Palo Alto Networks K2-Series vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM comparison

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series vs. Sophos Cyberoam UTM

December 2025

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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

5.8

Fortinet FortiGate offers cost-effective, robust security, reducing expenses, enhancing efficiency, easy implementation, quick ROI, and improved network management.

Sentiment score

6.2

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series improved cybersecurity, efficiency, and cost savings through enhanced visibility, automation, and reduced incident response times.

Sentiment score

6.9

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.

MURALI NIDAMANURI

Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.

Bart Homblé

BDM Fortinet & BDM Teamlead at Exclusive Networks

It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.

Bernard Samontanes

Staff Infrastructure & Security Engineer at Mozn Systems

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

For CN-Series, there is no competitor which works the same way as Palo Alto does.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.6

Fortinet FortiGate's customer service is generally praised for responsiveness, though some users experience delays in critical situations.

Sentiment score

8.0

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series support is praised for vendor responsiveness and expertise, though partner support is less reliable.

Sentiment score

7.3

Sophos Cyberoam UTM's support is generally reliable, with responsive assistance, but experiences mixed feedback due to occasional delays.

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.

Alexandre Menezes

IT Manager at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees

I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

AnishKumar

NAC Support at Rah Infotech Pvt Ltd

As a solution provider, when I encounter problems, I connect directly with Fortinet support, and they provide solutions within a very short time.

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

I would rate tech support from Palo Alto Networks at around eight out of ten points because we had dedicated people assigned to us.

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

We get Gold support from them, and they are pretty good.

reviewer2224035

Design engineer at a construction company with 201-500 employees

I would rate the technical support for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series from Palo Alto as nine out of ten points.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Director at MICROLOGIC NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED

They resolve issues timely once connected.

Dipak M Gohil

IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd

Technical support is effective and responsive.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Managing Consultant at Affordable IT

I would rate their technical support a solid nine out of ten.

SiyatHulbale

Global IT Manager at Express KItchen

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

7.1

Fortinet FortiGate is scalable and popular for SMEs but requires careful design and may incur scaling costs and licensing constraints.

Sentiment score

7.8

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series offers scalable, flexible solutions for organizations, excelling in network expansion and handling diverse environments.

Sentiment score

8.1

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.

Ian Manton

IT Manager at Daltons Limited

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.

reviewer2667480

Cewa Solutions Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

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.

FatmaSamy

General Surgery Specialist at Helwan University Cairo

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

Vertical scaling allows you to purchase more powerful devices with additional RAM, compute, and larger model form factors.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

7.7

Fortinet FortiGate is praised for its stability, with effective long-term performance and improvements in newer firmware versions.

Sentiment score

7.8

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is praised for exceptional stability and dependability, with minor configuration and maintenance issues reported.

Sentiment score

8.8

Sophos Cyberoam UTM is highly stable with minimal issues, appreciated for reliability, and improved since Sophos acquisition.

We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.

Ricardo Biggs

Manager, Information Technology at a consumer goods company with 11-50 employees

I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.

AnishKumar

NAC Support at Rah Infotech Pvt Ltd

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.

Juan Frias

CISO at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

Palo Alto typically doesn't have many glitches.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

No quotes available

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate needs enhanced UI, simplified licensing, improved performance, reporting, third-party integration, and expanded automation features.

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series needs better pricing, integration, usability, and AI to address user demands for support and scalability.

Sophos Cyberoam UTM struggles with performance, outdated architecture, high costs, and demands better usability, support, and feature enhancements.

These sessions should be around five to ten minutes long, allowing users and partners to quickly grasp the information without disrupting their daily tasks.

MURALI NIDAMANURI

Managing Director at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

The solution should be able to implement machine learning and analytics of all the logs for threat detection and protection.

Elvis Mahadeo

Senior Systems Engineer at Caribbean Development Company

It would be better for customers to get immediate replacements even with a standard subscription.

Pravin Mandlik

Director at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

Enhancing web traffic protection would be a great upgrade.

Krishnakumar M

enterprise architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

L1 engineers cannot work on the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series because it's too complex, which requires L2 and above level of engineers.

Director at MICROLOGIC NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED

With AI, if there is a Precision AI bundle that you're planning on exploring, then that definitely needs a significant uplift because currently it doesn't work for all the known models.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

It would be beneficial if phone calls or SMS for two-factor authentication were available.

Dipak M Gohil

IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd

Sophos Cyberoam UTM should move in the direction of AI capabilities, as the world is moving toward AI.

SiyatHulbale

Global IT Manager at Express KItchen

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Setup Cost

Enterprise buyers find Fortinet FortiGate costly initially, but cheaper overall, despite some high renewal and setup costs.

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is expensive, suitable for large enterprises, with straightforward licensing but requires frequent price negotiations.

Sophos Cyberoam UTM pricing varies with flexibility, offering competitive yet potentially high costs, depending on enterprise size and needs.

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.

AiméKouchade

Network & System Admin at Invoke Studios

It offers cost savings as it is generally cheaper than the competition.

NilsPaley

IT Infrastructure Architect at Apotek 1

It is about 20% cheaper.

MithatBulut

Network Security Engineer at TD SYNNEX

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

It's a little bit expensive.

Krishnakumar M

enterprise architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Director at MICROLOGIC NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED

The price is appropriate, but if you want the real truth, it's actually quite expensive.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Managing Consultant at Affordable IT

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate provides robust, flexible security solutions with key features like web filtering, SSL VPN, SD-WAN, and centralized management.

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series provides advanced, scalable security with AI-driven features, strong threat prevention, and user-friendly management.

Sophos Cyberoam UTM offers robust security with advanced features and user-friendly management, enhancing enterprise productivity and network efficiency.

These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.

Syed Ali Waqas

Head IT at Burraq Cyber Security Solutions

The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring.

Viraj Fernandopulle

General Manager Group IT at DART GLOBAL LOGISTICS PTE. LTD.

We got a firewall and gave an SSL VPN to my client to connect to their servers, after which, such kind of activities involving ransomware attacks stopped.

VINAY GUJARATHI

Owner at Mindware Computer Solutions

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate report

Overall, the K2-Series helps in much more protection, and dashboard compliances are being met.

Director at MICROLOGIC NETWORKS PRIVATE LIMITED

We had configured dynamic user groups and App-ID based policies, which makes it all Zero Trust.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series report

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Mainly, it is very easy to understand, and the logs are very good.

reviewer2224035

Design engineer at a construction company with 201-500 employees

It provides bandwidth management, category management of websites, blocking certain elements, IPS blocking, DDoS protection, and VPN management between sites and clients.

Dipak M Gohil

IT Manager at Jord International Pty Ltd

I assess the benefit of Sophos Cyberoam UTM's centralized management for multi-appliance handling as a welcome feature because you can manage all the devices at one location, giving you notifications of downtime and updates without necessarily logging into each appliance, so that central management is a very genius move.

SiyatHulbale

Global IT Manager at Express KItchen

The way the rule sets are configured makes it an easily understandable way to manage.

For more quotes and insights, download the Sophos Cyberoam UTM report

Managing Consultant at Affordable IT

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

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.

Read full review

Has provided strong traffic visibility and efficient policy management for advanced network environments

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could be improved, though I don't think of much. I'm unsure how widespread the adoption for K2-Series alone is. Looking at the base Palo Alto capabilities, they are going in the right direction. K2 specifically about its efficacy with all these 5G protocols, the GPRS tunneling protocol performed without many hiccups during testing. With AI, if there is a Precision AI bundle that you're planning on exploring, then that definitely needs a significant uplift because currently it doesn't work for all the known models. There are many false positives that need to be addressed. While it's still ahead of its competitors, on the AI security side, there is quite a room for improvement.

Read full review

Reliable security features have effectively protected against breaches and promote scalable network management

Managing Consultant at Affordable IT

The methodology of the rule sets is perhaps one of the plus points. I think everybody else does it, but the way the rule sets are configured makes it an easily understandable way to manage. One of my presentations demonstrates appropriate and affordable, comprehensive threat protection with centralized management and improved network security. This describes how firewall and VPN functionalities of this product benefit my organization. Protection and identity based security are probably the major selling points, with logging and centralized management. It allows you to identify issues first, and the reporting facilities are there and can be automated. You've got automated reporting that you can set appropriate levels of reporting to management and to the operational team, so they are alerted to what's going on. This describes how Sophos Cyberoam UTM's reporting capability helps in managing our network effectively.

Read full review

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881,114 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Performing Arts

23%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

12%

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	13

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	46
Midsize Enterprise	29
Large Enterprise	17

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable and there are no complaints about the licensing.

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could be improved, though I don't think of much. I'm unsure how widespread the adoption ...

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?

As for areas where Sophos Cyberoam UTM can be improved, it's hard to say; I have not at the moment seen anything that...

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

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Compared 15% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

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Compared 9% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Sophos Cyberoam UTM

Compared 7% of the time

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Product Reports

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

January 2026

Download Palo Alto Networks K2-Series product report

Download Sophos Cyberoam UTM product report

Sophos Cyberoam UTM

January 2026

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Designed to handle growing throughput needs due to increasing amounts of application-, user-, and device-generated data, the K2-Series offers amazing performance and threat prevention capabilities to stop advanced cyberattacks and secure mobile network infrastructure, subscribers, and services.

Palo Alto Networks

Cyberoam Unified Threat Management hardware appliances offer comprehensive security to organizations, ranging from large enterprises to small and branch offices. Multiple security features integrated over a single, Layer 8 Identity-based platform make security simple, yet highly effective.

Sophos

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

State of North Dakota, SEGA, Alameda County Office of Education, Temple University, VERGE, CAME

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