We performed a comparison between OPNsense and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy for users to manage the entire solution from anywhere. The solution is very light, stable, and provides excellent real-time control. Users feel OPNsense is not a good product for medium to large businesses, as it has some very limited features and needs better reporting and documentation.
"It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"We have been operating here in our lab for several months, and everything appears to be extremely stable."
"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."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"We have found pretty much all the features of the solution to be valuable."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"The solution has high availability."
"This is a very stable solution."
"Great reporting feature and great customer support."
"it's user-friendly, not complex."
"It is very user friendly and easy to manage from the administrative point of view. It is good, reliable, and easy to implement."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"I like the dashboard, the interface, the management console, and the remote login."
"Good security and a good interface."
"Because of the pandemic, the VPN is the most valuable feature."
"As far as wanting more scalability or things in the network diagram, it's going to cost you."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"There are a few weaknesses. For example, there is a lack of some features that I have in certain commercial products."
"The IPS solution could be more reliable."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"You will need additional training before you can actually start to use it."
"In terms of improvement, the performance could be enhanced."
"The solution could be more secure."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
"The solution should have the ability to be up to date with the most recent threats."
"Sophos XG should improve on the GDPR features involving data protection and encryption. Security regarding data protection is important."
"Sophos XG does not have the ability to disconnect a user."
"Areas for improvement would be the access points and the on-premise version, which is very bad."
"The time taken by Sophos XG's support team to respond to and resolve an issue is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Sometimes when you roll out a new firmware, you find that the rules you already have in place are broken, so it's difficult to migrate to a new firmware. That's the only downside I've experienced in Sophos."
"They need to allow their solution to integrate with other products and not just other Sophos solutions."
"They need to improve the SD-WAN feature."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM, IPFire and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Sophos UTM. See our OPNsense vs. Sophos XG report.
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