We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks PA-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."It's an easy solution to set up."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"It is a safe product."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced, almost 90% faster compared to other solutions. This leads to quicker deployment and less downtime."
"The solution provides good customer support."
"The most effective features for threat prevention in the PA-Series are its integration with Cortex and the use of machine learning AI for advanced threat detection."
"It offers application-based policy enforcement. Palo Alto Networks firewalls help us recognize protocol anomalies, contrasting with other vendors that may require policies based on port numbers. With Palo Alto Networks, the port number isn't a constraint because their devices handle protocol traffic at Layer 7, allowing for accurate identification of protocol usage and port numbers. They can identify which protocol actually uses which port."
"Comprehensive logging is essential for monitoring and analysis purposes. For remote users, the firewall can be configured as a VPN concentrator, with VPN policies defined within the firewall settings."
"It is stable when you set up something and put it into production. Once it works, you don't have other tasks or actions to perform."
"The cloud-based aspect helps significantly. It integrates seamlessly with other Palo products like Prisma Cloud, offers robust VPN protection, and it's all in one convenient package."
"It is a scalable solution."
"It is not an easy task to protect your web servers from the big bad internet. The Web Server Protection in this solution does it elegantly and, if configured correctly, even hides the server's base system from prying eyes."
"Efficient and effective - it's easy to separate rules."
"Sophos UTM provides security for our network here and access through a VPN connection for our remote users. It also offers the flexibility to create different tools for accessibility."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is reporting, it is flexible. I can monitor the end user's devices, even when they are not on my network. It has good drill-down capabilities."
"Configuration troubleshooting is eased by the use of the color-coded, live firewall log."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the efficiency and mail filtering module."
"The initial configuration is straightforward thanks to the web GUI. In 30 minutes, you can have a running firewall with UTM protection enabled."
"The initial setup has been fine."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"They've become quite expensive."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"Utilizing these features as a unified solution can require additional setup, particularly when incorporating Panorama for centralized management, which may involve extra costs."
"The support provided by the solution is not that good."
"There seem to be some issues with TAC (Technical Assistance Center) or Palo Alto support. Anytime you open a case, a level one engineer joins, and then you have to escalate it to level two or three. The support system has changed in the past few years, and that's something they need to look into."
"The pricing of the solution needs improvement."
"I encountered a slight issue with the application portal, which was not functioning correctly."
"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The product's high prices are an area of concern where improvements are required."
"As we migrate fully into the cloud, additional features like capacity upgrading and improvements to hardware resources will be necessary, especially since our equipment consists of older-generation switches and routers."
"The solution could be improved by adding cloud soundboxing."
"Updates come out agonizingly slowly, a trickle."
"We need to speed up the support."
"Sophos UTM's internet security could be better."
"VPN needs IKEv2, but it’s in the roadmap. Also, all new, cool features will only come to the new Sophos XG Firewall."
"We'd like to see them offer their services on mobile devices like tablets. I'm not sure if that's an option or not."
"I would like some features that are available in other brands. For example, I sometimes a person is using too much bandwidth, and it isn't easy to find this information in Sophos. Also, we have to switch connections manually when we are using a VPN and lose the MPLS connection. It isn't automatic."
"In Sophos UTM there is always a problem with the routing tables. If you want to see the routing table, you have to use the UI. You can't do it via a web browser. The routing table is better in Fortinet."
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews while Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6, while Sophos UTM is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, SonicWall NSa, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense, whereas Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs. Sophos UTM report.
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