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Fortinet FortiGate vs Fortinet FortiOS vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Users find Fortinet FortiGate cost-effective, enhancing security and productivity while reducing operational costs and manpower needs.
Sentiment score
8.0
Fortinet FortiOS offers competitive pricing, easy scalability, and reliable security, resulting in solid ROI and reduced upgrade costs.
Sentiment score
7.6
Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers cost-effective management, reducing expenses and supporting efficient remote issue resolution for small to medium businesses.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.
It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.
Once it is deployed, I do not have to revisit or replace the hardware.
The pricing of FortiOS is competitive and reasonable compared to other leading products such as Palo Alto and Check Point.
Fortinet is strong in terms of cost and compatibility with other vendors.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Fortinet FortiGate's customer support is generally positive but varies in responsiveness and expertise, influenced by region and support tier.
Sentiment score
7.8
Fortinet FortiOS support is helpful but inconsistent, with quick basic solutions, delays on complex issues, and documentation needing improvement.
Sentiment score
7.2
Sophos Cyberoam UTM's support is generally reliable, with responsive assistance, but experiences mixed feedback due to occasional delays.
They offer very accurate solutions.
The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.
I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
I would rate them nine or ten out of ten.
Fortinet technical support is very responsive and helpful.
Support engineers sometimes lack eagerness to assist with issues such as the memory problem.
They resolve issues timely once connected.
Technical support is effective and responsive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.9
Fortinet FortiGate effectively supports scalable deployments, offering adaptability despite potential hardware limits and integration and licensing concerns.
Sentiment score
8.6
Fortinet FortiOS offers scalable solutions for varying business sizes, though some hardware upgrades may be needed for expansion.
Sentiment score
7.6
Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers scalable solutions for medium-sized businesses, though some upgrades may require hardware changes.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.
When customers' networks grow and needs expand, we can easily switch between models to trade up devices.
It allows for the expansion of users and devices without additional licensing costs.
Fortinet FortiOS is scalable, allowing the addition of users and firewalls as required.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
FortiGate is praised for stability and performance, with minor challenges managed by updates, proper sizing, and support.
Sentiment score
7.5
Fortinet FortiOS is stable and reliable, outperforming alternatives, with any issues mainly due to configuration challenges.
Sentiment score
8.6
Sophos Cyberoam UTM is highly stable with minimal issues, appreciated for reliability, and improved since Sophos acquisition.
We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.
I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
Currently, we are experiencing a general outage of one of the main internet service providers of the Dominican Republic, and we have not been impacted in our operations because with SD-WAN, we have another internet service provider and we are working with the second WAN connection without any disruption.
While the product is largely stable, it sometimes faces memory issues in specific versions like 11 OE, which can be disruptive.
Stability is a seven out of ten because during version migrations, and sometimes with new versions, Fortinet is not as good.
I would rate the stability of FortiOS as an eight out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate struggles with integration, user complexity, support inefficiencies, high costs, and feature performance, needing improved documentation and security.
Fortinet FortiOS users want improved usability, better management, enhanced security features, and more efficient support, especially for 60D models.
Sophos Cyberoam UTM struggles with performance, outdated architecture, high costs, and demands better usability, support, and feature enhancements.
Investing in a solution that can accommodate such growth would be more cost-effective than repeatedly purchasing new hardware.
The constant daily revisions necessitate meticulous identification of the relevant documents to prevent the use of outdated information that could jeopardize our environment.
While Fortinet claims to offer a comprehensive network solution, it falls short in addressing computer application issues, particularly server security.
Fortinet FortiOS faces memory issues, which can lead to unexpected downtimes.
There should be more documentation on how to use the CLI or how to perform CLI versions of tasks that can be done through the GUI.
Compared to other market leaders like Palo Alto and Check Point, FortiOS has many bugs in its initial releases.
It would be beneficial if phone calls or SMS for two-factor authentication were available.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate offers competitive, cost-effective pricing, appealing to small-medium businesses with flexible licensing and valued security solutions.
Fortinet FortiOS pricing is moderate and scalable, with renewal costs potentially high despite competitive initial bundling offers.
Sophos Cyberoam UTM pricing varies with flexibility, offering competitive yet potentially high costs, depending on enterprise size and needs.
FortiGate is priced lower than Palo Alto.
Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.
It is about 20% cheaper.
It is an affordable solution for us.
Fortinet products are somewhat pricey, similar to Cisco equivalents, however, they have justified their price point.
I am satisfied with the pricing, licensing, and setup costs of FortiOS, rating it nine out of ten compared to other familiar leading firewalls.
The price is appropriate, but if you want the real truth, it's actually quite expensive.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly, cost-effective, and offers high-performance comprehensive security with advanced threat protection features.
Fortinet FortiOS offers ease of use, robust security features, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, ideal for large-scale deployments.
Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers robust security with advanced features and user-friendly management, enhancing enterprise productivity and network efficiency.
In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable.
FortiGate has helped reduce the risk of cyberattacks that might disrupt our client's production.
These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.
It is user-friendly when it comes to turning on features, and it has been reliable and effective.
The threat intelligence in FortiOS is very high, and the system is scalable without additional licensing costs.
The solution offers good threat intelligence, which is crucial for our customers' security purposes.
It provides bandwidth management, category management of websites, blocking certain elements, IPS blocking, DDoS protection, and VPN management between sites and clients.
The way the rule sets are configured makes it an easily understandable way to manage.
 

Mindshare comparison

Firewalls
Firewalls
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Harshama Silva - PeerSpot reviewer
We have improved network security with user-friendly controls and high threat intelligence
FortiOS is very user-friendly and easy to configure for L1, L2, and L3 personnel. Its web filtering, application control, and IPS features are very user-friendly, easy to manage, and deploy. The threat intelligence in FortiOS is very high, and the system is scalable without additional licensing costs. FortiOS allows us to expand the number of users and devices as our network needs grow.
Dipak M Gohil - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized management enhances remote work with comprehensive security and efficient VPN
The VPN is the most usable feature and is advisable for us to work from home. It provides bandwidth management, category management of websites, blocking certain elements, IPS blocking, DDoS protection, and VPN management between sites and clients. It offers centralized management, which allows us to use everything from a central console.
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Media Company
9%
Performing Arts
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
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 ...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiOS?
The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiOS?
I rate the pricing for FortiOS as eight or nine out of ten. It is an affordable solution for us.
What do you like most about Sophos Cyberoam UTM?
The solution works perfectly without any users.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Cyberoam UTM?
The price is appropriate, but if you want the real truth, it's actually quite expensive. The annual software licensin...
What needs improvement with Sophos Cyberoam UTM?
I face issues when connecting to the VPN since it requires an authenticator. It would be beneficial if phone calls or...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Gulf Corporation for Technology, Maridive & Oil Services, Fidelity Bank, Petra University, Capital FM Kenya, Safari Park Hotel and Casino, Mayfair Casino, Pacific International Lines, Mozambique Ministry of Education, University of Namibia, Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability, University of Hawai, New Delhi Municipal Council
Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls. Updated: August 2025.
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