No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Hillstone T-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 T-Series
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (42nd)
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
Is stable and has a user-friendly dashboard and a good interface
We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good We cannot secure a specific IP class with this firewall. Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the…
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

"It has been stable so far."
"Hillstone supports IOT setup and detecting intrusions from IOT or CCTV connectivity, and with this solution, we can also detect unauthorized devices plugged into the CCTV network and sound the alarm to the administrator."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"We found some limitations with Fortinet FortiGate, and we are satisfied with Hillstone T-Series right now."
"The only firewall able to monitor traffic from a CCTV network. Can detect unauthorized devices plugged into the network, which standard firewalls can't do."
"It's an easy solution to learn because the graphics are very intuitive."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"RED remote Ethernet Device layer 2 site-to-site tunnel is a layer 2 tunnel based on SSL protocol that you can establish with or without a static public IP from the provider and this is a feature you will not see among another vendor."
"Sophos UTM has a good user interface and granular security controls."
"It makes it a lot easier for us to maintain things. Prior to it, things were more difficult. This means less time on us. We can focus on other things. The recovery is more in man-hours for us than anything else."
"The implementation with the AWS environment was good."
"The UTM product has definitely improved the way our organization functions."
"This is a very stable product."
 

Cons

"Licensing is not cheap."
"Licensing is not cheap, but there are customers who will buy because they understand that this has a cost involved and they will cater their budget for that."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
"Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the hotspot get all the functions, and the security does not work."
"Although Sophos UTM is a good product, other products have more flexibility with their pricing."
"The updates come out agonizingly slowly. They just trickle out and when there's a problem with an update it takes a while to sort out."
"It needs a better user interface. The one they have is not so good."
"They should have more powerful appliances."
"Sophos UTM's internet security could be better."
"Setup: Getting an exchange server to work behind Sophos is incredibly difficult with rules invoked that are simple numbers (e.g. 9054)."
"The interface configuration could be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We got a much cheaper price than that provided by Fortinet right now."
"On a scale from one to ten, with one being low and ten being high price, I would rate the price of Hillstone T-Series at three. There are no additional costs other than renewal costs."
"We purchased the appliance with five years onsite support and licenses."
"If you can afford it, go for a small Check Point, as it is easier to manage."
"The solution's pricing is based on a licensing model and is competitive."
"The licensing model is very straightforward, it's a bit pricey, but for what you get, it's well worth it."
"The price is something that one will need to consider."
"It's expensive. It has a yearly license."
"The price is comparable to other products of this kind."
"Pricing for Sophos UTM is OK. Here in Egypt, many companies use the solution because of its price and features. My company pays the Sophos UTM license fee yearly."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
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?
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

Hillstone T-Series Intelligent Next-Generation Firewalls, Hillstone iNGFW
Astaro
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Córdoba
One Housing Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: May 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.