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."It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"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 signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"It is a stable solution."
"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."
"It is a good firewall with good performance."
"The firewall sensor is highly effective, and it's easy to deploy. You can deploy pfSense with limited hardware resources. It's not necessary to have an appliance with much RAM to make it work. It's cost-effective and performs well."
"What I found most valuable is the cost of the platform, the flexibility of the platform, and the fact that the ongoing fees are not there as they are with the competitor. Some people may think you're taking a risk with using Opensource. I think it just provides the end user, specifically for us small, medium business providers of services, the flexibility we need at the right cost to provide them a higher end, almost enterprise type service."
"With over 150 firewalls in our portal, management and monitoring have never been easier."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Monitoring and reporting are areas that need improvement."
"Installing Sophos UTM is straightforward. The deployment itself doesn't take long, but you have to spend some time planning and waiting for the hardware to be delivered."
"It now controls all the security aspects of our web servers with Sophos UTM WAF."
"They are all good, but most-used are Network Protection and Web Filtering."
"The initial configuration is straightforward thanks to the web GUI. In 30 minutes, you can have a running firewall with UTM protection enabled."
"The implementation with the AWS environment was good."
"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"I would like to see multiple DNS servers running on individual interfaces."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"It needs better parsing of logs. At the moment, you have to use an external server for this if you want a deeper analysis."
"I have been using WireGuard VPN because it is a lot faster and more secure than an open VPN. However, in the latest version of pfSense, they have removed this feature, which is one of the main features that I need. They should include this feature."
"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."
"I've never tried it in large environments. All my clients are small businesses with a handful of employees, so I am not sure how it works in large environments. I keep up with recent versions, and there's nothing I'm waiting for, and nothing breaks when I get a new version."
"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."
"The reporting system needs to allow for customizations because many reports do not include details that we expect."
"Sophos customer support could use some improvement."
"The lack of import/export functions for network and service options drives me mad."
"The reporting could be a lot better."
"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."
"It is a pretty straightforward setup, but it should be some sort of documentation that takes you step-by-step to help set it up for your VPC."
"Needs to improve the certificate management (ex. Let's Encrypt support)."
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