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Sophos UTM vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

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

Sophos UTM
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
119
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
12th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category, the mindshare of Sophos UTM is 9.4%, up from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is 3.7%, up from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Threat Management (UTM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos UTM9.4%
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway3.7%
Other86.9%
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Efficient and effective - it's easy to separate rules."
"Monitoring and reporting are areas that need improvement."
"Sophos UTM is a comprehensive product that does the job that it should."
"Other than that, Sophos offers a full replacement for TMG on UTM9."
"The product has a shallow and a deep end, getting a small business/SoHo running up quickly and reliably is straight forward, but the deep end takes some technical skills, just like any solution."
"What I like about the solution is the ease of use."
"Scaling out cannot be easier, as there are many migration paths."
"It meets our compliance needs in an elastic computer environment."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"The solution can scale well."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The cost is very low."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
 

Cons

"The lack of import/export functions for network and service options drives me mad."
"When we call support, we get put on hold for a long time."
"I would like to see the SD-WAN feature improved."
"While the product was originally with Astaro the low end (1xx) units had serious reliability issues and support was extremely challenging to engage with."
"Only thing we have noticed as of late was that their firmware updates break something else that was working in a previous version."
"It's stable, but the reaction time of the GUI is terrible."
"It is a little too CPU resource intensive, so we would like to see improvements there."
"The initial setup may be difficult for those not familiar with the product."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."
"I have never seen it in any company that I've worked with before, and I would advise other companies not to buy it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"This product is free for home users. The more expensive products have better performance."
"The pricing for Sophos UTM is quite acceptable compared to other UTM vendors."
"Pricing for the upgrade was very competitive as Sophos wanted to retain existing customers."
"Our licensing fees are paid on a monthly basis."
"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."
"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."
"There is a license for the device and for the software. We pay annually for the solution and the cost is competitive."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
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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
Comms Service Provider
11%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
19%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise27
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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...
What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done comparisons with other solutions. When our license expires, we plan to explore ope...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm looking for something new that is slightly simpler. Regarding user experience, the...
 

Also Known As

Astaro
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

One Housing Group
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sophos UTM vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.