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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
7.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire efficiently prevents threats, reduces costs significantly, and integrates seamlessly for comprehensive real-time security.
Sentiment score
6.9
Sophos UTM offers competitive pricing and extensive security coverage, leading to swift ROI and improved network management efficiency.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.3
Palo Alto Networks WildFire support excels for large companies, with varied quality and responsiveness for others, depending on region.
Sentiment score
6.9
Sophos UTM is praised for responsive, knowledgeable support, despite occasional complaints, earning high marks for customer service.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
The support is quite difficult to access promptly.
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
The technical support by Sophos is amazing, especially when I pay for the enhanced support.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Palo Alto Networks WildFire excels in adaptability, scalability, and seamless integration, meeting diverse organizational demands and high-performance standards.
Sentiment score
8.5
Sophos UTM scales well with proper sizing, enabling easy expansion in various environments from small setups to large networks.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable, and I give it a nine for scalability.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly reliable, stable, and efficient, excelling in large-scale deployments and seamless cloud integration.
Sentiment score
8.3
Sophos UTM is stable and reliable, with minimal issues, though updates can occasionally cause temporary problems.
 

Room For Improvement

Palo Alto Networks WildFire needs improvements in cost, user interface, ease of deployment, integration, detection capabilities, and support efficiency.
Sophos UTM users seek improved scalability, performance, VPN capabilities, interface usability, cost transparency, support, and simplified management features.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
The support could be improved, as it takes a while to get assistance from the vendors.
I would love to see artificial intelligence capabilities integrated into Sophos UTM.
With artificial intelligence, there is room for improvement in all antivirus and security software.
 

Setup Cost

Palo Alto Networks WildFire is valued for advanced security despite high costs, preferred by enterprises but challenging for smaller firms.
Sophos UTM offers competitive pricing with varied licensing options, though some users find it costly compared to alternatives.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
Pricing has become expensive recently due to the dollar hike and naira value changes in Nigeria.
The value between what I receive and what I pay is the best in the industry.
 

Valuable Features

WildFire offers sandboxing, App-ID, and automation, excelling in threat detection with real-time updates and seamless integration.
Sophos UTM provides scalable security with web protection, VPN, centralized management, and integration, suitable for all business sizes.
Integrating Palo Alto Networks WildFire with various security protocols similar to a firewall has significantly improved the overall threat detection capabilities in our organization.
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
The zero-day protection and firewall rules are some of the most effective features for threat management.
This integration of the antivirus and the firewall works together to enhance security.
 

Categories and Ranking

Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd)
Sophos UTM
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (4th)
 

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 12.3%, up 12.4% compared to last year.
Sophos UTM, on the other hand, focuses on Unified Threat Management (UTM), holds 14.5% mindshare, up 13.6% since last year.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
Samaila Yusuf - PeerSpot reviewer
Network protection strengthens through effective threat management features and secure access control
The zero-day protection and firewall rules are some of the most effective features for threat management. I can set the rules and features, and also use IPsec to connect all my on-premises servers and link them to Sophos UTM so that they are protected even when in the cloud. Additionally, I use it to control access into the building through a captive portal integrated across all the PCs we have, ensuring secure access only for authenticated users.
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Comparison Review

it_user216600 - PeerSpot reviewer
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
16%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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?
The value between what I receive and what I pay is the best in the industry.
 

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 Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: May 2025.
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