No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Sangfor NGAF 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

Sangfor NGAF
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (21st)
Sophos UTM
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
 

Featured Reviews

Zaid Farooqui - PeerSpot reviewer
CIO at Indus Motor Company
Enhanced threat detection with integrated security features and good support
We are using application firewalling, WAF, and SD-WAN. The capabilities are mostly within the box. For example, you will get web application firewall WAF as part and parcel of this. SD-WAN is also bundled. It integrates with their SIEM and SOAR solutions very nicely. Lastly, the pricing point is very cost-efficient as well.
Bashir Bashir - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Vegol
Firewall management has become simpler and now provides real-time visibility and bandwidth control
The features I have found most valuable in Sophos UTM are that it is much easier to configure, I appreciate the reporting side of it, and the rules are very straightforward to work with. Sophos UTM's real-time insights into network health help my organization because I get real-time reports on what is happening on my network, what is trying to access me, the destination, and all that. I can then be reactive or proactive, and for zero-day, I think it is beneficial because it can learn what my network does. If anything goes outside what it expects, it sends a report on Sophos Central, so I find zero-day makes my work a bit easier. The use of Sophos UTM's intuitive management console has impacted my security policy enforcement in that it is much easier to configure; I configure with information rather than with presumptions.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"In terms of the most valuable features, the IPS report is quick and updated, and performance is also valuable."
"This product is very user-friendly, and its Layer 7 security is very much improved."
"Sangfor NGAF specializes in ransomware detection and helps to protect our network from ransomware threats and malware."
"The built-in features function as intended, providing exceptional value."
"The most valuable features are the WAN optimization, the internet access gateway (IAG), and the central console, which allows us to implement on their firewall."
"I think the tool has the feature to detect and kill ransomware in three seconds."
"Sangfor serves most of the basic purposes of a firewall, is particularly good in the DPI where we can inspect the inbound and outbound traffic on a very granular level, gives a very good predictive measure as well as the current measure of things going on in our network, and gives us value for money overall."
"I think this solution is a very good example of a proactive solution that can detect problems and immediately fix the problems or issues."
"The zero-day protection and firewall rules are some of the most effective features for threat management."
"It now controls all the security aspects of our web servers with Sophos UTM WAF.​"
"I definitely recommend Sophos. I rate it a nine out of ten."
"The firewall itself is very strong and provides great security."
"All of Sophos UTM's features are valuable."
"This is a very good security solution for SMB, so this solution is a good fit for many of our customers."
"It's an easy solution to learn because the graphics are very intuitive."
"The solution is stable."
 

Cons

"The support offered by the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required. The knowledge levels and response time of the support team need improvement."
"It would be ideal if the solution offered SD-WAN capabilities."
"It has an issue with the Sangfor Cloud Platform rather than the firewall. When we run a virtual machine, the window tabs display Chinese characters."
"The tool is expensive."
"The interface and user experience are horrible."
"The support for YouTube or the Internet is not enough."
"I think the GUI needs to be improved, there are a lot of areas where the panes do not make sense."
"The web interface needs to be improved, making it more user-friendly."
"There is still room for improvement in wireless protection. I don't mean their WiFi device is bad, but there are still things to improve on, such as WiFi roaming."
"I would like to see Sophos UTM add support for all the new threat-detection technologies and the ability to respond to novel security threats that come along every day."
"The Sophos UTM Internal DB sometimes has problems which affect its scalability."
"I think that additional metrics features are needed to be able to monitor other areas or to monitor as much as you can, at a fine-grain resolution."
"Finding information about Sophos’ sizing guidelines can actually be difficult. Also, Sophos does not make it clear what they mean by “users” when you are sizing a firewall, which then leads to undersized implementations.​"
"There needs to be some improvement in the IPsec VPN. There is implementation only support. I have version one. I'd be most interested in having IP version two from the protocol."
"SUM cannot manage app control Improve app control system as a whole Extend support for SG until XG has improved significantly."
"During initial configuration, I encountered a few issues."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It costs about 8 to 10 thousand dollars per year for 500 users, standard licensing fees included."
"The price falls in the mid-range, neither exceptionally low nor high."
"The price is unmatcheable."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution has a TCO that is 32% to 50% less than Sophos, Fortinet, and SonicWall."
"It is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"I rate the product price as one on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as three out of ten."
"I have no problem with the cost or licensing of this solution. This is a primary reason whay I wanted this solution. It does the same thing cheaper than other name brands."
"The pricing for Sophos UTM is quite acceptable compared to other UTM vendors."
"We pay for the service on a yearly basis. The last time we paid was in June, for a year. At the time, it was about $20,000."
"For under 50 users, MSP licensing is profitable."
"The price is comparable to other products of this kind."
"The product pricing and licensing are higher, but they offer good value for the features and stability provided."
"The pricing and licensing are both good and better than Sophos's competitors. This is why we went with the product."
"If you can afford it, go for a small Check Point, as it is easier to manage."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

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
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor NGAF?
The licensing cost is quite high compared to other available firewalls in the market.
What needs improvement with Sangfor NGAF?
The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardware scalability, allowing for more storage and memory capacity. Making the soluti...
What is your primary use case for Sangfor NGAF?
We are hosting applications over the platform, including websites and NAT traffic from our side. Because it's deployed in our data center, which is fully operational, we have various applications h...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos UTM?
The pricing for Sophos UTM is reasonable; I do not have an issue with it, though I was considering RED because I have different sites I wanted to connect, and instead of doing site-to-site, the RED...
What needs improvement with Sophos UTM?
I would like to improve Sophos UTM in that there is software I use that goes deeper in the reporting on usage. There is software called Fastvue that breaks down everything in the firewall and whate...
 

Also Known As

Sangfor NGAF Firewall Platform
Astaro
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
One Housing Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: May 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.