG
We performed a comparison between pfSense vs Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"Super easy to manage. Anyone who has been working with firewalls can handle it."
"A very stable product that lasts over time, easy to understand, and administer."
"This solution has increased the level of security, given us more control, provided a deep insight into network traffic, and is a great VPN solution."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"Creation of certificates and the facility to administer services are valuable features."
"It is a very stable solution."
"SD-WAN features should be added."
"There are many features. VPN, firewalling, and intrusion detection are the main features that are most useful for us at this time."
"We've deployed quite a number for our users and our customers, and the feedback is quite positive in terms of management and also administration."
"The interface is very user-friendly and it's easy to manage."
"The solution has good performance and is easy to use."
"Sophos firewalls are scalable. They are pretty strong in security. So, when they provide any kind of firewall, they provide all the features such as anti-spam, antivirus, etc."
"Sophos is a stable solution, and we haven't had any bugs or limitations."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"I don't like that anything more than very basic reporting is not included."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"Lacks training for new features."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"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."
"There are some bias issues and some intrusions in our network that have to be addressed. So, we're thinking of changing this firewall to something like a professional hardware-enabled firewall."
"The hotspot and the portal feature in this solution are not stable for WiFi access. We use it at least once or twice every day and it crashes. Some modules can be better by improving detection and having new updates. Additionally, we have some issues with clustering and load balancing that could improve."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"Also, simplifying the rules for the GeoIP. Making it simpler to understand would be an improvement."
"For the third-party packages, I'd rather have it built-in, like a core feature of pfSense, part of the core model."
"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."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Technical support can be slow to respond, which is something that should be improved."
"Sophos XG could improve the connectivity with Microsoft 365 or Azure Active Directory(AD). It doesn't work directly as other solutions do, such as Fortinet FortiGate. The client needs a separate AD server which is a problem."
"The solution could be more secure."
"In the product, the area revolving around SD-WAN has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"We are having challenges when using Zoom with Sophos XG deployed."
"I'm just a sole proprietor for IT support, and from my perspective, there could be better ways to educate a proprietor, such as myself, on how to set it up, and program it, and manage it. They do tend to have support, but a lot of times, it is for larger networks. I need something that is simpler and more rudimentary as to how to go about setting up and configuring the firewall, setting up the rules, and that type of thing. So, if there is a missing component there, that would be it."
"The price should be cheaper."
"I would like the update process to be easier, to update the firmware of the boxes. I think it's much better automatically than having to do it manually: Download the file, do network discovery. I they can make the update process much more automatic that would help."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. 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 XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, KerioControl, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Sophos UTM. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sophos XG report.
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