We performed a comparison between Cisco IOS Security 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."Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The most useful functionality of Fortinet FortiGate is the user interface, multiple engines, and their cloud with the latest integrations. Additionally, the Security Fabric tool is very good."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"You can scale it when you need to."
"We are able to filter a lot of traffic especially when a lot of the traffic is in layer 7."
"Cisco IOS Security is very robust and works very well."
"One of the main features is that the hardware is extremely reliable."
"Cisco is head-and-shoulders above all of the competition when it comes to technical support."
"The most valuable feature is endpoint protection."
"The most valuable features are DNS service and shell self-service within a network."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco IOS Security is posturing."
"It does not take much effort or thinking to understand how it works."
"It now controls all the security aspects of our web servers with Sophos UTM WAF."
"Good basic firewall functions with advanced firewall scanning."
"The most valuable features of Sophos UTM are the ease of use, it is very user-friendly. You can understand what they implement in the new firmware, and it's easy to manage the firewalls."
"UTM 9 brings along IPSec as well as iPhone and iPad support. This seems small but it’s useful."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
"Configuration could not be made any easier."
"It helped to connect our satellite offices to the main Amazon infrastructure in a circular way."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Cisco IOS Security should improve its functionalities."
"It takes too much time to deploy a policy to FMC. It takes around eight minutes. You can't afford any downtime when you're changing policies."
"The configuration and reporting interfaces need a lot of improvement. It needs to be more accessible forsolide without a strong technical background. If you had a simplified dashboard, the lower-level techs could manage the solution and provide services. Cisco IOS Security requires someone who is highly trained to operate it."
"If they could increase the performance a little better because the device sometimes gets slow."
"I would like upgrading iOS to be a bit easier."
"With respect to user-friendliness, it is a command-line interface and those with such experience will get along just fine, whereas others may struggle."
"Signatures and other critical definitions need to be updated more frequently."
"The configuration should be easier in the solution."
"Finding information about Sophos’ sizing guidelines can actually be difficult. Also, Sophos does not make it clear what they mean by “users” when you are sizing a firewall, which then leads to undersized implementations."
"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."
"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."
"Needs to improve the certificate management (ex. Let's Encrypt support)."
"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."
"The only time we face a problem or issues is when we place a ticket. We have found that response is very slow."
"The five-factor authentication needs improvement."
"They could reduce the price."
Cisco IOS Security is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 47 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Cisco IOS Security is rated 8.0, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Cisco IOS Security writes "User-friendly and excels in documentation, making it easier to resolve issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Cisco IOS Security is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiOS, Netgate pfSense and OPNsense, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Cisco IOS Security vs. Sophos UTM report.
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