We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS 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 flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiOS are the granular control and their interoperability is good."
"There are a lot of features that we like within the solution. The resources or performance of the firewall is very good. However, the real selling point is the fact that the solution offers so many features, it gives our clients a lot of extras that they can work with. There's a lot on offer."
"Performance-wise, I think FortiOS is much better than its Juniper counterpart. Based on our actual experience and performance metrics, FortiOS-based products are much better than Juniper."
"FortiGate as a product is very easy to configure."
"It's very easy to use."
"The most valuable features are the intrusion prevention system and the anti-virus."
"The most valuable features are the ease of use, and the overall simplicity, everyone can use it with a small introduction."
"All of the features in this solution are effective and efficient."
"The most valuable feature is the IPS. It also protects us from malware."
"UTM 9 brings along IPSec as well as iPhone and iPad support. This seems small but it’s useful."
"Sophos SG UTM had all the basic functionality that you needed. It is user-friendly and easy to manage for any integrator."
"With Sophos, we have not had any incidents this year. The security provided has been good. It has proven to be okay for our needs."
"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."
"The initial configuration is straightforward thanks to the web GUI. In 30 minutes, you can have a running firewall with UTM protection enabled."
"It is a stable product... I rate the solution's technical support a nine out of ten...The initial setup is quite easy because they have all the information on their website."
"If a computer does get infected the Sophos appliance lets us know via it's Advanced Threat Protection so we can get a much faster response time."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"If I had any criticism that I would give FortiGate, it would be that they need to stop changing their logging format. Every time we do a firmware upgrade, it is a massive issue on the SIM. Parsers have to be rebuilt. Even the FortiGate guys came in and said that they don't play well in the sandbox."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"Fortinet FortiOS can improve by limiting the need for the CLI and GUI combination. The more functions they can have on the GUI and less on CLI would be helpful."
"FortiOS's bandwidth and interface could be improved."
"There are some features for FortiGate using FortiOS that can only be enabled via a command line. These aren't very advanced features they have been part of FortiOS for quite some time but they still aren't accessible from the graphical user interface. It makes it a little bit harder than it should be for us to manage the solution. That's my main concern with the user interface. Another concern we have is some elements for the user interface, if they're not properly configured, it could lead to hardware and performance degradation."
"The pricing of the product is too high."
"Fortinet FortiOS could improve by having better authentication methods with Microsoft or Google Services."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"The solution's graphic interface could be a bit more responsive and include notations when changes are made."
"The solution needs to adjust its pricing models. With the way they are structured, everything is very disparate and sold separately, and, depending on the solution, it can get quite pricey."
"Doesn't provide antivirus for individual computers."
"The memory and processing were problematic. The interface 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 would like this solution to support ICAP. Also, they no longer support on-premises management, and are forcing clients to use centralized management via the cloud, which I don't agree with."
"The scalability of the product is an area with certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"The solution could be improved by adding cloud soundboxing."
"Flexibility in pricing could be improved. It's more rigid in its pricing compared to its competitor: Kaspersky."
"We had some problems with the configuration. They had provided a CloudFormation template, and we had to go several rounds to make it work."
Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Darktrace, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiOS vs. Sophos UTM report.
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