"I have experience with URL filtering, and it is very good for URL filtering. You can filter URLs based on the categories, and it does a good job. It can also do deep packet inspection."
"The most valuable features of this solution are advanced malware protection, IPS, and IDS."
"Another benefit has been user integration. We try to integrate our policies so that we can create policies based on active users. We can create policies based on who is accessing a resource instead of just IP addresses and ports."
"Firepower has been used for quite a few enterprise clients. Most of our clients are Fortune 500 and Firepower is used to improve their end to end firewall functionality."
"Feature-wise, we mostly use IPS because it is a security requirement to protect against attacks from outside and inside. This is where IPS helps us out a bunch."
"I have access to the web version of Cisco Talos to see the reputation of IP addresses. I find this very helpful. It provides important information for my company to obtain the reputation of IP addresses. The information in Talos is quite complete."
"The main thing that I love the most is its policy and objects. Whenever I try to give access to a user, I can create an object via group creation in the object fields. This way, I am not able to enter a user in the policy repeatedly."
"It has a good security level. It is a next-generation firewall. It can protect from different types of attacks. We have enabled IPS and IDS."
"The solution can scale well."
"Its interface is good. It comes with a lot of features, and its performance is also very good."
"The most valuable features are network security, VLAN, network protection, and encryption are very valuable to us."
"I really like that it's internationally deployable."
"FortiGate integrates well."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"Fortinet FortiGate-VM is very easy to create the user of VPN, allowing them to use it quickly. Additionally, the integration and interface are good."
"Fortinet-VM is more scalable than the hardware version. If you're using an appliance, there are limitations in terms of hardware specs. So if you want a more scalable firewall, you can get a VM and install it on a high-end server."
"The most valuable features of Sophos UTM are the ease of use, it is very user-friendly. You can understand what they implement in the new firmware, and it's easy to manage the firewalls."
"The initial setup was easy."
"It's a stable solution."
"Sophos UTM's best feature is SIM in the cloud, which combines the gateway solution and endpoint solution to send telemetry data to the cloud and provides full contact visibility regarding security."
"The most valuable feature is the price. I've been requesting prices all over these years between different solutions like Fortinet, Palo Alto, and Check Point and Sophos has been the cheapest and the best of all of them that I have tried. I have been working with Fortinet, it's a fact that the price is surprisingly better."
"It is a very good product. The threat monitoring process is the most valuable feature."
"Efficient and effective - it's easy to separate rules."
"Technical support is very responsive."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"I think they need to review their whole UI because it feels like it was created by a whole bunch of different teams of developers who didn't fully talk to each other. The net policy screen is just a mess. It should look like the firewall policy screen, and they should both act the same, but they don't. I feel like it's two different buildings or programming, who don't talk to each other, and that really annoys me."
"FlexConfig is there as a bridge for features that are not yet natively integrated into Firepower. It is a way of allowing you to be able to configure things that wouldn't otherwise be possible until the development team can add them into Firepower's native capability. There is still some work that needs to be done around FlexConfig. There are still quite a few complex things, like policy-based routing, that have to be done in FlexConfig, and it doesn't always work perfectly. Sometimes, there are some glitches. It is recommended that you configure FlexConfig policies with Cisco TAC. It would be good to see Cisco accelerate some of those configurations that you can only do in FlexConfig into the platform, so that they are there natively."
"Web filtering needs improvement because sometimes the URL is miscategorized."
"Most of the features don't work well, and some features are missing as well."
"I'm not a big fan of the FDM (Firepower Device Manager) that comes with Firepower. I found out that you need to use the Firepower Management Center, the FMC, to manage the firewalls a lot better. You can get a lot more granular with the configuration in the FMC, versus the FDM that comes out-of-the-box with it. FDM is like Firepower for dummies."
"We cannot have virtual domains, which we can create with FortiGate. This is something they should add in the future. Additionally, there is a connection limit and the FMC could improve."
"The ability to better integrate with other tools would be an improvement."
"New versions are complicated with a big configuration."
"FortiGate-VM could be improved by making it cloud-based. I'd like it to be a cloud-based management solution instead of just a dedicated management orchestration tool."
"It is a very good product, and it is good at standing by itself. It can maybe have a little bit of integration with other products, but it is not that important for most use cases."
"Web filtering is a feature that needs some improvement. There should be some additional features to allow active users to change their own passwords."
"The key activation is very complicated at times."
"With FortiGate, we sometimes encounter bugs in various operating systems."
"Price-wise, it could be slightly better, however, if you compared it to other makes and models of equal category, it is generally cheaper."
"Integration could be better. Whatever devices I'm using with FortiGate are all compatible. The access points and switches are also FortiGate, so I can easily integrate them. But it would be better if we could embed other devices as well. There are compatibility issues with other brands, and we need that. We can only integrate universal brands with FortiGate. The initial setup could also be easier."
"They could use more SSL VPN support."
"Anti-phishing functionality should be improved."
"The solution is not scalable."
"The reporting could be a lot better."
"I think that additional metrics features are needed to be able to monitor other areas or to monitor as much as you can, at a fine-grain resolution."
"In Sophos UTM there is always a problem with the routing tables. If you want to see the routing table, you have to use the UI. You can't do it via a web browser. The routing table is better in Fortinet."
"The five-factor authentication needs improvement."
"Sophos customer support could use some improvement."
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Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 11th in Firewalls with 51 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 35 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "Flexible with good cloud management and a straightforward user interface". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "Great web and email filtering with reasonable pricing". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Cisco ASA Firewall and Sophos XGS, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with pfSense, Fortinet FortiGate, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Sophos UTM report.
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