We performed a comparison between Hillstone E-Series 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."The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"One of the valuable features is a standardized OS."
"There is an easy process for configuring it, and it is straightforward to implement the device from scratch."
"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"This solution has two main features that we find very valuable; a threat-intelligence option, and a web/application filtering option. The technical support team are very good and very quick."
"Five out of five ROI."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients a secure connectivity."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"I have no problem with the cost or licensing of this solution. This is a primary reason whay I wanted this solution. It does the same thing cheaper than other name brands."
"The most valuable feature is ransomware protection."
"So far, the solution has been problem-free."
"Sophos integrates seamlessly, and we don't even feel it is running in the background."
"Sophos UTM has improved the porting section. It has improved security by seeing the gaps. For example, when you discover that an entry has been using a certain application, with Sophos UTM acting as a Layer 7 firewall, you can block the application, not the port."
"The three most important features for us are web protection, web server protection, and network protection."
"Has great security features and does a good job of protecting the network."
"Configuration could not be made any easier."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"There are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"Its price could be better."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"The current usage reporting is very basic."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"Reporting: We have had to work manually in many of our reports."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"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."
"There can be a delay when it comes to reaching out to technical support."
"The virus updates will always depend on new viruses that are discovered. Maybe they can send a notification or a reminder for update time."
"I would like this solution to support ICAP. Also, they no longer support on-premises management, and are forcing clients to use centralized management via the cloud, which I don't agree with."
"The initial setup may be difficult for those not familiar with the product."
"Sophos should be more user-friendly, have more dashboards, and an easier implementation."
Hillstone E-Series is ranked 33rd in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Hillstone E-Series is rated 9.0, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Hillstone E-Series writes "A user-friendly and marketable solution with a virtual switching capability". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Hillstone E-Series is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Sophos XG, OpenVPN Access Server, Netgate pfSense and Meraki MX, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Hillstone E-Series vs. Sophos UTM report.
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