Compare OPNsense vs. Sophos UTM
OPNsense is ranked 24th in Firewalls with 4 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 30 reviews. OPNsense is rated 9.4, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Has good performance but I want to see a friendlier user interface". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "Has a solid state hard drive and can boot in less than sixty seconds". OPNsense is most compared with pfSense, Untangle NG Firewall and Sophos UTM, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with pfSense, Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG. See our OPNsense vs. Sophos UTM report.
Sponsored | ||
Most Helpful Review | ||||
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 Find out what your peers are saying about OPNsense vs. Sophos UTM and other solutions. Updated: September 2019. 371,917 professionals have used our research since 2012. | ||||
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros | ||
The firepower sensors have been great; they do a good job of dropping unwanted traffic. Unfortunately in Cisco, only the hardware was good. The most important point is the detection engine which is now part of the next-generation firewalls and which is supported by Cisco Talos. The most valuable features are the flexibility and level of security that this solution provides. Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable. We moved from a legacy firewall to the ASA with FirePOWER, increasing our Internet Edge defense dramatically. Cisco ASA NGFW significantly improves our bank. It protects any high-value products that we use from hackers, viruses, malware, and script-bots. It gives us metrics on network traffic as well as what kind of attacks we are getting from the outside. Right now, Cisco ASA NGFW has given us a lot of improvement. We are planning to move to a new facility and will be a much larger organization. | The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy. The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed. I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings. We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience. | It allows me to easily connect with more than forty-five remote sites and more than fifty remote users between IPsec and SSL VPN, applying the web filter and application filter to ensure a secure connection. Configuration troubleshooting is eased by the use of the color-coded, live firewall log. The features that I've known to be most valuable are both the web security features as well as the web firewall capabilities. As a partner of Sophos firewall, we have some clients and they are using Sophos firewall UTM and we are using it as well. 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. The most valuable feature is the IPS. It also protects us from malware. UTM 9 brings along IPSec as well as iPhone and iPad support. This seems small but it’s useful. The isolation of infected machines is a big feature. Also, the ability to detect external sources that change files on a file server is really big. Advanced protection (Sophos Sandstorm) - Protects against crypto viruses in real-time. |
Cons | ||
The software was very buggy, to the point it had to be removed. In NGFW, Cisco should be aligned with the new technology and inspection intelligence because Cisco is far behind in this pipeline. Most users do not have awareness of this product's functionality and features. Cisco should do something to make them aware of them. That would be quite excellent and useful to organizations that are still using legacy data-center-security products. There was an error in the configuration, related to our uplink switches, that caused us to contact technical support, and it took a very long time to resolve the issue. With regards to stability, we had a critical bug come out during our evaluation... not good. The product would be improved if the GUI could be brought into the 21st Century. Cisco should improve its user interface design. There is a deep learning curve to the product if you are a newcomer. There is no support here in Georgia. If something goes wrong, support is not always very helpful with the other firewalls or other products. | On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option. OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server. | I would like to see the SD-WAN feature improved. Support for IKEv2 is needed in this solution. The only time we face a problem or issues is when we place a ticket. We have found that response is very slow. 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 solution could be improved by adding cloud soundboxing. We didn’t find any issues but I know there have been some in the last few years. It does have built-in policies, which enable you to disable USB devices, etc. It would be nice if they had more policies because there are not that many of them. There is still room for improvement in wireless protection. I don't mean their WiFi device is bad, but there are still things to improve on, such as WiFi roaming. |
Pricing and Cost Advice | ||
Always consider what you might need to reduce your wasted time and invest it in other solutions. Watch out for hidden licensing and incredibly high annual maintenance costs. We paid about $7,000 for the Cisco firewall, plus another small Cisco router and the lead switch. It was under the combined license. It's a final agreement. The cost is a big factor for us. This is why we are using it only in our restricted area. They are very much higher than their competitors in the market. Licensing is expensive compared to other solutions. Pricing is high, but it is essentially a corporate decision. The cost is a bit high compared to other solutions in the market. Cisco recently has become very expensive. | There are no licensing costs for OPNsence. It costs about $1000. We are not paying any licensing fees. OPNsense is completely free for us. | This solution is less expensive than FortiGate. The biggest issue with Sophos is the pricing. It's definitely more expensive. As I said, we looked at Webroot, which is a big alternative, and Sophos was almost three times the price of Webroot. That's a pretty big difference. Sometimes more is less, meaning if you want more than three features, take the FullGuard licence. We purchased the appliance with five years onsite support and licenses. Pricing for the upgrade was very competitive as Sophos wanted to retain existing customers. The pricing and licensing are both good and better than Sophos's competitors. This is why we went with the product. The AWS Marketplace product should be a better fit, but it is a little pricier. Purchasing through the AWS Marketplace is pretty straightforward. Because were entirely on AWS and don't have anything anywhere else. It made the most sense for us as a one stop shop. |
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Top Comparisons | ||
 Compared 38% of the time.  Compared 11% of the time. Compared 9% of the time. |  Compared 68% of the time.  Compared 10% of the time.  Compared 7% of the time. | Compared 33% of the time. Compared 22% of the time. Compared 15% of the time. |
Also Known As | ||
| Cisco ASA, Adaptive Security Appliance, ASA | Astaro | |
Learn | ||
| Cisco | OPNsense Video Not Available | Sophos |
Overview  | ||
Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) is Cisco's end-to-end software solution and core operating system that powers the Cisco ASA product series. This software solution provides enterprise-level firewall capabilities for all types of ASA products, including blades, standalone appliances and virtual devices. Adaptive Security Appliance provides protection to organizations of all sizes, and allows end-users to access information securely anywhere, at any time, and through any device. Adaptive Security Appliance is also fully compatible with other key security technologies, and so provides organizations with an all-encompassing security solution. Block more threats and quickly mitigate those that do breach your defenses with the industry’s first threat-focused NGFW. | OPNsense is an open source, easy-to-use and easy-to-build FreeBSD based firewall and routing platform. OPNsense includes most of the features available in expensive commercial firewalls, and more in many cases. It brings the rich feature set of commercial offerings with the benefits of open and verifiable sources. | The global network of highly skilled researchers and analysts, protecting businesses from known and emerging malware - viruses, rootkits and spyware. |
Offer | ||
Learn more about Cisco ASA NGFW | Learn more about OPNsense | Learn more about Sophos UTM |
Sample Customers | ||
| There are more than one million Adaptive Security Appliances deployed globally. Top customers include First American Financial Corp., Genzyme, Frankfurt Airport, Hansgrohe SE, Rio Olympics, The French Laundry, Rackspace, and City of Tomorrow. | Information Not Available | One Housing Group |
Top Industries | ||
Financial Services Firm17% Comms Service Provider11% Manufacturing Company11% University8% Software R&D Company28% Comms Service Provider15% Media Company8% Manufacturing Company6% | Software R&D Company29% Retailer12% Comms Service Provider11% Manufacturing Company10% | Healthcare Company12% Financial Services Firm12% Consumer Goods6% Local Government6% Software R&D Company20% Comms Service Provider19% Manufacturing Company8% Media Company7% |
Company Size | ||
Small Business36% Midsize Enterprise25% Large Enterprise38% Small Business37% Midsize Enterprise24% Large Enterprise39% | No Data Available | Small Business61% Midsize Enterprise18% Large Enterprise22% Small Business51% Midsize Enterprise19% Large Enterprise30% |
Find out what your peers are saying about OPNsense vs. Sophos UTM and other solutions. Updated: September 2019.
371,917 professionals have used our research since 2012.
See also OPNsense Reviews, Sophos UTM Reviews, and our list of Best Firewalls Companies.
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