User Reviews of

Fortinet FortiGate and

Sophos UTM
A Peek Into What Real Users Think

January 2018
Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

Contents

Overview 3

Top Review by Topic of Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM 4-6

Vendor Directory 7

Top Firewalls Vendors, Weighted 8-9

Top 5 Solutions by Ranking Factor 10

About This Report and IT Central Station 11

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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

Overview
SOLUTION Fortinet FortiGate Sophos UTM

OVERVIEW The FortiGate family of NG firewalls provides The global network of highly skilled researchers
proven protection with unmatched performance and analysts, protecting businesses from known
across the network, from internal segments, to and emerging malware - viruses, rootkits and
data centers, to cloud environments. FortiGates spyware.
are available in a large range of sizes and form
factors and are key components of the Fortinet
Security Fabric, which enables immediate,
intelligent defense against known and new threats
throughout the entire network.

SAMPLE Pittsburgh Steelers, LUSH Cosmetics, NASDAQ, One Housing Group

CUSTOMERS
Verizon, Arizona State University, Levi Strauss &
Co.

Whitepaper and case studies here

TOP Cisco ASA vs. Fortinet FortiGate Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos UTM
COMPARISONS Compared 19% of the time Compared 25% of the time

Sophos UTM vs. Fortinet FortiGate pfSense vs. Sophos UTM

Compared 13% of the time Compared 20% of the time

Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs. Fortinet FortiGate Cisco ASA vs. Sophos UTM
Compared 13% of the time Compared 8% of the time

TOP INDUSTRIES, Manufacturing Company ... 7% Non Tech Company ... 7%

BASED ON Government ... 8% Retailer ... 8%
REVIEWERS*
Comms Service Provider ... 11% Comms Service Provider ... 8%
Financial Services Firm ... 16% Financial Services Firm ... 8%
TOP INDUSTRIES, K 12 Educational Company Or School ... 6% Software R&D Company ... 14%
BASED ON Comms Service Provider ... 13% Retailer ... 14%
COMPANIES
READING REVIEWS* Healthcare Company ... 13% Religious Institution ... 14%
Energy/Utilities Company ... 13% Comms Service Provider ... 29%
COMPANY SIZE, 1-200 Employees ... 29% 1001+ Employees ... 15%
BASED ON 1001+ Employees ... 32% 201-1000 Employees ... 39%
REVIEWERS*
201-1000 Employees ... 40% 1-200 Employees ... 46%
COMPANY SIZE, 1-200 Employees ... 42% 1-200 Employees ... 72%
BASED ON 201-1000 Employees ... 37% 201-1000 Employees ... 17%
COMPANIES
READING REVIEWS* 1001+ Employees ... 21% 1001+ Employees ... 11%

* Data is based on the aggregate profiles of IT Central Station Users researching this solution.

© 2018 IT Central Station

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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM
Top Reviews by Topic
SOLUTION Fortinet FortiGate
VALUABLE
FEATURES Roberto Garcia Hernandez
The UTM (application control) features have been
very important, because they have solved many
issues that other firewall providers have not
developed as Fortinet has. A clear example of this
feature advantages is blocking and allowing the
Google suite. For example, without UTM, we
would not have been able to execute some
customer requirements like this one: A customer
asked us that some host on their LAN is going to
be assigned to be a POS workstation. They
needed that workstation to have permi... [Full
Review]
Simon Chaba
You can create multiple virtual domains (VDOMs)
which are treated as separate firewall instances.
The reporting you get out of this appliance is
excellent and you don't need an external
management system. [Full Review]
reviewer32902
* The prompt and knowledgeable support behind
them. * Their reliability and their policy of pre-
shipping replacements when a unit has failed. *
The simplicity and clarity of their user interface
and documentation. * Their 'cookbooks' that walk
you through the most common installation
scenarios. [Full Review]
© 2018 IT Central Station
To read more reviews please visit https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/fortinet-fortigate_vs_sophos-utm?tid=pdf_comp_19293-20215
Sophos UTM
EtienneLiebetrau
The UTM/SG platform starts off with the basic
functionality of being a good Firewall, adding the
additional modules opens up the products set and
allows for full web filtering and application control,
reverse proxy, APT detection, IPS, VPNs, User
portal etc. The licensing model works very nicely
to allow you to get the right protection at the right
price point for the right deployment size. In the
increasingly cloud focused word the Sophos
UTM’s ability to deliver Safe web access, Web
Filter and... [Full Review]
Juan C. Sanchez Pignalosa
The web filter and the ATP (Advanced Threat
Protection) are great and easy to manage, and the
integrated WAF (Web Application Firewall) allows
the administrator to seamlessly protect HTTP/S
services without having to pay thousands of
dollars. The just introduced Sandstorm system for
protection, is awesome as well. [Full Review]
Dragan Pavlovski
All the features are valuable. * Web protection:
Allows me to control unnecessary web traffic into
the company network. * Email protection: Protects
the company from spam and malicious emails. *
RED and VPN: Provides an easy and secure way
to connect branch offices so I can easily control
them. * WAF and DMZ: Provides an easy and very
secure way to publish your internal servers.
Enables you to have more than one WAN and to
use them for load balancing and controlling the
traffic through them. [Full Review]
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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM
Top Reviews by Topic
SOLUTION Fortinet FortiGate
IMPROVEMENTS
TO MY Simon Chaba
ORGANIZATION
There is no need to buy physical firewall hardware
when you are hosting multiple customers requiring
individual secure access to their FW. You just
create virtual domains (VDOMs). [Full Review]
reviewer32902
I am a one-man show, so there is not much that
can be done to improve the way that I function.
However, these products provide best-in-class
security at reasonable prices. One of the most
helpful features is their VPN, the client could not
be any simpler to set up and use. [Full Review]
Chingiz Abdukarimov
Better manageability. Outstanding reporting tools
when coupled with FortiAnalyzer (Fortinet's log
collector and reporting tool). Better security
posture. [Full Review]
© 2018 IT Central Station
To read more reviews please visit https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/fortinet-fortigate_vs_sophos-utm?tid=pdf_comp_19293-20215
Sophos UTM
Ayodele Mumuni
* It has allowed us to have one solution for our
AWS ( /products/amazon-aws ) needs. * It allows
our developers to be able to securely log into
servers to deploy and manage software. * It has
allowed us to design a bespoke cloud space for
our clients, while still having an excellent level of
protection. [Full Review]
EtienneLiebetrau
The Sophos UTM planform has allowed us to
improve or implement the following security
practices: * Details Web filtering and user access
Control * SaaS QoS * Network segmentation with
firewall and IPS * WiFi protection * Web
Application Proxy everywhere, inside and out *
WAN expansion with SSL VPN and IPsec VPN
over the Internet * Two Factor Authentication
requirement for PCI compliance * Reduced the
need for expensive MPLS deployments [Full
Review]
Juan C. Sanchez Pignalosa
Our datacenter cloud services such as email, and
web services for internal and external use, had to
be protected with different systems and the web
services where left really unprotected, since we
used an standard IPS/IDS to protect ourselves
from web attacks (from the outside) which
nowadays are really sophisticated. Also, we had to
employ many work hours to have a protected,
standardized network. With Sophos EndPoint and
Sophos UTM, we simplified and also protected our
network at the same time... [Full Review]
5
Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM
Top Reviews by Topic
SOLUTION Fortinet FortiGate
ROOM FOR
IMPROVEMENT Roberto Garcia Hernandez
They could improve performance with all the UTM
features working. Sometimes, we have seen that
when you enable the antivirus sensor, customers
report slow web browsing. We know this is normal,
but we would like to know if it is possible to make
feel the customer their web browsing is fast with
not as much delay. The antivirus sensor analyzes
all the protocols and packets we specified, and
this is an important performance affectation. In my
personal point of view, I don’t think it is a serious
is... [Full Review]
Simon Chaba
1. sFlow and Netflow I could not configure sFlow
from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I
realized that sFlow configuration is available only
from the CLI. Only to discover that sFlow is not
supported on virtual interfaces such as vdom link,
ipsec,or gre. NetFlow is a network protocol
developed by Cisco for collecting IP traffic
information and monitoring network traffic. I was
just mentioning that it is not supported on
FortiGate for those who have NetFlow
analyzer/collector already setup... [Full Review]
NetworkEng896
Better documentation about usage of the CLI. I
learned most of what I know in diagnostic
functionality through saving SSH sessions with the
customer support staff while in WebEx sessions. I
have tried looking up the manuals. They are OK in
some respects, but I feel exhaustive
documentation about the CLI "with examples"
should be there, and I feel it's not. I'm saying, hey
lets consolidate some of the primary real world
scenarios like: Section A: - Troubeshooting B2B
VPN peering with a business p... [Full Review]
© 2018 IT Central Station
To read more reviews please visit https://www.itcentralstation.com/products/comparisons/fortinet-fortigate_vs_sophos-utm?tid=pdf_comp_19293-20215
Sophos UTM
Ayodele Mumuni
You (currently) need to buy the Sophos software
per availability, zone, and per VPC. It should offer
an account-based solution. When you buy a
Sophos license, you have to buy a license for each
location. We have clients in the US. We have
clients in Ireland. We have clients in the UK. With
GD-PI coming, the clients' data needs to stay in-
house, so when you buy the Sophos license, it
only works for the UK. Then, you have to buy
another in the USA and another one in Ireland,
then you have to have ... [Full Review]
EtienneLiebetrau
At Enterprise level the SUM (UTM Manager) needs
to be updated to reflect all of the capabilities At
the Reporting level for user internet browsing the
On-box Reporting is very basic and even adding
the Sophos iView only give you limited
improvement. Having said that, Fastvue’s Sophos
Reporter provides all of this and more and
integrates seamlessly with the UTM platform to
unlock all of the log data’s value. The SG platform
does however not scale to a large enterprise
deployment. You can deploy a... [Full Review]
Juan C. Sanchez Pignalosa
Sophos UTM has many improvements that I would
suggest, but the main one is for the Application
Control to be managed with users as well, and
with timeframes (schedules) for the administrator
to allow certain apps outside an specific
timeframe, or vice versa. [Full Review]
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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

Vendor Directory
Hewlett Packard 3Com H3C Firewall Juniper Juniper SRX
Enterprise
GFI Kerio Control
A10 Networks A10 Networks Thunder CFW
Cisco Meraki MX Firewalls
Barracuda Networks Barracuda Networks NG Firewall
NetFortris NetFortris Hosted Firewall
Check Point Check Point Power-1
NetFortris NetFortris Threat Analyzer
Check Point Check Point UTM-1
OPNsense OPNsense
Check Point Check Point VPN-1
Palo Alto Networks Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Check Point Check Point VSX
Palo Alto Networks Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Cisco Cisco ASA
pfSense pfSense
Cisco Cisco ASAv
SonicWall SonicWall NSA
Cisco Cisco FirePower NGFW
SonicWall SonicWall TZ
Cisco Cisco Sourcefire Firewalls
Sophos Sophos Cyberoam UTM
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Sophos Sophos UTM
Fortinet Fortinet FortiGate
Sophos Sophos XG
Hillstone Networks Hillstone CloudEdge
Stormshield Stormshield Network Security
Hillstone Networks Hillstone E-Series
Trustwave Trustwave Firewalls
Hillstone Networks Hillstone T-Series
Untangle Untangle NG Firewall
Hillstone Networks Hillstone X-Series Data Center Firewalls
WatchGuard WatchGuard XTM
Intel Security Intel Security Firewall Enterprise MFE
Zscaler Zscaler Web Security
Intel Security Intel Security StoneGate

Juniper Juniper NetScreen [EOL]

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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

Top Firewalls Vendors, Weighted

Over professionals have used IT Central Station research. Here are the top vendors based on product reviews, ratings, and comparisons.
All reviews and ratings are from real users, validated by our triple authentication process.

Chart Key

Views Comparisons Reviews Followers Average Rating

Number of views Number of times compared Total number of reviews on Number of followers on IT Average rating based on
to another product IT Central Station Central Station reviews

Bar length
The total ranking of a product (i.e. bar length) is based on a weighted aggregate ranking of that product's Views (weighting factor = 17.5%),
Comparisons (17.5%), Reviews (17.5%), Followers (17.5%), and Average Rating (30%). Reviews and ratings by resellers are excluded from the
rankings. For each ranking factor, the score (i.e. bar segment length) is calculated as a product of the weighting factor and its position for that
ranking factor. For example, if a product has 80% of the number of reviews compared to the product with the most reviews in its category, then
the product's bar length for reviews would be 17.5% (weighting factor) * 80%.

1 Fortinet FortiGate

161,340 views 114,796 comparisons 20 reviews 5,981 followers 8.2 average rating

2 Cisco ASA

88,580 views 66,006 comparisons 38 reviews 5,849 followers 8.0 average rating

3 Sophos UTM

79,307 views 55,455 comparisons 13 reviews 3,069 followers 8.6 average rating

4 pfSense

58,460 views 43,070 comparisons 14 reviews 3,743 followers 8.6 average rating

5 Palo Alto Networks WildFire

66,608 views 51,872 comparisons 6 reviews 4,765 followers 9.3 average rating

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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

6 Sophos Cyberoam UTM

30,540 views 24,253 comparisons 13 reviews 2,893 followers 8.1 average rating

7 SonicWall TZ

31,423 views 26,030 comparisons 5 reviews 1,622 followers 8.2 average rating

8 Meraki MX Firewalls

26,977 views 19,972 comparisons 5 reviews 862 followers 9.4 average rating

9 WatchGuard XTM

31,154 views 24,138 comparisons 7 reviews 796 followers 7.7 average rating

10 Juniper SRX

23,917 views 19,802 comparisons 6 reviews 743 followers 7.8 average rating

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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

Top 5 Solutions by Ranking Factor

Views

SOLUTION VIEWS

1 Fortinet FortiGate 161,340

2 Cisco ASA 88,580

3 Sophos UTM 79,307

4 Palo Alto Networks WildFire 66,608

5 pfSense 58,460

Reviews

SOLUTION REVIEWS

1 Cisco ASA 38

2 Fortinet FortiGate 20

3 pfSense 14

4 Sophos Cyberoam UTM 13

5 Sophos UTM 13

Followers

SOLUTION FOLLOWERS

1 Fortinet FortiGate 5,981

2 Cisco ASA 5,849

3 Palo Alto Networks WildFire 4,765

4 pfSense 3,743

5 Sophos UTM 3,069

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Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos UTM

About this report

This report is comprised of a list of enterprise level vendors. We have also included several real user reviews posted on ITCentralStation.com.
The reviewers of these products have been validated as real users based on their LinkedIn profiles to ensure that they provide reliable opinions
and not those of product vendors.

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