Sophos Firewall Reviews

We use Sophos Firewall for our environment.

The Sophos Firewall, from our interaction and the way we are using it, is a very effective network security solution that basically protects our infrastructure, identifies any infections or any network security threats that actually may happen within our environment. We also are able to manage our users in terms of bandwidth usage and the allocation of bandwidth, whereby we give our users restricted access for use during working hours and they are supposed to utilize the bandwidth and make sure that we optimize and prioritize the applications able to get the necessary bandwidth. We do use it to manage our bandwidth. We do use it as well to make sure that our environment is secure against any possible threats.

In terms of the Sophos XG Firewall, what really excites us is basically the issue of intrusion detection and the intrusion prevention features. Those are both very, very good. 

The issue of sandboxing as well is something that is very useful. It's able to protect our environment quite well. 

Email protection is something that we are basically using all the time and it protects our environment which has more than 2000 users. 

All of the protection features are great in terms of securing our environment.

Sophos is way ahead of a number of other products in terms of the enhancements and upgrades they offer.

Sophos offers a great centralized dashboard that makes it easy to see what's happening on your network. 

The initial setup is very straightforward and the solution is extremely user-friendly.

The documentation is very, very good.

In terms of the product, from the way that we have been utilizing it, we have noticed that the vendor has been able to continuously upgrade and upgrade and update the product with new features. You'd find that all the time a new release has come out, and we're actually happy with that. We don't find it inconvenient that we are constantly upgrading. 

I can't think of any downsides in terms of the features on offer.

I'd like the dashboard to be improved. It could be a bit more customizable. 

I have about five years of experience with the product.

We are very satisfied with the functionality. We are very satisfied with the way that it is securing our environment. The stability has been excellent.

We have 2,000 users on the solution currently.

The solution is very scalable. We basically started with about 900 users. We went up to about 1,300. As we went up, as our users increased, we also scaled it up in terms of protection. Sophos was able to scale up easily and protect all our end users as well as our environment. It's been great overall.

We do plan to increase usage. Our employee base is about 10,000. We have 2,000 networked employees and we are planning to add another 1,000 users by the end of the year.

The technical support has been great. All of our technical staff have been certified as Sophos administrators. They were able to offer us the training to make sure that all of the support staff are familiar with the functionality of the product. Then, in terms of technical support that we may need, when we call the Sophos team, they are usually very available and they are even able to support us remotely if there is a need to do that. We are extremely satisfied overall.

I also often work with Cisco's ASA Firewall as well as Nagios. We bought Sophos to complement the ASA firewall.

The initial setup was very, very straightforward. You find that we did not even require a lot of external help from the vendor. It's so straightforward. The documentation is quite comprehensive and it takes the user through a step-by-step process, It's very user-friendly.

For the firewall as well as deployment of the end-user, the email protection as well as the sandbox, and the like, it took us approximately three days to finalize everything for our entire environment. We had over a hundred network sites, which are dotted through the city of Harare, therefore, we knew that we had to make sure that deployment was done fully throughout the entire environment.

There was very minimal, minimal assistance from the vendor. The vendor, here and there, would assist if we requested their help. However, you'd find that in most of the installations we did in-house, we didn't need the vendor to do anything. We knew that the installation process was very user-friendly.

The cost of procuring this product is very reasonable and it's very affordable for most organizations.

We're a customer and an end-user.

We use the latest version of the product.

I'd advise those considering the solution that Sophos' security solution is highly synchronized, very secure, and provides comprehensive security. I'd like them to know that it has enhanced and very detailed and sophisticated functionality, which is really easy to use, easy to deploy, and very user-friendly. It is a product that I would highly recommend for any organization that needs to comprehensively secure its infrastructure.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We use it for firewalling. Lately, we are also using it for remote access or VPN access for the users to the firewall and then onto the local network for people working from home. We've seen a huge jump in work from home. Everybody is working from home, so we need a secure connection to the office.

I am not using its latest version. I normally wait for a couple of months before upgrading the unit to make sure there are no bugs or issues. I check on the forums to see what other people are saying and whether there are any issues. 

There are many features. VPN, firewalling, and intrusion detection are the main features that are most useful for us at this time.

Their support is fairly good, and they come back to me. I've had an issue once or twice where I couldn't understand what the support person was saying because those calls were probably routed to India. They were a bit difficult to understand, but it is generally not an issue.

I have been using this solution for seven years.

It is stable. We've been dealing with it for such a long time. We know exactly how to set it up. Sometimes, clients have got funny ideas, and I just say to them, "You tell me what you need, and I'll do the config and set it up." I've got two clients who have got technical skills. One of them is fairly proficient on Sophos, so he does the work as well, but for most of our other clients, we set it up, and there are no issues. It just works.

It is scalable provided you purchase the correct product. We do a bit of homework. We don't just sell you the first device on the list because that's not always suitable. We do a scope of the client's business. They may be a startup with just five users, but they might have a plan to have 100 or 200 users. We need to just size according to what they anticipate to be. It is no good if we sell them an entry-level device now, and two months later, it is too small. We purchase according to a client's requirements.

We've got clients with four users, and the number can go up to hundreds. I'm currently busy setting one up for 150 users, and obviously, there is much more work involved in doing the remote VPN setups.

I use the local support in South Africa. If they can't help me, then I log a case with their international support. They're fairly good, and they come back to me. 

I've had an issue once or twice where I couldn't understand what the support person was saying because those calls were probably routed to India. They were a bit difficult to understand. They spoke so fast, and I could not hear what they were saying, but it is generally not an issue. It is not a showstopper, and we manage to work. If I don't understand, I say to them, "Can we rather chat by email?", which makes it a lot easier.

There some other firewalls that my company is using, but they're way below in terms of specs and what they can do. Sophos XG is a layer 7 firewall, and most of the others are only layer 2 firewalls. Sophos is far superior. 

I do not have any knowledge about Cisco, Juniper, or other firewalls. I don't really use them. I use some open-source firewalls, but they're also a lot lighter. I've got one or two very small clients or non-profits where we run an open-source firewall, but the feature set is way limited compared to Sophos.

Sophos XG comes in at a fair price as compared to some of the other products out there. Its learning curve wasn't that steep. It makes sense, and it is a sensible product. It is not like some of the other products.

It is simple for me. I've done so many setups. I can probably do these things in my sleep. In fact, I have got one in front of me now that I need to configure and install. I'm fairly proficient in the use of these devices. I'm happy with it.

The deployment duration depends on the setup. Some simple setups can be up and running within two hours. Complex ones most probably will take four to six hours. It also depends on the client's needs. Some of them have simple requirements, and they just want firewalling and one or two remote-access VPNs. Others have got a complex setup where we need to set up cameras and VoIP telephone systems. It all depends on a client's requirements.

It doesn't require any maintenance because the definitions are auto-updated. I've got a dashboard where I can manage all of the firewall devices from one dashboard. If I want to upgrade the software on 20 of them, I'll log onto the dashboard and upgrade the software just by selecting it and saying upgrade the software, and it is done. It requires very minimal handling on a day-to-day basis. Antivirus definitions, scanning definitions, and all those things are auto-updated anyway.

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 would definitely recommend this solution to others. I recommend it to all my clients. I'm using it at home as well, and it works great. I'm fairly proficient in it, so I'm very confident. I can recommend it to anybody and everybody. It is a great product, and I've got no issue with it.

I would rate Sophos XG a ten out of ten. It is a rock-solid product that works. We've so many deployments of this solution. I'm just happy with it. 

My clients are mostly based in the government. They are my core clients. I install the solution for my clients.

The solution is very easy to use. 

Of course, we have the skills, however, it's very easy for us to deploy the solution. That's one of the valuable features. 

They have a communication between the endpoint and the firewall which is very, very useful for security purposes.

Pricing is now pretty good. They changed the pricing structure a few months ago.

The initial setup is pretty easy.

The integration could be a bit better. They need to allow their solution to integrate with other products and not just other Sophos solutions.

Sophos has a feature that in my opinion is very limited. They don't have enough VPNs on their models. They have the XG 750, which is a sizeable appliance. On those models, they used to have not enough VPNs. They always were short on that area. 

Pricing used to be very bad, however, they've adjusted their strategy recently. 

The product needs to improve its marketing in Mexico. It's not a well-recognized product in our country.

The solution's technical support is very bad.

There is an overall lack of documentation in relation to features and capabilities. We need these to help explain aspects of the solution to our clients. 

I've used the solution since around 2014. I have about six years of experience at this point. It's been a while. I've definitely worked with the product in the last 12 months.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs and glitches. It doesn't crash and freeze. It's quite reliable. We don't have problems with it.

The solution is very scalable. It is not a problem. Sometimes we have issues when we are trying to do something with a different traditional version of hardware as sometimes the new hardware has more ports. However, if we are talking about scalability in a huge customer, we can do it very easily. 

Mexico is very different than other countries and continents as here, when we say it's a big customer, we are talking about 2,000 to maybe 3,000 users. There aren't too many large-scale operations in the country. However, in general, for our area, we tend to deal with large-scale companies.

For a company that has maybe 1,000 users, Sophos seems to work very well. We have one operation with 10,000 endpoints and it is working quite well.

Technical support from Sophos is very bad.

Sometimes we lose a project due to the fact that we need to solve some issues or answer questions. Things that may be technical but also involve the administrative side. I'm talking about licensing and the capabilities of the feature. We need some documentation, something we can show clients. They can better in those cases. They can either help us or supply us with what we need. 

In response time, they are terrible. In the area of technical knowledge, they are getting better, however, they aren't where they need to be. Right now, we are not satisfied with the level of support provided.

The initial setup is not complex. However, here in Mexico, it's very complex to sell the product. The brand is not as well known.

That said, the process is pretty straightforward. 

The deployment times vary. It depends on the end-user and what they need. Sometimes, it's easy as they don't have too many policies. The more policies they have, the longer it takes.

In other cases, clients may have a lot of VPNs. We have to work on those VPNs, and we have to do a lot of routing. However, that depends on the customer. Not all are like that.

For one appliance, you just need one person for deployment and maintenance. If we are working a lot of VPNs, we would have to use more people. We need to involve maybe two or three individuals and re-apply the configuration in that case. 

We handle the installation process ourselves. We do not need the assistance of consultants.

The pricing has recently changed on Sophos. Their licensing and cost structures are much more clear now. It's much better than it was.

Clients, in many cases, evaluate for Check Point, Forcepoint, and sometimes Fortinet. Occasionally, they may look at SonicWall, or Palo Alto however, the others are the main big competitors. 

Palo Alto is very expensive as are Check Point and Forcepoint. That's why we sometimes win the projects. We find Fortinet, is very, very hard to beat as they have a lot of market share, have a lot of marketing. Sophos doesn't have that presence, that marketing. Also, when you have to think about prices, Fortinet gives customers everything and it's hard to beat.

The biggest issue I've found with Sophos is the small number of VPNs that we can do compared to a similar appliance with Fortinet or in the same level center. In fact, many other brands offer more VPNs than Sophos.

I'm a Sophos reseller.

We use multiple versions. We have worked with XG 460 and XG 135 and some others -such as XG 230. In those cases, sometimes it has been Rev 1 and in other cases Rev 2 in terms of the hardware versions.

I mostly work with on-premise deployments. The only item I have installed in the cloud is an email solution by Sophos.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. Overall, I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

Sophos XGS is a unified threat management solution that combines features such as routing, access management, firewall, threat management, and URL filtering for sandboxing. It serves as a security appliance with multiple capabilities.

The valuable features of Sophos XGS include network protection, web protection, application control, intrusion detection, and iCentral orchestration. These features are beneficial for the product's security posture.

The solution could improve by using fewer hardware resources compared to other products like Palo Alto, which has better performance. 

Additionally, better integration of AI and machine learning for predictive analysis of potential threats could be beneficial. 

The technical support also needs improvement, including a better ticketing system and faster response times.

I have been using Sophos XGS firewall for more than 15 years, with approximately twelve years of precise usage.

I would rate the stability of Sophos XGS as a six out of ten. There have been observations of downtimes compared to other devices, and it doesn't perform as well as competitors like Palo Alto or Check Point.

Sophos XGS has scalability issues as it doesn't have features like cascading. Instead, it requires new devices to scale, unlike Palo Alto which allows adding devices to a pool.

The technical support is quite poor and needs significant improvements in response time and quality, especially for medium and small enterprises. It seems other brands face similar issues, but the costs rise for premium support, which is challenging for smaller entities.

Neutral

The initial setup of Sophos XGS is simple compared to other firewalls.

The pricing for Sophos products is considered high. The pricing model needs to be more flexible, catering differently to sectors like education, which might not require as high a price point.

I can recommend Sophos XGS for small to medium companies and the education sector. It is less ideal for enterprises with very high-security needs. Organizations with sensitive data should consider alternatives like Palo Alto or Fortinet.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We give both endpoint and firewall together.

We have a set of customers who understand Sophos very well. Once they achieve all the security functions and parameters they want, they are more secure. Many customers who previously used different endpoint and firewall solutions now benefit from synchronized functionality with the complete Sophos suite. So, they become more secure, which is more important.

The security heartbeat feature and MDR are the best for customer security.

The functionality of SD-WAN compared to other boxes is lacking. Certain aspects need improvement, particularly enhancing capabilities like SD-WAN. We should also focus on enhancing XDR and NDR functionality in the firewall boxes and provide more threat protection alerts to users.

I've been working with Sophos for more than 15 years.

The technical team never disappoints us in providing solutions. They give us timely and nice follow-up.

Positive

Many of them were using a different endpoint security and a different firewall. But now, with Sophos, they have better security.

The pricing is competitive, and it's a win-win situation for both partners and customers.

In the financial market and banks, other security appliances are more popular than Sophos.

We highly recommend Sophos XGS.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use the solution as an antivirus gateway and internet gateway.

All the features are effective in enhancing our network security. I am satisfied with the product. The threat intelligence capabilities of the tool are good. It has contributed to reducing our overall security costs by approximately 90%.

I do not get notifications regarding ISP downtime. It would be better if I could get notifications related to the critical errors occurring in Sophos. The product is difficult to use. The administrators must be notified of the errors occurring in the firewall through emails or messages. It will help organizations take proactive measures instead of taking action after the incident happens.

I have been using the solution for one and a half years.

The customer support is weak. The support team is not responsive. The support people do not follow up or call us back.

Negative

The implementation is not difficult. The service providers help install and implement the firewall in our network.

I will recommend the product to others. However, I would not recommend it to organizations that do not have technical people who deal with networks. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.

I use the solution in my company as an edge device on our network.

The solution's most valuable feature stems from its ability to protect our organization's web servers.

In Sophos XG, the throughput for larger networks is an area of concern where improvements are required.

I hope the product comes up with some better prices and offers for the tools provided to academic institutions.

I have been using Sophos XG for two years.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

There are around 200 to 300 users in our institution.

Though our institution plans to increase the solution's use, we are unsure about the vendor we want to approach.

I rate the product's initial setup phase a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one means it is a difficult process and ten means it has an easy setup phase.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The solution can be deployed in two to three days.

The product is expensive.

My company considers Fortinet as an option against Sophos XG.

The product has improved network security for all the networks in my organization. The product also offers endpoint security since my organization has been using the anti-virus software from Sophos for the past ten years.

Sophos XG's interface is very user-friendly.

The performance of Sophos XG's VPN to meet the organization's remote access needs is an area that cannot be discussed due to security concerns. Though the product can meet our organization's current requirements, we are considering alternate solutions since we have plans to improve our network.

The reporting and analytics functionalities helped identify security incidents in our company.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it because it is easy to manage and solve network-related problems.

I rate the product a seven out of ten.

All security solutions are the same. It depends on the size of the network and license. They have the same features. Brands provide extreme protection.

The solution is expensive.

I have been using Sophos XGS for four years.

The product is stable.

The solution is suitable for small and medium businesses.

Customer support is great.

Positive

The initial setup is easy and takes around 30 mins to complete.

The product’s pricing is average compared to other solutions.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.