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Smoothwall Firewall vs Sophos XG comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
373
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Smoothwall Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
32nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos XG
Ranking in Firewalls
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
214
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smoothwall Firewall is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos XG is 10.9%, up from 9.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Himanshu-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good scalability and monitoring features
There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages. For example, if we're creating a rule, we should be able to do everything on the same page. Just a drop-down thing or something. This would improve productivity.
TarunPanchal - PeerSpot reviewer
Decades of expertise lead to seamless installations and robust security
I typically use the Sophos XG Firewall to enhance my cybersecurity by using all layers. The intrusion prevention system impacts my security posture effectively, as we have not faced any ransomware or cyber threats. I have more than 800 servers live from Sophos. The synchronized security feature has proven to be very beneficial, and I have not encountered any issues. Sophos XG Firewall has contributed to reducing overall costs because it helps save money. We purchased endpoint security for the first time last year, and even without endpoint security, it provides comprehensive security. Sophos XG uses AI effectively to enhance threat detection and response, securing from AI at the packet level.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"It is easy to use and update the software version. It is also useful for integration with other Fortinet products, because my office and company use Fortinet solutions."
"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"The features I find most useful in Fortinet FortiGate are its simplicity of utilization, which is very important, and its provision of interfaces to see the alerts and other things."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"It was easy to initially deploy it."
"Reporting is the most valuable feature."
"It is feature-rich, I like the server authentication, and the reports are good."
"We find it easy to use. Its internal configuration is very easy. It is not complicated in terms of use and configuration. It has been fairly stable, and it is also scalable."
"The solution has been stable; it's on 24/7 and has consistently been reliable over the years."
"The most valuable features are its nice interfaces and configuration. The endpoint is also very good."
"I like how you can integrate with other endpoints and Intercept X in one central management platform. I think it's a perfect solution. Sophos will manage everything in one container. You can manage many firewalls or endpoints within one panel."
"The solution's most valuable feature stems from its ability to protect our organization's web servers."
"The web application firewall reverse proxy is very good."
 

Cons

"Fortinet should improve its software, as we are seeing lots of firmware versions generated for each vulnerability issue. It becomes difficult for us to keep updating the firmware frequently due to bugs."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."
"The user interface could be improved."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"Their support can be better, and there should be better policies for immediate replacement in critical situations."
"They could do more work on FortiAnalyzer in terms of the data and the information coming from it."
"There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages."
"Sophos XG could improve the connectivity with Microsoft 365 or Azure Active Directory(AD). It doesn't work directly as other solutions do, such as Fortinet FortiGate. The client needs a separate AD server which is a problem."
"The product's technical support services could be better."
"Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper."
"Having a web portal where you could make requests for the categorization of non-categorized items, would be beneficial."
"Sophos needs improvements made to the console, such as host entry or defining rules directly from it."
"The installation could be faster and is longer than that of other solutions, lasting more than a month instead of five minutes."
"The GUI and support could be better. I think there are other products that we are going to deploy instead of Sophos. We have already upgraded a month ago because the interfaces and support for Sophos are really weak. But other products like Juniper, Cisco, or FortiGate are better than Sophos. It's also complicated, and the end-user or client does not understand it."
"Sophos XG could improve by coming out with more innovative feature developments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is really low. It's cheap in comparison to the cost of Cisco or CheckPoint, for example."
"I had to pay for the license for the firewall, but it is guaranteed to have updates. I expect a good service for it. It was about €1000 for a year, and there was no additional cost."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
"The initial setup is super straight forward and as far as the licensing goes for the small product that we have, the pricing was pretty competitive. It wasn't as simple and as cheap as a SonicWall but for the service we would get it was a good price."
"There is no challenge in Fortinet FortiGate pricing."
"It is too expensive for us. My organization is very small, and we have a total of ten users. We have three internal users and seven external users. The FortiGate 100D series is too expensive for renewing the licenses."
"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."
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"It comes at a fair price as compared to some of the other products out there. Its price is in the middle. It is not the cheapest, and it is also not as expensive as Juniper, Check Point, and definitely Cisco. Nowadays, everybody is very cost-sensitive, and people don't want to spend unnecessary money, but even before that, it was a fairly priced product. You've got your choice of what license you want. There are basically two types of licenses, and it depends on what you need to do, and everything is included in that license. There is no cost for VPN and DMZ. You purchase the license, and you know upfront what you're getting or what you're not getting, and that's it. It is one license fee and done and dusted."
"I rate the product price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The price is good and licensing fees are billed on a yearly basis."
"Sophos XG is expenses."
"The price is reasonable in my opinion."
"I rate Sophos XG’s pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price of the Sophos XG is very good. There are not any licensing costs, it is a one-time purchase price."
"Sophos is very good when it comes to pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Educational Organization
13%
University
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 Smoothwall Firewall?
There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we d...
What is your primary use case for Smoothwall Firewall?
Our use cases are for monitoring and security. The primary purpose of the firewall is maintaining security and benefi...
Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...
What are the main differences in features between Sophos XG and FortiGate 80F?
Hi Arvind P , The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form Fact...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

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
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