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Palo Alto Networks WildFire 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
6.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire provides cost-effective, centralized threat management, reducing security costs and improving efficiency in high-threat environments.
Sentiment score
6.0
Sophos UTM users report positive ROI, citing network security, cost savings, and flexible pricing within six to sixteen months.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
Presale Engineer at Westcon-Comstor
I have seen a return on investment with Sophos UTM, and I can share that the price is around thirty percent better, especially if you count in the employee time.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.0
Palo Alto Networks WildFire's support is responsive and expert but varies in availability and response time, especially for smaller companies.
Sentiment score
7.0
Sophos UTM customer service is generally reliable and fast, though experiences vary due to language barriers and responsiveness.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
Technical Superintendent at Indian Institute Of Technology, Patna
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
Presale Engineer at Westcon-Comstor
The support is quite difficult to access promptly.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
I would rate the technical support by Sophos a 10.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
The technical support by Sophos is amazing, especially when I pay for the enhanced support.
Associate Director - Management Support Services at CIHP
I would rate the technical support with Sophos a seven because sometimes the time of the first resolution is not ideal.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Palo Alto Networks WildFire efficiently scales for diverse environments, supporting thousands of users while integrating well with security modules.
Sentiment score
6.8
Sophos UTM offers scalable performance, efficiently supporting various organization sizes with proper sizing, though planning is crucial for upgrades.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
Technical Superintendent at Indian Institute Of Technology, Patna
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable, and I give it a nine for scalability.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
You can have high availability clusters, so very, very scalable in my opinion.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly rated for reliability, seamless integration, and effective network security performance without disruptions.
Sentiment score
7.5
Sophos UTM is highly reliable, with users praising its stable performance despite rare concerns about hardware and resource demands.
It performs filtering, malware blocking, and scanning.
Engineer at Taalumgroup
The solution is scalable and stable.
Technical Manager at PSR
 

Room For Improvement

WildFire needs improvements in integration, user-friendliness, and pricing, along with better support, automation, and global availability.
Sophos UTM needs better interface, documentation, threat detection, VPN setup, load balancing, scalability, and enhanced security features.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
Technical Superintendent at Indian Institute Of Technology, Patna
It is a very good product.
Engineer at Taalumgroup
The support could be improved, as it takes a while to get assistance from the vendors.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
If you want to really implement some rules that are a little bit more difficult, Sophos always recommends getting the dedicated WAF, or web application firewall, but I would prefer to have more features on the web application firewall in the firewall itself because it would make more sense.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
I would prefer to see additional features in the next release of Sophos UTM because cyber crime increases every day, so we also need to improve our game to prevent any chances for intrusion.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
The update process could be improved with Sophos UTM overall.
IT Manager at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
 

Setup Cost

Palo Alto WildFire offers advanced threat protection, appealing to enterprises despite its high cost, potentially deterring smaller organizations.
Sophos UTM provides flexible, cost-effective pricing models, with competitive options and discounts, valued by larger organizations despite higher costs.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
Presale Engineer at Westcon-Comstor
Pricing has become expensive recently due to the dollar hike and naira value changes in Nigeria.
Associate Director - Management Support Services at CIHP
The value between what I receive and what I pay is the best in the industry.
System Administrator at a training & coaching company with 11-50 employees
The pricing would be more economical if sold directly to the user compared to going through a partner, as they need to take their percentage.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
 

Valuable Features

Palo Alto Networks WildFire automates threat analysis, excels in sandboxing, and offers robust security with cloud-based, user-friendly features.
Sophos UTM offers robust security with firewalls, VPN, web filtering, scalability, intuitive interface, and integrated management for enhanced protection.
Integrating Palo Alto Networks WildFire with various security protocols similar to a firewall has significantly improved the overall threat detection capabilities in our organization.
Content Specialist at PeerSpot
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
Technical Superintendent at Indian Institute Of Technology, Patna
In my opinion, the best features Sophos UTM offers are part of the firewall itself, so we don't need an extra appliance, we don't need to set up extra open-source VMs or anything.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It helps us quite a lot, especially because since we use Sophos UTM, malware intrusions are not rampant.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
The best features Sophos UTM offers are its ease of use and extensive functionality.
Engineer of testers. Certification hardware at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (1st)
Sophos UTM
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
118
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is designed for Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and holds a mindshare of 7.6%, down 11.9% compared to last year.
Sophos UTM, on the other hand, focuses on Unified Threat Management (UTM), holds 8.1% mindshare, up 6.1% since last year.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Palo Alto Networks WildFire7.6%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3659.7%
Proofpoint Email Protection7.1%
Other75.6%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
Unified Threat Management (UTM) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Sophos UTM8.1%
Fortinet FortiGate31.9%
WatchGuard Firebox10.0%
Other50.0%
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

Featured Reviews

RK
Engineer at Taalumgroup
Achieve effective threat prevention and seamless integration with powerful technical support
Integration with third-party products is possible. For example, connecting a mail gateway with Palo Alto Networks WildFire allows them to handle prevention. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is a cloud-based sandboxing solution. The firewall is connected to WildFire, and XDR performs sandboxing from the cloud. WildFire conducts malware scanning and emulation, then informs the firewall to block threats based on the response. It also generates reports regarding malware and other issues. The sandboxing process involves sending sample files to the cloud for scanning, checking file authenticity, certificates, and detecting malicious code. WildFire performs multiple checks and informs the XDR agent about file status. This automatic process occurs within minutes or seconds. For unknown or suspicious files, immediate blocking occurs while samples are sent to WildFire for identification. I rate Palo Alto Networks WildFire a 9 out of 10.
Thomas Zimmerman - PeerSpot reviewer
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Integrated firewall and VPN have provided cost savings and strengthened customer security
The needed improvements for Sophos UTM include that the GUI could be a little more high-resolution-aware because it's still stuck in the small, low-resolution admin days, and those are long over. I choose a rating of nine out of ten for Sophos UTM because, as I mentioned, the graphical user interface is stuck in the past, and some things here and there are not implemented to the full, such as the reverse gateway thing, reverse proxy, and web application firewall. If you want to really implement some rules that are a little bit more difficult, Sophos always recommends getting the dedicated WAF, or web application firewall, but I would prefer to have more features on the web application firewall in the firewall itself because it would make more sense. Other than that, it's a very smooth experience, and I really appreciate it.
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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
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business36
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
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 do you like most about Sophos UTM?
The most valuable feature of Sophos UTM is the endpoint protection feature.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos UTM?
I have no declaration regarding my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Sophos UTM.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Astaro
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
One Housing Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft, Proofpoint and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: December 2025.
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