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OPNsense vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
3.0
Numerous users reported substantial financial savings and improved network security with OPNsense compared to alternatives like FortiGate or Sophos.
Sentiment score
6.4
Sophos Cyberoam UTM is praised for cost-effectiveness, centralized management, and ROI in security, saving time and resources.
The network attacks reduced by approximately 60% after using that, even without customizing the custom configuration yet.
Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees
For a very little investment, I was able to increase the security of my network.
Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
5.3
OPNsense users mostly find community forums and documentation sufficient, though some express dissatisfaction with official support availability and cost.
Sentiment score
7.3
Sophos Cyberoam UTM customer service has mixed reviews, praised for expertise but criticized for occasional delays and communication issues.
Compared to some open-source projects with weak support, OPNsense stands out for having both a strong community and commercial backing options.
ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
I mainly rely on community support since the solution is open source.
Senior Client Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
If you say you do not have one, it is finished. This is where the monopoly starts.
Senior Solutions Engineer at a educational organization with 201-500 employees
They resolve issues timely once connected.
IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd
Technical support is effective and responsive.
Managing Consultant at Affordable IT
I would rate their technical support a solid nine out of ten.
Global IT Manager at Express KItchen
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.8
OPNsense offers scalable and flexible network solutions, effectively supporting mid-sized to enterprise needs with appropriate hardware or virtualization.
Sentiment score
6.4
Sophos Cyberoam UTM is scalable for medium enterprises, though scalability can depend on hardware, model, and integration choices.
I use Zenarmor, pinning it to one core for packet inspection, and the CPU performance seems very good.
Senior Client Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
OPNsense's scalability is excellent; I just need to resize my hardware and upgrade the server, and voilà, I am good to go.
Senior IT Infrastructure Engineer at a real estate/law firm with 11-50 employees
In theory, OPNsense can handle small home networks and even large enterprise environments if deployed on sufficiently powerful hardware or virtualized on a clustered system.
ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
OPNsense is stable with occasional issues; praised for security and UI, performance varies with hardware and resource availability.
Sentiment score
8.4
Sophos Cyberoam UTM is praised for its high stability, minimal issues, and reliable performance compared to competitors.
For home and small network use, OPNsense is also reliable, providing enterprise-grade security at no cost.
ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The only challenge faced was its inadequacy to manage large voice traffic effectively, even with dedicated hardware.
Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
At the latest code level, I haven't experienced any crashes.
Senior Client Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Room For Improvement

OPNsense users face VPN setup issues, inadequate documentation, performance shortfalls, high pricing, and request better usability and features.
Sophos Cyberoam UTM struggles with high costs, scalability, outdated features, complex setup, and limited support for new technologies.
Enhancing its performance for significant amounts of data traffic would make it closer to a perfect solution.
Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
It would be beneficial if they could create some videos on how to set it up themselves.
Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
The documentation should be clearer because I faced some difficulties navigating many options.
ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
For Sophos Cyberoam UTM, you don't really have that access that can give you those network flexibilities that would allow you to do some other types of architectures.
Chief Technology Officer at Super Digital Highways Ltd
It would be beneficial if phone calls or SMS for two-factor authentication were available.
IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd
Sophos Cyberoam UTM should move in the direction of AI capabilities, as the world is moving toward AI.
Global IT Manager at Express KItchen
 

Setup Cost

OPNsense is a cost-effective, open-source solution for enterprises, reducing expenses compared to FortiGate and Palo Alto alternatives.
Sophos Cyberoam UTM is competitively priced, with flexible licensing options, but costs vary based on features and network size.
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products.
Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
OPNsense is free, the licensing and setup was easy.
Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
The price is appropriate, but if you want the real truth, it's actually quite expensive.
Managing Consultant at Affordable IT
 

Valuable Features

OPNsense provides user-friendly configuration, robust security features, and adaptability, making it ideal for enterprise and IT network management.
Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers advanced protection with real-time features, centralized management, scalability, and user-friendly operations for all organizations.
The most valuable features include the basic firewall functionality and the GeoIP location services.
Senior Network Engineer at a comms service provider with 11-50 employees
I can have a Wi-Fi VLAN and feel secure that the server network or the VM network that I have on a different VLAN are isolated, and they cannot talk to one another, which adds a great level of security.
Administrator at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
It offers enterprise-grade features such as intrusion detection and prevention system, VPN support, traffic shaping, and web filtering, all without license cost.
ISO 27001 Lead Implementer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
It provides bandwidth management, category management of websites, blocking certain elements, IPS blocking, DDoS protection, and VPN management between sites and clients.
IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd
I assess the benefit of Sophos Cyberoam UTM's centralized management for multi-appliance handling as a welcome feature because you can manage all the devices at one location, giving you notifications of downtime and updates without necessarily logging into each appliance, so that central management is a very genius move.
Global IT Manager at Express KItchen
The way the rule sets are configured makes it an easily understandable way to manage.
Managing Consultant at Affordable IT
 

Categories and Ranking

OPNsense
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
47
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (7th)
Sophos Cyberoam UTM
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (9th)
 

Featured Reviews

PM
IT Manager at a comms service provider with 201-500 employees
Open-source firewall has provided affordable real-time protection and secure remote access
In my opinion, OPNsense could improve by incorporating either an open side of wireless management or a way that you can also manage your interconnected devices. You could easily have SNMP, Simple Network Management Protocol, incorporated in it so that you can easily manage the devices and easily get the information about the devices that you are managing. Additionally, the inclusion of Pi-hole would allow you to create an ad-free network instead of adding it on a separate device. I would prefer that incorporated into OPNsense, or if it is there, I would appreciate guidance on how to use it.
Olubosola Olusanya - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Technology Officer at Super Digital Highways Ltd
Unified security has simplified multi-appliance work but still needs more architectural flexibility
There is room for improvement when it comes to their features and architectures they're trying to implement that they can't directly help with. But by and large, it's actually relatively good. More flexibility would make Sophos Cyberoam UTM better. The platform is not entirely flexible as it is. For example, with Cisco ASA and Firepower, you have the command line that can give you more flexibility in terms of the kind of architectures that you can put them in. But for Sophos Cyberoam UTM, you don't really have that access that can give you those network flexibilities that would allow you to do some other types of architectures.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
18%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and client, Open VPN and client, and PPTP client. Both also have intrusion detection a...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
Setup cost is almost zero as one can simulate the whole environment using open source version. Pricing seems fair enough. Open source license allows a beginner to have a complete firewall solution ...
What needs improvement with OPNsense?
When I talk about VPN, I am not completely satisfied with the VPN functions of OPNsense. What I have received so far is that sometimes the VPN route caches for some time and sometimes I want to cha...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Cyberoam UTM?
The price is appropriate, but if you want the real truth, it's actually quite expensive. The annual software licensing is reasonably pricey, with probably about four years' license annual.
What needs improvement with Sophos Cyberoam UTM?
Sophos Firewall could go beyond configuration health checks and introduce continuous, intelligent firewall policy governance. The firewall should automatically identify redundant, shadowed, unused,...
What is your primary use case for Sophos Cyberoam UTM?
I do work with clients that use both Cisco and Sophos products. My work is mostly with firewalls, storages, switches, and routers.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Gulf Corporation for Technology, Maridive & Oil Services, Fidelity Bank, Petra University, Capital FM Kenya, Safari Park Hotel and Casino, Mayfair Casino, Pacific International Lines, Mozambique Ministry of Education, University of Namibia, Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, University of Hawai, New Delhi Municipal Council
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Cisco, Netgate and others in Firewalls. Updated: October 2026.
919,894 professionals have used our research since 2012.