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OPNsense vs Sophos XG comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos XG
Ranking in Firewalls
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
198
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.5%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 14.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos XG is 11.7%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
Eddy Ramirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use
The security has improved as we can isolate the network. We can do attrition prevention via a tool that comes with the solution. We can have a VPN solution in place for those that work from home, outside the network, in a secure manner. We also like that it offers good authentication. It offers radius-based authentication, which has been useful for the company. The main platform is under the Open VPN firewall. The solution has high availability. When we have different ISPs, we can actually load balance those links or actually put some priority or even classify the traffic that might go into one ISP or another.
Akshit Chhokar - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance but needs to improve on the flexibility part
The product has improved the security posture. Sophos XG provides features that are almost the same as those Cisco Firepower devices provide. I would say that a couple of features in Sophos XG are the same as the ones provided by other Cisco devices, which are top-notch. The management tools or log-related solutions that are presented with Sophos are okay but not top-notch when it comes to Cisco. I rate the reporting and visibility tools in Sophos XG a six out of ten compared to Cisco. Sophos xG's integration capabilities do not apply to a limited number of security tools. Cisco provides integration capabilities with many products, while Sophos XG offers integration with a limited number of products. Cisco provides integration capability with almost any tool that is present in the world. Cisco works day and night to ensure that it provides good integration capabilities with the solutions. I recommend the tool to those who plan to use it, especially if you own a very small office where you don't need a product with too many functionalities. I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."
"FortiGate firewalls are easy to manage through a user-friendly web interface. They also have advanced features like DDoS and DLP. However, I wouldn't recommend enabling all of these features on one device because it can cause performance issues."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Advanced routing (RIP, OSPF, BGP, PBR). It gives you a seamless and simple integration into a large network."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"OPNsense is very stable, easy to upgrade, and maintain."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"The DNS-level filtering is impressive for thwarting time scanners."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"Sophos offers great disk encryption, anti protection, and the interface is very user-friendly."
"Great interface and in-built help is very intuitive."
"We have found that the simplicity of the XG 210 is its most valuable feature."
"Good security and a good interface."
"Dashboard is easy to use and the reporting offers a lot of detail."
"The solution's most valuable feature stems from its ability to protect our organization's web servers."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the flexibility of it, it's pretty versatile."
"The two most valuable feature of Sophos XG is, one the option to filter according to different applications and two, the integration with the Active Directory."
 

Cons

"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"The UI could be improved."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"Its interface should be a little bit better."
"The reporting part could be better."
"OPNsense struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic, indicating scalability issues in that specific use case."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"While it is a secure solution, I believe it could be improved."
"They can simplify its interface so that it is mostly drag-and-drop. There was an SQL injection attack on some Sophos devices. They just need to harden their devices a little bit so that they can't be hacked very easily."
"We encounter difficulties while navigating through certain features and functionalities of the product."
"There needs to be a way that we can distinguish between educational institutions on Youtube and other Youtube videos. You can do this on Fortinet. Basically, they can block all other Youtube videos besides those that are from educational institutions. With Sophos, you either allow for all Youtube videos or none at all. They need to allow for more specification on different websites."
"They need to improve the SD-WAN feature."
"The main problem with Sophos XG today is that it doesn't have a feature where you actually know the quality of an international link, which would allow us to we know if the link is operational or not. We need more information. It's losing packets on the network. It's high latency. So, we need more information to know if the link is really bad or really good, and today, we will only know if it's working and this just isn't enough."
"The VPN device could be improved upon."
"It would be helpful if the solution offered some tutorial videos to help new users learn the system quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."
"The pricing is perfect."
"The price is highly competitive when compared to other brands that offer similar functionality."
"The licensing costs are very low."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"Its licenses cost the same for different subscription plans."
"The license of Fortinet FortiGate should be reduced."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
"I would rate the pricing three out of ten."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
"OPNsense is a well known open-source tool."
"It's a free solution."
"As an appliance, it's in the medium price range."
"It is free."
"I've used the free version. My computer with two network cards at home allows me to try as many different software options as I want. I did pay for the license, but it was for the Zenarmor license, which is the packet inspection tool. They use AI for packet inspection, which integrates with OPNsense and pfSense."
"There is a license required to use this solution and my customers pay for it annually."
"Currently, we have a contract for three years. It would be good if its price is reduced before we renew the contract. We will buy the equipment if it is cheaper."
"The price for the firewall is reasonable."
"Over the last two years of the COVID-19 crises, most users required an SSL VPN license, something for which SonicWall charges but which Sophos offers for free."
"The pricing is very high."
"The price of Sophos is reasonable. It's not too expensive — I think it's worth it."
"When compared to other products, Sophos licensing is very affordable."
"The tool's pricing and licensing are very complex. As a developing company, we need approvals from management to make a purchase, which can take time. We asked Sophos XG to renew our current firewall license for one or two months while we plan to accommodate our increasing IT assets."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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 cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products. However, as a free firewall p...
Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...
What are the main differences in features between Sophos XG and FortiGate 80F?
Hi Arvind P , The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form Fact...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between Sophos UTM and Sophos XG?
The Sophos UTM is a UTM and Sophos XG is the NGFW. First, you must know about the difference between a UTM and NGFW. ...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
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.
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Find out what your peers are saying about OPNsense vs. Sophos XG and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.