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 performs very well."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"The solution has high availability."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"I feel that its valuable features are that it is simple and free."
"I find the solution to be user-friendly. It has a lot of reports and easy settings."
"The system in general is quite flexible."
"The most valuable features of OPNsense are the GUI and frequent updates."
"The most valuable feature is the central dashboard"
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG for our use cases are its firewall capabilities, its ability to connect to wide area and local networks, and its VPN functionality."
"The firewall provides network visibility and reporting capabilities, constantly improving over time. It can be integrated with the cloud console, allowing centralized management of multiple firewalls. integration with endpoint security products ensures seamless traffic flow and rule enforcement, even when endpoints are not directly connected to the firewall."
"We found the initial setup to be straightforward."
"Valuable features include: the ease of setting up the VPN connection; the fact they have the cloud management option, so I can manage the firewall on a cloud platform from anywhere I am; the user interface is very user-friendly, so it's very easy for the administrator to make any policy changes."
"Some of the most valuable features are filtering and application control. The DDoS detection also shows traffic jamming and traffic shaping."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"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."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"I would like to see better SD-WAN performance."
"The user interface could be improved, and the DNS section should be more intuitive."
"The interface needs to be simplified. It is not user-friendly."
"Its price should be improved. Its features are pretty okay, but the price is the area where we have to fight more. They should do something about the price structure."
"I need to open the email to see what it contains and the value of it before I know whether to access it or not."
"We encounter difficulties while navigating through certain features and functionalities of the product."
"The user interface could be improved and more bandwidth management would be helpful."
"For the moment, managing the Sophos interface is a little bit challenging."
"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."
"The solution could improve by having better security."
"When upgrading the firewalls, the process could be easier."
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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