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Hillstone CloudEdge vs Sophos UTM comparison

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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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
591
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Hillstone CloudEdge
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (50th)
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

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at a consultancy with 51-200 employees
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies
Comprehensive cloud security with robust threat protection and VPN capabilities
Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. This solution has a unified OS system for security products, ensuring that the virtual firewall has similar features to the on-premise solutions. Important features include a VPN, VTech VPN, SSL VPN, QoS, antivirus, threat protection, and sandbox capabilities.
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

"The biggest lesson would be that Fortinet FortiGate provides a high level of security at a good total cost of ownership."
"Overall, this is a very good solution and I personally haven't had any problems with it."
"Fortinet firewalls are a great new generation firewall."
"Fortinet has a product that can cater to any area of the security market."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"The license management is very valuable; you can get a new license each year or enroll every two to four years, get the logs, and receive information on the risk in your network and the entire organization so you can take action on your assets, computers, or devices."
"FortiGate is a rapidly growing vendor with a wide range of ready-to-use products. Their delivery time is remarkably quick, usually between two to four weeks."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"The solution is very easy to download and configure. The initial setup was very easy. The technical support is very good."
"I would recommend this product to any business that wants to protect its cloud environment, cloud server, or on-premises virtual servers."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
"I'd rate the solution nine out of ten."
"Considering the price and quality of the product, Sophos UTM is the best solution."
"Sophos has an aggressive 360-degree security deployment; they are securing your mobile phone and data, both data security and also device security, and the coverages they offer makes them robust, letting you start from somewhere, such as their device management solution or their firewall, and then seamlessly scale up with other features."
"Protected it against malware and allowed us to serve our servers safely."
"I would recommend Sophos, it is easy besides for the five-factor authentication."
"It is a very good product. The threat monitoring process is the most valuable feature."
"This solution improved our firewall capability, and we installed an identity process that is extremely helpful."
"If you'd like to look into a system which is very robust and hardcore, then select Sophos UTM."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the firewall application and application control."
 

Cons

"Their support can be better, and there should be better policies for immediate replacement in critical situations."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."
"There could be more modifications."
"There was a hardware limitation, affecting scalability."
"It should be more stable."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"Flexibility in pricing could be improved. It's more rigid in its pricing compared to its competitor: Kaspersky."
"For the AWS version, it was atrocious. There is absolutely no support when using AWS."
"The five-factor authentication needs improvement."
"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 a specific timeframe, or vice versa."
"The functionality is not granular enough to monitor or identify issues effectively."
"Technical support used to be good but it's lagging a bit now. Support staff was better trained and more efficient than they are now."
"Doesn't provide antivirus for individual computers."
"Initially, there were problems of wireless access points not getting detected and lease lines were getting disconnected after one hour."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate could improve, it is expensive."
"There is a license required to use Fortinet FortiGate with all the features. It has to be updated with the threats on an ongoing basis for the signatures to prevent threats and a license is needed to receive those security updates."
"If you purchase a one-year subscription with the hardware and then you want to renew for the second year, it is very costly."
"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."
"The pricing is better compared to other solutions like Check Point, Arista, or Cisco."
"The price is high compared to some of the other solutions."
"If you compare the price of Fortinet FortiGate IPS to other firewalls, Check Point is priced very high followed by Palo Alto and Sophos. Fortinet FortiGate IPS price is more reasonable."
"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."
Information not available
"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."
"Sophos UTM has very reasonable pricing."
"Compared to the current market offerings, like FortiGate or SonicWall, Sophos offers its solution at a good price."
"This product is free for home users. The more expensive products have better performance."
"It is necessary to pay for a licence to use the solution, but it is not very expensive."
"For under 50 users, MSP licensing is profitable."
"Pricing for Sophos UTM is OK. Here in Egypt, many companies use the solution because of its price and features. My company pays the Sophos UTM license fee yearly."
"​In the case of a software/virtual appliance subscription, you pay by protecting user/IP addresses. You can do this to as much hardware resources as you like.​​"
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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
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business368
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise193
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise27
 

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...
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...
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 ...
What needs improvement with Hillstone CloudEdge?
There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance. M...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone CloudEdge?
Our primary use case is to provide cloud-based security solutions for customers using public cloud platforms. We dist...
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...
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 ...
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...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
Astaro
 

Overview

 

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
LinkTime
One Housing Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone CloudEdge vs. Sophos UTM and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,510 professionals have used our research since 2012.