We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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 most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the zero-trust security architecture."
"The filtering feature is good."
"It is very stable. It is fairly easy to use."
"I have not actually called their support line, because we have a direct contact to a senior engineer in the company for any issues that we handle with them. I will say they are very responsive, and they do give you the information you need when you need it."
"The solution strengthens our IT posture."
"In the newer version, there are 3850s, all of them are scalable. They fit better into the medium or small businesses."
"It ensures that every interaction, pre and post-loan processing, undergoes a thorough inspection, leveraging VPN features and comprehensive security protocols."
"It has the ability to create Palo Alto VM-series using software."
"It allows our developers to be able to securely log into servers to deploy and manage software."
"The most valuable features of the solution are application filtering and web filtering."
"Sophos UTM's most valuable features are profiling and its simple configuration."
"It has helped by identifying threats within the company. If there are computers or servers that are compromised, then we are able to identify them right away in the system."
"We've found the technical support to be helpful."
"So far, the solution has been problem-free."
"I like the web filtering options."
"Sophos UTM has a good user interface and granular security controls."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"Lacks sufficient security options."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs."
"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."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series needs to improve its order process."
"The command-line interface is something that some people struggle with and I think that they should have an option to go straight to the GUI."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration of multi-factor authentication vendors."
"The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters."
"There could be dynamic DNS features similar to Fortinet in the product."
"At the beginning of the implementation, we had some difficulties with the scripts, but Palo Alto Networks support together with a local partner finally fixed it."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"Stay away from the wireless models, since you cannot put them in HA. They start to give you some weird issues once you start getting into multiple SSIDs and networks."
"I didn't like it much. It suits only small businesses. It isn't scalable and reliable. There is a very critical issue with the power supply."
"With Sophos UTM, there is a general rule in the firewall when the country blocking can block some countries from accessing your data. In the current version, you still need to add it by putting in the IP range. This feature would be helpful for administrators and it gives them the advantage to block stuff in less time."
"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."
"There is absolutely no support when using AWS. If you buy the on-premise Sophos solution, you get support."
"It is a little too CPU resource intensive, so we would like to see improvements there."
"It is a pretty straightforward setup, but it should be some sort of documentation that takes you step-by-step to help set it up for your VPC."
"Sophos should improve its ability to check something like bandwidth consumption for users or something more real-time."
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Check Point NGFW, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. Sophos UTM report.
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