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Sophos UTM vs Stormshield Network Security comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Sophos UTM
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
112
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Stormshield Network Security
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
12th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category, the mindshare of Sophos UTM is 18.7%, up from 17.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Stormshield Network Security is 6.6%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

Featured Reviews

Samaila Yusuf - PeerSpot reviewer
Network protection strengthens through effective threat management features and secure access control
The zero-day protection and firewall rules are some of the most effective features for threat management. I can set the rules and features, and also use IPsec to connect all my on-premises servers and link them to Sophos UTM so that they are protected even when in the cloud. Additionally, I use it to control access into the building through a captive portal integrated across all the PCs we have, ensuring secure access only for authenticated users.
BV
It's an easy, straightforward management platform to use. Their support needs improvement, as they could not help us and everything stopped working.
We are not happy with the support. It is a basic support offering. Sometimes, we have to chase support on progress, which is not good, especially on firewalls. We are an enterprise and we have firewalls on the edge. If we have an issue, I want support to be on top of issues, because for us, it's a lot of money if the firewall fails. They only give support up to a specific level, and when we like to exceed that level of support, then we need to fall back on our reseller. This is one issue. If your reseller landscape is not really up to speed, then in the most critical cases, we're depending on the reseller and not on the support of Stormshield because we cannot escalate. It's impossible for us to escalate a situation at Stormshield by ourselves. We have to fall back on our reseller. When our reseller was on vacation, it was impossible for us to act on an issue. We had just created a brand new firewall cluster to offload our website. Then, all of a sudden, we bumped into root errors on the connection which pointed to the firewall, and Stormshield support couldn't even help us fix it. Therefore, we had serious issues for a couple of weeks and it was all related to firewalls. It was a combination of unexpected or unwanted behavior and bugs. Sometimes things happen that can be due to configuration errors or something we did ourselves, which is not according to the plan, eventually we ruled everything out, and it was mainly due to the firmware on the Stormshield firewalls. The biggest issue was their support department was not able to help us, then everything stops. This is a no-go area for me. I would rate their support as a five out of 10.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It makes it a lot easier for us to maintain things. Prior to it, things were more difficult. This means less time on us. We can focus on other things. The recovery is more in man-hours for us than anything else."
"The intrusion prevention is great, and I like dual virus scanning on the network layer because we scan it through Avira and Sophos. Web filtering is also a fantastic option for clients who want to really lock down internet access."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
"The technical support by Sophos is amazing, especially when I pay for the enhanced support."
"I have no problem with the cost or licensing of this solution. This is a primary reason whay I wanted this solution. It does the same thing cheaper than other name brands."
"Sophos UTM is the simplest of these products to setup."
"Sophos UTM provides security for our network here and access through a VPN connection for our remote users. It also offers the flexibility to create different tools for accessibility."
"It helps us with protection, with concurrent use of the VPN."
"Ease of use is the best feature of the product."
"The solution has improved my organization because I can see what traffic is happening and I can use it to block and prevent attacks."
"This solution is quick and easy to configure."
"Our organization's main concern is stability, and this is a stable solution."
"It's an easy, straightforward management platform to use."
"A very robust product."
"I like that it works fine. Stormshield is a very good solution."
"The most valuable features are the IPS, the firewall function, and the price."
 

Cons

"Doesn't provide antivirus for individual computers."
"I would like to see the SD-WAN feature improved."
"In Sophos UTM there is always a problem with the routing tables. If you want to see the routing table, you have to use the UI. You can't do it via a web browser. The routing table is better in Fortinet."
"Sophos UTM's firewall is a bit weak, and some of its features lack depth compared to other products like F5."
"There is absolutely no support when using AWS. If you buy the on-premise Sophos solution, you get support."
"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."
"We need a better VPN client for the customers."
"We had some problems with the configuration. They had provided a CloudFormation template, and we had to go several rounds to make it work."
"Stormshield Network Security is quite expensive."
"Improvement is needed in terms of the technical support of the manufacturer."
"This is not a next-generation firewall."
"Not all the fields are activated yet and we were informed that it will take at least one month."
"A more user-friendly interface would be helpful."
"The product must improve its pricing."
"With Stormshield, there are difficulties joining things, and it can be complex depending on the architecture."
"The filtering configuration could be better. We have some difficulties with the filtering configuration and the filter extension. It's not that easy. It's not that straightforward. In the next release, I would like to see a reporting system. Stormshield doesn't have any tutorials on how to do the configuration and things like that. They just have documentation on the website. If you want to configure, for example, Cisco or Fortinet, you can find tutorials on YouTube. They show you how to configure the features, and so on. In Stormshield, there is nothing on social media or the internet on how to configure different things. The lack of documentation or the lack of material makes it difficult for others to adopt this solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The appliance should be purchased and there is a fee for the license."
"Unless you are in the United States, or you have to use Sophos, you can't contact Sophos directly. You have to use a third-party ​company, and they all have different ways of how they explain their licensing."
"The pricing and licensing are both good and better than Sophos's competitors. This is why we went with the product."
"Sophos UTM is moderately priced, but it could be improved."
"There is a license for the device and for the software. We pay annually for the solution and the cost is competitive."
"Sometimes more is less, meaning if you want more than three features, take the FullGuard licence."
"I think the pricing of Sophos is very fair."
"Sophos offers free training when selling their products from within the partner portal.​"
"I think the price is good."
"The price of this solution and the price of support are ok."
"The SN200 series costs between $500 USD and $600 USD per year, whereas the SN700 series costs approximately $1,000 annually."
"We chose Stormshield for its price, as the Azure firewall was too expensive."
"For mid-sized companies, they sell their appliances for good prices."
"We bought a three-year license, and we renew it whenever it expires. The price could be better. It's always very expensive."
"The pricing could be better."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 3, 2016
Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate
I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I wou...
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. They can not be compared with each other because the price, license, firewall th...
What do you like most about Sophos UTM?
The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the endpoint protection feature.
 

Also Known As

Astaro
NETASQ Firewalls
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

One Housing Group
ACESUR group, Ministry of Education Oman, Anios Laboratories, Zain, DLM Location
Find out what your peers are saying about Sophos UTM vs. Stormshield Network Security and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.