We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense 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."The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The product offers very good security."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The solution is very robust."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"The interface is straightforward and easy to use."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"I have found pfSense to be stable."
"I use pfSense because it gives me the flexibility to greatly expand basic firewall features."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"An easy solution to learn because the graphics are very intuitive."
"We've found the technical support to be helpful."
"The implementation with the AWS environment was good."
"It meets our compliance needs in an elastic computer environment."
"I like the web filtering options."
"The solution is scalable."
"The most valuable features of the solution are application filtering and web filtering."
"Sophos UTM's most valuable features are profiling and its simple configuration."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"I think they need to improve more in order to be a competitor with the leaders of the field."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The GUI could use improvements, though it is manageable."
"The usage reports can be better."
"The integration should be improved."
"They can improve the dynamic of the input of IPs from outside."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"It needs to be more secure."
"User interface is a little clumsy."
"The support could be better."
"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."
"I didn't like it much. It suits only small businesses. It isn't scalable and reliable. There is a very critical issue with the power supply."
"There needs to be some improvement in the IPsec VPN. There is implementation only support. I have version one. I'd be most interested in having IP version two from the protocol."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"Anti-phishing functionality should be improved."
"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."
"Sophos UTM's firewall is a bit weak, and some of its features lack depth compared to other products like F5."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sophos UTM report.
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pfSense is opensource and has been the last 10 years in the top 10 best
firewall solutions in the world, it is free, stable, scalable, and easy to
administer ... and above all very safe, since it is one of the few systems
that could have been violated. It's free.
In fact, Karl, the 50-IP free version is for home use only, and not even then if it also protects business assets. You did a great job of explaining the difference, so I won't comment further.
To the original poster, it's cheaper to hire a Sophos consultant to create your original configuration. It costs twice as much to get a configuration "repaired" that wasn't correctly designed. A Sophos Solution Partner that has a Sophos Certified Architect with plenty of experience and good referrals is probably your best bet.
With Sophos is easy to configure and you have the support from the frabicant, with pfSense you have to learn from the community and learning curve is a little hard, last occasion with pfSense it don't have support for vpn dynamic, with Sophos they have RED equipment that is an extension from the core, only you need the serial number from the remote equipment and you have the vpn , both are great equipment and software, depend of the budget, pfSense is free and they have support if you pay the license very cheap
pfSense is just a basic firewall with VPN and Captive Portal functionality but does its job great. Only needs minimum resources to function. Price is right (FREE)
Sophos UTM is much more, hence the UTM. It does firewall, advance threat protection, VPN, Secure web gateway, email protection (AV, Spam, Encryption, and DLP), endpoint protection, Mobile Device control, Web Application Firewall, User Portal, built in reporting, and central management. It does require more resources but you get a lot more out of it. Two options depending on the size of your office, commercial version or the Free version that you can build on your own hardware. The free version is restricted to 50 IP addresses. (www.sophos.com)
I have used both and both have their place but using Sophos in my environment just because it offers a lot more functionality, nice dashboard, reports, and easy to use through the GUI.
One other big difference is that pfSense is FreeBSD based while Sophos UTM is linux based. It is also worth having a lool on cacheguard which is a proxy oriented product and also Linux based.
I´m afraid I am not able to help in this matter. We´ve decided to for FortiGate as services, based on our relationship with our IT security provider and the FortiGate reviews available on the net.
We used to use pfSence for one particular open network but let the full control on de FortiGate. During the investigation and analysis period we thought of Sophos but felt more comfortable going for FortiGate pretty much based on price and our relationship with our IT security provider. Hence my experience wouldn´t help in this case.
My best advice would is to refer to the article available on:
www.itcentralstation.com