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Hillstone E-Series vs Sophos 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Hillstone E-Series
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (39th), SSL VPN (10th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (20th)
Sophos UTM
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.
Bashir Bashir - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Vegol
Firewall management has become simpler and now provides real-time visibility and bandwidth control
The features I have found most valuable in Sophos UTM are that it is much easier to configure, I appreciate the reporting side of it, and the rules are very straightforward to work with. Sophos UTM's real-time insights into network health help my organization because I get real-time reports on what is happening on my network, what is trying to access me, the destination, and all that. I can then be reactive or proactive, and for zero-day, I think it is beneficial because it can learn what my network does. If anything goes outside what it expects, it sends a report on Sophos Central, so I find zero-day makes my work a bit easier. The use of Sophos UTM's intuitive management console has impacted my security policy enforcement in that it is much easier to configure; I configure with information rather than with presumptions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"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."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"If an organization is not looking for a web proxy, it's a very, very good product."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
"If you want an easy to manage, and powerful firewall then take look at Sophos UTM."
"Our company trusts Sophos without even seeing it, as it provides us comfortability while allowing for flexibility."
"We use Sophos UTM as our main firewall with all its features included. Mainly, it controls all of our network perimeter security: firewall, IDS/IPS, and web application firewall (including VoIP)."
"The UTM features are reasonably strong and the patterns are updated on a regular basis."
"The features I have found most valuable in Sophos UTM are that it is much easier to configure, I appreciate the reporting side of it, and the rules are very straightforward to work with."
"The product has a shallow and a deep end, getting a small business/SoHo running up quickly and reliably is straight forward, but the deep end takes some technical skills, just like any solution."
"The most valuable feature is the IPS, and it also protects us from malware."
 

Cons

"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"The UI can be cumbersome and, sometimes, features are not where you think they should be."
"It really needs to update IPSec to enable IKEv2."
"Initially, there were problems of wireless access points not getting detected and lease lines were getting disconnected after one hour."
"The support could be better."
"The lack of import/export functions for network and service options drives me mad."
"Only thing we have noticed as of late was that their firmware updates break something else that was working in a previous version."
"The technical support used to be excellent but it's no longer as good as it was and we've had some problems getting solutions to the issues that we're having."
"The solution needs to do better at covering mobile devices, although they may have an integrated solution for that purpose."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"The biggest issue with Sophos is the pricing. It's definitely more expensive. As I said, we looked at Webroot, which is a big alternative, and Sophos was almost three times the price of Webroot. That's a pretty big difference."
"I think the pricing of Sophos is very fair."
"It's expensive. It has a yearly license."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"There was an up-front charge of around $70,000, to purchase the hub and license. Beyond the initial cost, licenses are charged for annually, but they are good value for the service we receive."
"The price of the solution is high. The price from USD to my currency is expensive."
"It is the cheapest product available. It's good if you have a low budget."
"We pay for the service on a yearly basis. The last time we paid was in June, for a year. At the time, it was about $20,000."
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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
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Hillstone E-Series?
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. Wh...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone E-Series?
I use the solution in my company for site-to-site VPN, SSL VPNs, URL filtering, IPS, IDS and all the other features which are available in the firewall.
What advice do you have for others considering Hillstone E-Series?
Our company did not use the tool's micro-segmentation features. There were no issues while integrating the tool. I have not used any AI in the tool. I recommend the tool to others. I rate the tool ...
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?
I would like to improve Sophos UTM in that there is software I use that goes deeper in the reporting on usage. There is software called Fastvue that breaks down everything in the firewall and whate...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Astaro
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
One Housing Group
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