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Huawei NGFW vs Sophos UTM 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
8.3
Deploying Huawei NGFW improved network security, efficiency, and resource control, while reducing costs and enhancing threat detection and response times.
Sentiment score
5.4
Sophos UTM delivers positive ROI quickly through cost savings, centralized management, competitive pricing, and effective network management.
I have seen a return on investment with Sophos UTM, and I can share that the price is around thirty percent better, especially if you count in the employee time.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Huawei NGFW customer service is praised for speed but criticized for language barriers and inconsistent service levels.
Sentiment score
6.5
Sophos UTM is praised for customer service, yet AWS support delays and regional service quality discrepancies are noted.
I would rate the technical support by Sophos a 10.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
The technical support by Sophos is amazing, especially when I pay for the enhanced support.
Associate Director - Management Support Services at CIHP
The customer support for Sophos UTM used to be better when it was still Astaro.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Huawei NGFW is scalable and flexible, though users face extra costs and hardware limitations in expanding capabilities.
Sentiment score
5.4
Sophos UTM offers scalability and adaptability, supporting seamless expansion with virtual and hardware options, despite limited physical upgrades.
You can have high availability clusters, so very, very scalable in my opinion.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.5
Huawei NGFW is generally stable but has occasional issues, with most users rating it seven to nine out of ten.
Sentiment score
7.4
Sophos UTM is stable and reliable, with few bugs; proper sizing prevents occasional performance issues related to CPU usage.
 

Room For Improvement

Huawei NGFW needs improvements in configurability, performance, support, and features, addressing session handling, upgrades, and usability issues.
Sophos UTM requires enhancements in user management, scalability, and interface while improving security features, flexibility, and centralized management.
If you want to really implement some rules that are a little bit more difficult, Sophos always recommends getting the dedicated WAF, or web application firewall, but I would prefer to have more features on the web application firewall in the firewall itself because it would make more sense.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
It would make my work much simpler because it makes decision-making much easier.
IT Manager at Vegol
I would prefer to see additional features in the next release of Sophos UTM because cyber crime increases every day, so we also need to improve our game to prevent any chances for intrusion.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
 

Setup Cost

Huawei NGFW offers competitive pricing with potential discounts, though setup costs are high and separate support contracts are required.
Sophos UTM provides flexible, cost-effective licensing with some complexity, making it valuable for enterprises despite pricing concerns.
The value between what I receive and what I pay is the best in the industry.
System Administrator at a training & coaching company with 11-50 employees
The pricing would be more economical if sold directly to the user compared to going through a partner, as they need to take their percentage.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
Pricing has become expensive recently due to the dollar hike and naira value changes in Nigeria.
Associate Director - Management Support Services at CIHP
 

Valuable Features

Huawei NGFW is lauded for its user-friendly interface, seamless integration, high performance, scalability, and effective security features.
Sophos UTM offers robust security, user-friendly interface, VPN integration, reporting, and scalability, ideal for small to large businesses.
We are now going to use the central services, but we are still concerned because of data protection, because we do not know where all the data will be stored in the cloud.
CEO at iSource GmbH
The zero-day protection and firewall rules are some of the most effective features for threat management.
Associate Director - Management Support Services at CIHP
In my opinion, the best features Sophos UTM offers are part of the firewall itself, so we don't need an extra appliance, we don't need to set up extra open-source VMs or anything.
System Engineer SDDC / VCF at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
 

Categories and Ranking

Huawei NGFW
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
13th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (37th)
Sophos UTM
Ranking in Unified Threat Management (UTM)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Unified Threat Management (UTM) category, the mindshare of Huawei NGFW is 3.2%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos UTM is 10.0%, up from 7.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Unified Threat Management (UTM) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos UTM10.0%
Huawei NGFW3.2%
Other86.8%
Unified Threat Management (UTM)
 

Featured Reviews

VZ
Senior Manager Technology at CNS Engineering
GUI application allows for easy monitoring and analysis of potential intrusions but needs improvement in threat prevention signatures
Based on the threat prevention signatures, they need updates. They should add some machine learning features and Machine learning detection. In future releases, I would like to see improvements in CDR technology. Forcepoint is pitching CDR technology, which extends sandboxing. Configuring data on the console needs enhancement. Huawei also need to improve spam techniques and add a web application firewall. Currently, Huawei does not have a built-in web application firewall (WAF) like Fortinet does. Tools like SIEM, SOAR, and Tenable can be integrated, but they require additional setup and should be integrated via API. For external threat detection, using the TAXII or STIX protocol, would be an improvement over the current features.
HR
CEO at iSource GmbH
Integrated security tools have supported critical infrastructure and improved network performance
Regarding Secureworks Taegis VDR Vulnerability Management, I do not have all these shortcuts in my head. Perhaps I have to ask my technicians, but we are in full stress because we have to change this entire firewall equipment, also the entire access points, because of the end of life. We also have the full product in for XDR and extensions. We are also part of the webinars from Sophos. It would be better if there were also some important webinars in German. Everything needs improvement, because also the wireless, also RED box and so on. The handling was much easier on the old equipment than on the new XGS. I think there should also be a little more automatic for SD-WAN routing and so on. Because we have to learn some things from the basic completely new because it is different than Sophos UTM, the XGS. The features that could be improved about Sophos UTM include the new features we have in XGS with a simpler interface. For example, in Sophos UTM, we could define IP hosts and use this IP host. We did not have to insert on every, for example, for wide area networks, we had to put the IP addresses from the other side by hand. In Sophos UTM, we could define it under definitions and then use this IP host where we needed it. In the new XGS, if there is a change in the IP address, we have to do it on all, for example, site-to-site VPN tunnels and so on. We have much more work and it is not so easy because we have to check all the definitions. It is also, for example, some of the male technicians like me, we have a biology handicap. For example, male technicians in Europe also have a red-green problem. So we use these light colors on the interface. In some cases, it is not easy to see the, for example, letters or numbers because of the contrast.
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908,834 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
13%
Construction Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise28
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Huawei NGFW?
The pricing is quite cheap compared to other NGFWs like Palo Alto or Cisco.
What needs improvement with Huawei NGFW?
Huawei should improve their threat intelligence. They need to have a more diversified platform and continuously update it with information from all vendors. Without diversified threat intelligence,...
What is your primary use case for Huawei NGFW?
I am working as a solution architect in my organization. Whenever we design a total network infrastructure, for ensuring the overall network security, we provide the firewall. If the client is aski...
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

Huawei USG Firewalls, USG9500 Series, USG6600 Series, USG6300 Series
Astaro
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

KMITL, Peking University
One Housing Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Huawei NGFW vs. Sophos UTM and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.