Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall vs Sophos UTM comparison

Arista and Sophos are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 100% of Arista users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of Sophos users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall and Sophos UTM based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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May 2026

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Featured Reviews

Joseph Koomson

IP Network Security Specialist at MTN Ghana

Process-Level CPU Visibility: Introduce detailed CPU-usage metrics per subsystem (e.g., IPS engine, logging) so administrators can quickly identify and address performance spikes.

Analytics with FortiAnalyzer. Being able to pull in logs not just from our FortiGates but from all our other firewalls and then get them in one view has been a game changer. Whether I’m building an executive dashboard or doing a deep dive forensics session, I get everything I need without navigating consoles.Straightforward Application Control. FortiGate spots and blocks unwanted apps (eq. like BitTorrent or streaming services) with accuracy. Segmentation with VDOMs. We’ve carved our data center into four logical ‘mini-firewalls’ enterprise, core, billing, and WAF—all on one box. Each has its own rules and logs, and any traffic between them still gets inspected. It’s like having multiple appliances without the extra hardware. Always-Up-to-Date Threat Feeds. Daily signature updates and AI-driven threat sensing mean we’re blocking the latest vulnerabilities almost as soon as they’re announced.

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TarunKumar11

Global Leadership Council at a tech company with 10,001+ employees

Secure internet access has reduced threats and simplifies firewall management for distributed teams

Threat detection needs improvement; Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall should follow Alto and Fortinet. One limitation that I've seen is AI-driven automation which needs to vastly improve. It has fewer third-party integrations, and therefore the adoption amongst very large enterprises is less; it's largely with the SMBs. Customer support can be improved. It's a smaller global footprint that Arista provides, with fewer certified partners in some regions and limited 24/7 support for premium vendors. I've categorically mentioned that it has sophisticated threat detection capabilities but they can be bettered. AI-driven automation can be improved, and therefore, I think the adoption with large enterprises can be much better. I think the current AI capabilities of Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall are a bit limited compared to other vendors. It primarily relies on threat intelligence feeds, signature-based detection, and reputation services. Currently, I would rate its AI capabilities as probably a seven out of ten because it does not provide for extensive GenAI or advanced ML-driven autonomous capabilities like some of its competitors. Threat intelligence aspects can be further improved, and I think there's a lot that the product can do with respect to the usage of AI. AI-driven automation and threat detection can vastly improve. I don't think they were purchased through AWS Marketplace. The adoption has to increase amongst large customers, and threat intelligence needs to improve for many customers to adopt, enhancing the security ecosystem that is relatively small.

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Bashir Bashir

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most important features with FortiGate are the web filter and application controls, as we can control our internet usage and use the web filter for application purposes."

"It performs very well."

"The solution has a very good set of rules, the customization potential is quite impressive, it can be customized based on our licensing contracts, the initial setup was pretty simple, technical support is rather helpful, we find the stability to be pretty good, and we find the pricing to be fairly good."

"The solution can scale."

"Run Script is the best tool to use in Fortinet FortiGate with multiple environments."

"Fortinet provides us all that we need for security."

"The solution effectively controls browsing traffic."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is better than Cisco, Check Point, and Palo Alto."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall has positively impacted my organization by reducing botnet attacks."

"Phish Blocker is a valuable feature."

"I would say that if you're a small and medium enterprise or an education institution and you have a distributed organization looking for a cost-effective and easy-to-manage next-generation firewall solution with fairly good security, VPN, filtering, and centralized management, then Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall is an excellent choice."

"The product's initial setup phase is easy."

"UTM 9 brings along IPSec as well as iPhone and iPad support. This seems small but it’s useful."

"What I like about Sophos UTM is that it improves my company's security. The solution is easy to set up, which I like, and it's very stable."

"Other than that, Sophos offers a full replacement for TMG on UTM9."

"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."

"I can share specific outcomes regarding Sophos UTM; we've seen reduced costs certainly, and we've also seen time saved, definitely, because we streamlined all our clients into using Sophos UTM if they want to have their on-premise infrastructure monitored, and that really saves a ton of time."

"It has made our organization more secure, because we are using a VPN. We are not accessing services directly. It allows us to segregate some of the traffic for individuals which may be more of a developer role rather than an operational role needing access to developer resources, but not necessarily production operational resources."

"It's a stable solution."

"A nice UTM appliance with a good GUI and reports."

More Sophos UTM pros

Cons

"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."

"The product's data guard feature should support a USB port when the internet connection is unavailable."

"The area that Fortinet may improve is customer support."

"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."

"What could be improved in Fortinet FortiGate SWG is its pricing because it's a bit higher."

"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."

"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already a configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."

"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The documentation is not clear."

"The product has a lot to improve in the area of policy implementation."

"Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall can be improved, particularly the user interface, which is not very good, and also the logs, which are not very good."

"Threat detection needs improvement; Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall should follow Alto and Fortinet."

"In short, the UI and UX are the areas of improvement in Sophos UTM and similar solutions compared to Palo Alto."

"Initially, there were problems of wireless access points not getting detected and lease lines were getting disconnected after one hour."

"The initial setup is very, very difficult. When I installed the new Sophos and tried to restore the backups, the restore process did not work."

"If you enable the intrusion prevention option in the firewall any Wordpress deployments on a Plesk server behind the firewall slows down to a crawl, and there is no fix yet."

"The ease of configuration could be improved. It's not as simple as it could be just yet."

"It is a little too CPU resource intensive, so we would like to see improvements there."

"I don't really have any notes for improvements."

"The price is an issue to consider for improvement."

More Sophos UTM cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing for Fortinet FortiGate SWG is more suitable for enterprise or large-sized organizations because they are the ones who can afford it versus small and medium-sized organizations."

"Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls."

"For our organization, the licensing costs are approximately $7,000 per year."

"The price is highly competitive when compared to other brands that offer similar functionality."

"The license is too expensive to renew. The license renewal process is also complex."

"The pricing is very reasonable."

"It could be more competitive and cost-effective."

"I pay €1,200 per year for the license along with Fortinet's 81E firewall appliance. I would rate this pricing as 3/5 stars, and I believe the price is reasonably similar to its competitors in the market, being somewhere in the middle."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"I consider it an averagely-priced tool."

"The tool is quite cheap."

"Go to a vendor and let them assess your needs so you can get a right-sized device."

"I would recommend to follow Sophos’ sizing guidelines for choosing which license and model to use. Sophos has their own way of going about this and supplies partners with all the information required. If you follow their documentation and guidelines, there should be zero questions about licensing and sizing."

"The solution is very low cost compared to competitors. You have a good firewall, a lot of functions for less than the price of some omni firewall competitors."

"The AWS Marketplace product should be a better fit, but it is a little pricier."

"Unless you are in the United States, or you have to use Sophos, you can't contact Sophos directly. You have to use a third-party company, and they all have different ways of how they explain their licensing."

"The price of the solution is high. The price from USD to my currency is expensive."

"It's reasonably priced."

"Although Sophos UTM is a good product, other products have more flexibility with their pricing. It is a very fine product, but when someone wants more relaxed pricing or more leverage in pricing, Sophos is more rigid."

More Sophos UTM pricing and cost advice

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Comparison Review

it_user216600

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…

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Comms Service Provider

10%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

36%

Comms Service Provider

Healthcare Company

Real Estate/Law Firm

Construction Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	369
Midsize Enterprise	139
Large Enterprise	195

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	75
Midsize Enterprise	28
Large Enterprise	27

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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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 ...

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What needs improvement with Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall?

Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall can be improved, particularly the user interface, which is not very good, a...

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What advice do you have for others considering Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall?

My advice to others looking into using Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall is that it is effective and accompli...

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What is your primary use case for Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall?

My main use case for Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall is as a perimeter firewall. I use it as a perimeter fi...

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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...

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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 ...

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What is your primary use case for Sophos UTM?

Sophos UTM is the primary product I work with, specifically the firewalls. I mainly use the application control featu...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 16% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 1% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

OPNsense vs Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall

Compared 24% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall

Compared 21% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force vs Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

More Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall Competitors

OPNsense vs Sophos UTM

Compared 9% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Sophos UTM

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Sophos UTM

Compared 5% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs Sophos UTM

Compared 5% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Sophos UTM

Compared 5% of the time

More Sophos UTM Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

June 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

May 2026

Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall report

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Buyer's Guide

Sophos UTM

May 2026

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Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

No data available

Astaro

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall enhances network security by managing threats, providing VPN connectivity, and monitoring network traffic. It simplifies network management and ensures compliance with policies, offering features like load balancing and network reliability.

Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall is known for its robust security, straightforward deployment, and extensive features. It boasts reliable threat detection, flexible policy management, and scalability, catering to different network sizes. Users appreciate the streamlined management console, consistent performance in threat mitigation, and content filtering capabilities. However, customer support response time needs improvement, and software updates sometimes cause issues. The solution has a steep learning curve and requires more intuitive setup processes. Users find the troubleshooting documentation unclear and the reporting features limited, desiring more comprehensive and customizable options.

What are the key features?

Robust Security: Reliable threat detection and content filtering.
Easy Deployment: Straightforward setup process.
Flexible Policy Management: Adaptable to different requirements.
Scalability: Suitable for varying network sizes.
Streamlined Management Console: Simplifies network management.
Consistent Performance: Efficient threat mitigation.

What are the benefits and ROI?

Enhanced Cybersecurity: Blocks malicious activity and ensures compliance.
Simplified Network Management: Eases the complexity of managing networks.
Improved Network Reliability: Ensures dependable performance.
Efficient Deployment: Reduces setup time and effort.
Comprehensive Threat Protection: Monitors and addresses potential threats.

Arista Edge Threat Management NG Firewall is widely adopted in industries requiring stringent network security and efficient management, including finance, healthcare, and education. Organizations use it for load balancing, ensuring network reliability, and maintaining compliance with strict security standards. Its ability to manage policies and scale according to different network sizes makes it a versatile tool for businesses with complex security demands.

Arista

Sophos UTM delivers comprehensive network security with features like firewall, intrusion prevention, and endpoint protection. Its user-friendly interface and scalable options make it ideal for businesses of varying sizes, ensuring seamless integration with AWS, cloud services, and other Sophos offerings.

With robust Advanced Threat Protection, Sophos UTM offers a holistic approach to security through its intuitive platform. It includes a centralized console for enhanced threat visibility, integrated web application firewall, and secure remote access via SSL VPN and RED device. Critiques focus on limited reporting capabilities, complex licensing, and requiring improvements in VPN and email protection, centralized management, and application control.

What are the key features of Sophos UTM?

Advanced Threat Protection: Protects against sophisticated attacks by integrating multiple security technologies.
Firewall and Web Protection: Provides core security measures with intrusion prevention and application control.
Integrated WAF: Shields applications from vulnerabilities, ensuring secure user interactions.
Scalable Deployment: Supports diverse setups from small businesses to large enterprises, including cloud integrations.

What benefits should users expect from Sophos UTM?

Unified Management: Simplifies security operations through a single management console for cohesive control.
Secure Remote Access: Extends network security to remote users without compromising protection quality.
Cost Efficiency: Offers scalable, cost-effective security solutions to adapt to growing business needs.

Sophos UTM sees implementations in industries needing strong perimeter protection and secure remote access, such as finance, healthcare, and education. It supports seamless network integration, ensuring businesses maintain compliance and safeguard their digital environments effectively.

Sophos

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Information Not Available

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Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Sophos and others in Firewalls. Updated: May 2026.

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