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Check Point UTM-1 [EOL] vs Sophos UTM comparison

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Executive Summary

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

Check Point UTM-1 [EOL]
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos UTM
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

William Cambronero - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at ITQS
Great firewalls, VPN, and Intrusion prevention capabilities
Some features that could be improved are advanced threat protection, sandboxing, and vulnerability management. Another point is to improve the technical support provided by Check Point UTM-1. Although the company offers different standards, including basic and premium, by mail and by telephone, they present a very large deficiency in the time it takes to comply with the provisions of the SLA. Coordinating a meeting is complicated by the schedules. The documentation should also be improved by having it unified.
HR
CEO at iSource GmbH
Integrated security tools have supported critical infrastructure and improved network performance
Regarding Secureworks Taegis VDR Vulnerability Management, I do not have all these shortcuts in my head. Perhaps I have to ask my technicians, but we are in full stress because we have to change this entire firewall equipment, also the entire access points, because of the end of life. We also have the full product in for XDR and extensions. We are also part of the webinars from Sophos. It would be better if there were also some important webinars in German. Everything needs improvement, because also the wireless, also RED box and so on. The handling was much easier on the old equipment than on the new XGS. I think there should also be a little more automatic for SD-WAN routing and so on. Because we have to learn some things from the basic completely new because it is different than Sophos UTM, the XGS. The features that could be improved about Sophos UTM include the new features we have in XGS with a simpler interface. For example, in Sophos UTM, we could define IP hosts and use this IP host. We did not have to insert on every, for example, for wide area networks, we had to put the IP addresses from the other side by hand. In Sophos UTM, we could define it under definitions and then use this IP host where we needed it. In the new XGS, if there is a change in the IP address, we have to do it on all, for example, site-to-site VPN tunnels and so on. We have much more work and it is not so easy because we have to check all the definitions. It is also, for example, some of the male technicians like me, we have a biology handicap. For example, male technicians in Europe also have a red-green problem. So we use these light colors on the interface. In some cases, it is not easy to see the, for example, letters or numbers because of the contrast.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The databases and its signatures are its most important features."
"The ability to create a central database for objects (sources, destinations, services, etc.), which can be used in several different policies, and the possibility of browsing all logs (FW, IPs, identity awareness, etc.) from all the gateways from a unique screen are big pluses."
"The filtering was very good."
"This is my favorite product that I use, and I think it's one of the best in the world."
"The most important features are performance and ease of management."
"Check Point has been in the security industry for so long that it has evolved different solutions and technologies."
"This product is very good for the investment."
"When we were evaluating services, we knew we needed something robust and easy to implement with the old equipment and something that was safe."
"For the features, how well it works, and how easy it is to use, I would give Sophos a ten out of ten."
"So far, the solution has been problem-free."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is reporting, it is flexible. I can monitor the end user's devices, even when they are not on my network. It has good drill-down capabilities."
"All of Sophos UTM's features are valuable."
"We also know very well that Sophos is proactive in monitoring and protecting against malware and brute-force attacks."
"I can share specific outcomes regarding Sophos UTM; we've seen reduced costs certainly, and we've also seen time saved, definitely, because we streamlined all our clients into using Sophos UTM if they want to have their on-premise infrastructure monitored, and that really saves a ton of time."
"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."
"The stability is great."
 

Cons

"Customer Service: Horrible. It takes them days, sometimes weeks, until they try to help, and then they don't help enough."
"Specifically on the user experience, sometimes the set up of things, such as the VPN SSL, takes a lot of time to load and a lot of time to get up and running on every session."
"While the technical support is good, the Indian level technical support could use an upgrade."
"As we don't have a representative of Check Point supplier in our country, this makes it very difficult when we have some issues to resolve."
"Yes, about once a year we have a catastrophic failure. It's pretty random."
"I would like to see improvements in the report area. Some features should be integrated and not licensed separately."
"The solution should be more user-friendly."
"The physical memory is insufficient for installing policies and some other operations."
"Last year, Sophos had some major internal management changes that negatively impacted their support."
"It really needs to update IPSec to enable IKEv2."
"The web filtering engine needs to be improved as, sometimes, the service hangs for a while and restarts randomly."
"Its identification of users without the need of setting up Proxies or Identity software could be better, that is probably the trickiest section to setup."
"The unit offers great failover and load balancing features that can be complex to understand, some streamlining of the process would help."
"We didn’t find any issues but I know there have been some in the last few years."
"The application control is really bad. It needs a lot of enhancements. The traffic shaping and bandwidth control, and application control need a lot of work."
"The UI on it could stand a little improvement."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is too high."
"This cost is between 3,000 and 5,000 euros per year, so some other solutions are cheaper and the pricing should be improved."
"It is necessary to pay for a licence to use the solution, but it is not very expensive."
"It's expensive. It has a yearly license."
"The price of the license for Sophos UTM is approximately $5,500. The solution is less expensive than competitors."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The problem with the Sophos is not the cost of the hardware but the cost of the modules, packages, and the subscription."
"The appliance should be purchased and there is a fee for the license."
"Sophos UTM is moderately priced, but it could be improved."
"Both the technical and cost aspects are feasible since it is possible to obtain and use the device as a PnP solution."
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Technical Consultant with 51-200 employees
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
Construction Company
18%
Marketing Services Firm
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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 your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos UTM?
The pricing for Sophos UTM is reasonable; I do not have an issue with it, though I was considering RED because I have different sites I wanted to connect, and instead of doing site-to-site, the RED...
What needs improvement with Sophos UTM?
Regarding Secureworks Taegis VDR Vulnerability Management, I do not have all these shortcuts in my head. Perhaps I have to ask my technicians, but we are in full stress because we have to change th...
 

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Sample Customers

AccessIT Group Inc., Accuvant, Cadre Computer Resources Inc., Compuquip Technologies Inc, Dimension Data North America Inc., Forsythe Solutions Group, Gotham Technology Group LLC, GuidePoint Security LLC, Iovations, IPS
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