pfSense vs Sophos XG
We performed a comparison between pfSense vs Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
"The wireless control is helpful."
"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"It's very easy to configure."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"My technicians find the pfSense's web interface very useful. It is very easy to use. pfSense is very reliable and stable. We like the OpenVPN clients that can be deployed using pfSense very much."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are security, user-friendliness, and helpful online management."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"I like pfSense's reports and how I can control access to the policies on the firewall."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"It is a very good solution for enterprises that need a VPN for their employees. It is the best way to provide a remote work facility to employees at a very low cost. Other solutions that I have had in the past were very expensive. Enterprises don't always have that kind of money to invest."
"The stability of Sophos XG is good, it has good performance."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is flexibility."
"The solution has good performance and is easy to use."
"Sophos offers great disk encryption, anti protection, and the interface is very user-friendly."
"Over the past two years, during the COVID pandemic, the VPN has helped us a lot."
"Sophos Control Center is a good feature. We can monitor everything from the control panel."
"It's a complete firewall solution that has everything."
"The performance of Sophos XG is generally good and it is stable."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve the user interface. There should be more functionality and options through the GUI."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"It was difficult to configure our web printer through the solution. This process could be easier. Additionally, integration with SD-WAN solution."
"The integration could be improved."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"Support could be improved."
"It would be better if they made their own hardware like Palo Alto and Fortinet. They use their own ASICs and claim it is more secure."
"We recently did an upgrade on the Sophos XG firmware and we were surprised that after the upgrade, the automatic switch actually we were using did not work anymore."
"There should be web caching to improve bandwidth utilization. It should have a very good caching feature. That's because we are in a very poor continent, and the connectivity cost is very high. We have low bandwidth, and the intensive usage of bandwidth is not easy here in Africa. If they improve services for web caching, it would be better."
"The user interface could be better."
"Over the last six months, we have noticed that the hardware is slow, especially the VPN connections."
"Better instructions should be provided as part of the technical support so that we can understand the functionalities. This will help us to troubleshoot faster."
"I'm just a sole proprietor for IT support, and from my perspective, there could be better ways to educate a proprietor, such as myself, on how to set it up, and program it, and manage it. They do tend to have support, but a lot of times, it is for larger networks. I need something that is simpler and more rudimentary as to how to go about setting up and configuring the firewall, setting up the rules, and that type of thing. So, if there is a missing component there, that would be it."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 22 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 55 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "Feature-rich, well documented, and there is good support available online". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Secure, duel switch capabilities, and good support". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XGS, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, WatchGuard Firebox and SonicWall TZ. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sophos XG report.
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