We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy for users to manage the entire solution from anywhere. The solution is very light, stable, and provides excellent real-time control. Users feel OPNsense is not a good product for medium to large businesses, as it has some very limited features and needs better reporting and documentation.
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"The performance is good."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
"It's open source."
"What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"The interface and the dashboard are the most valuable features of this solution."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature, according to the setup we have at our work place here, is the flexibility of the system or the firmware that's running the appliance. It's so flexible, performing multiple rules with different configurations. According to the set up here, we need to implement several firewalls with different access levels, because we have a variety of users. For this requirement, it's very flexible and very easy to use."
"We get good usage out of the features. It has enabled us to gain popularity. It has great features."
"The most valuable feature is the intrusion prevention system."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution was able to be integrated well with exciting hardware and software and in multiple business sectors."
"Dashboard is easy to use and the reporting offers a lot of detail."
"We are able to trace any user and pinpoint any vulnerability or any malicious software. We are able to synchronize between the local and active directories so we can catch users easily through their login names and IDs."
"I rate Sophos support 10 out of 10. When my device was freezing, I contacted them, and sent me a replacement. It only took a couple of days for Sophos to ship the device to Kenya. I didn't have a redundant device, so it was urgent."
"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"You will need additional training before you can actually start to use it."
"An area for improvement in OPNsense is the hardware, which needs to be updated more frequently. DNS blocking is another good feature I want to be added to the solution. pfSense has a peer-blocking feature that I also want to see in OPNsense."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"There should be more technical documentation."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"The ability to set the VPN IP address would be a welcome addition."
"The interface of the solution is an area with shortcomings."
"The only area that requires improvement is scalability."
"It would be beneficial if the platform provided more flexible support for a variety of devices."
"Technical support is difficult to access."
"It would be great if the user can have a portal to check on activities related to their account."
"Some of the firewall rules are complicated for us to understand, they should be simplified."
"Sophos XG could improve the policies, they are a bit confusing when creating them. There are many options that make it confusing and it could be simplified."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The training manual provided to users lacks proper guidance on configuration procedures."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM, IPFire and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XGS, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our OPNsense vs. Sophos XG report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.