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Portnox vs Sophos Network Access Control comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 8, 2026

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

Portnox
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (7th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
Sophos Network Access Control
Ranking in Network Access Control (NAC)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Network Access Control (NAC) category, the mindshare of Portnox is 8.1%, up from 4.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Network Access Control is 3.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Network Access Control (NAC) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox8.1%
Sophos Network Access Control3.2%
Other88.7%
Network Access Control (NAC)
 

Featured Reviews

Maurice Mwaura - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Applied Principles Limited
Unified access control has improved compliance visibility and simplified passwordless access
There is work to be done when it comes to making the solution more seamless. For example, when a user is denied access, they would need a way to maybe self-resolve themselves, perhaps a way to generate a ticket on their own, something around resolutions. When it comes to users using the product, that is where good products are differentiated from products that are a bit of a challenge. Portnox has much to do in terms of their reporting. The generated reports need improvement. Things that other tools would say are normal are usually not present. For example, there is a page called NAS devices or NAS network that is able to show the switches that have been managed. Currently, there is no way of generating an easy report or an easy way of just generating something to tell the customer what they have been able to achieve so far. This is not done yet and is still very manual. I think there is work to be done there. More integrations around the various products being used would be beneficial. So far I have not encountered any major challenge. Where there was a challenge, I think support came in and helped us resolve. In fact, most of the challenges are not with the product; they are with the customer environment. I think that is just to update their documentation where they have come across a new vendor for easier integrations in the future.
PS
System Administrator And Network Engineer at Vidyashilp University
Access control has strengthened security and central console management streamlines device oversight
In my opinion, one feature that should be added is the ability to trace emails from individuals who change their IP address or send misbehaving emails from alternative networks. If someone sends a misbehaving email from the network but is not connected to our network and uses a personal network instead, it becomes difficult to trace and identify which network the email is coming from. An inventory system should also be added in the future. Some antivirus solutions have inventory systems that provide all system details. Since we install the Sophos client on client machines, we could obtain details about which software is being used and what the configuration of the machines is. This information would be valuable, as some information was missing when I was using the product previously.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I surely recommend Portnox to other users because of the price, ease of use, and fast setup."
"The simplicity of the product is commendable."
"CLEAR is one of the best of its kind on the market with respect to compatibility."
"The visibility of the product is excellent."
"Portnox is a highly effective tool that will significantly lower your incident resolution times, so be prepared to push through a slight learning curve at the beginning."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"Portnox is better than other solutions that I tried before, at least with Cisco, because it has lots of features that are not included in Cisco, so it is the best for me."
"The technical support is top-notch and great."
"Web protection, URL filtering, and application filtering are the most valuable features of Sophos Network Access Control."
"The solution offers very good visibility."
"The wifi control is fantastic and makes it very easy to administer."
"The biggest advantage of Sophos Network Access Control is that it is very synchronized with the security on both the endpoint and the firewall on a single platform, and it is easy to maintain."
"The product has the capabilities to satisfy all kinds of needs that a company may have, and you can find the right solution without spending a lot of money."
"The pricing is very reasonable and you can negotiate on the price."
"The platform's most valuable features include robust reporting and analytics capabilities, which provide deep insights into our sales performance and customer behavior."
"I am very satisfied with this solution overall. All of the features that we use have been working successfully."
 

Cons

"Allowing for a search of MAC addresses in the interface, whether they are authenticated on the network or not, would be beneficial. Currently, it only finds authenticated MAC addresses, which complicates troubleshooting when the same MAC address is used for different requests."
"Regarding improvements, maybe in terms of integration, they could look into something the guest captive portal features."
"The Wi-Fi integration could be done better from their end. If there is an improvement, it should be around having more functions on the integration with the Wi-Fi controller I used, which was a UniFi controller, also on-prem."
"Portnox Cloud is stable to a certain extent."
"The price could be better."
"It might be beneficial to improve the ease of integrating the product with firewalls."
"During my daily use, I noticed that if you have many devices being managed by a particular server, any device being managed by that server takes quite a bit of time to respond."
"Portnox CORE can improve on support for unmanaged switches (or hubs) and other brands of network devices. These kinds of devices are still in use in organisations, especially SMEs who cannot afford to buy a managed switch."
"The user interface, in terms of managing the product, could be better."
"Sophos Network Access Control requires a lot of resources to work, which is an area for improvement. Pricing could also be improved because it's costly."
"Sophos Network Access Control needs improvement regarding its slow interface, loading time, and reporting."
"Endpoint and firewall synchronization is not as smooth as we are expecting from Sophos Network Access Control."
"What needs to be improved on is the fact that Sophos consumes a lot of processor resources and, once it starts scanning, the RAM utilization is very high."
"I would like to be able to fully customize the reports."
"I would like to see mobile administration capabilities in the next release so that we can administer the device from a mobile device."
"It would be beneficial to consider some improvements regarding the dashboard."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Portnox CORE's pricing is adequate and cheaper compared to other complex solutions. Its licensing costs are yearly and include support. Cost is calculated per device."
"Pricing is quite reasonable."
"It is not bad. It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable. We do have RADIUS servers for the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"The vendor price is fair."
"Pricing is not cheap. It is based on licenses per port. After licensing is purchased, you only pay for support."
"The licensing module should be reviewed to count the number of devices instead of port numbers of total switches. There is a case for this where not all ports for a switch are used by devices. Unused ports are calculated in the license, then the customer pays for license for those unused ports."
"The solution is very expensive and I would rate it 10 out of 10."
"Sophos Network Access Control is costly but has a similar price range as CrowdStrike and Check Point. The product can get more market share if Sophos can play around with Sophos Network Access Control pricing and improve it."
"Sophos Network Access Control is an expensive solution."
"It is quite expensive."
"Sophos Network Access Control is very cheap compared to other solutions like Cisco, Barracuda, and Palo Alto."
"It provides a moderate pricing option for all of its features and benefits."
"I rate the price of Sophos Network Access Control a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise15
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business16
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
The pricing and setup cost as well as licensing is a bit high compared to the competition. If it were better, we could also have some pricing specific or special discounts to cater for SMBs.
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
If the MSSP offering could be the primary push or primary concern, it would be the best thing that could happen. Based on the Tanzanian market, AI governance is something that is coming through. Fo...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
Portnox is for the network access control use case. The use case focuses on wired network access, specifically how users are connecting to the network and how we are checking their security posture...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Network Access Control?
The pricing of Sophos Network Access Control is good, but it is somewhat high.
What needs improvement with Sophos Network Access Control?
In my opinion, one feature that should be added is the ability to trace emails from individuals who change their IP address or send misbehaving emails from alternative networks. If someone sends a ...
What is your primary use case for Sophos Network Access Control?
Sophos Network Access Control serves primary use cases for both networking purposes and security purposes.
 

Also Known As

Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
No data available
 

Interactive Demo

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sallie Mae, Roku, Vuori, Legal Zoom, Anaplan, Aecon, H.I.G. Capital, McLaren Construction Group, PFCU, UK Mortgage Lending Limited, CCC Intelligent Solutions
Rushmoor Borough Council
Find out what your peers are saying about Portnox vs. Sophos Network Access Control and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.