Sophos Firewall Reviews

I am a cyber professional. I support customers with this solution. Sophos XGS is primarily a firewall. The product allows my customers to manage their internet access for their employees while protecting their environment from things like malware.

The solution requires one administrator as it does not require much maintenance. It depends on the usage and the environment. For example, in some account configurations, the environment has only four or five rules, other times there are over 100 rules. More rules will require more maintenance. 

The most valuable feature of Sophos XGS is the application control. I also enjoy the dashboard and reporting that it provides to my customers. 

Sophos helps my customers manage applications from accessing the internet, not only websites. We can ensure there is limited access to applications like Facebook. For example, Facebook is not accessible, but Facebook Messenger for chatting is. This prevents posting and sharing. We make restrictions without prevention.

Sophos XGS would benefit from further development in the SD-WAN area. It would be great if they could give technical people access to all the WAN links that we are connecting to, including inside the SD-WAN. 

They should make available or round robin inside the SD-WAN. This would allow us to move to another link if one goes down.

I have been using Sophos XGS for six years.

There have been issues with the stability of this product. Sometimes it requires restarting. We have looked into the client environment and this is not causing the instability. The problem is common.

Sophos XGS is not scalable. It is a hardware appliance and we should migrate the settings if we need to. In order for it to scale, you require additional hardware.

Sophos' technical support is responsive. There are times we need to push them to accelerate the process because there is a delay in replying. Sometimes, the first stage of first-line support does not have enough knowledge.

Overall, I would rate their technical support a three out of five.

The initial setup of Sophos XGS is straightforward. I would rate it five out of five for ease of setup.

The cost of Sophos XGS is based on per unit, per appliance, and capacity. The capacity depends on the environment. Based on the size, we choose the model. The model selected dictates the pricing.

When comparing the pricing of Sophos to the competition, I give them a five out of five. It is competitively priced.

I have worked with Fortinet and WatchGuard. Other solutions have better performance and security value than Sophos XGS. 

Sophos has most of the features. If they don't have the features one year, they are added the next. At one point they did not have SGON, but now they do. It is not performing like Fortinet or Watch Guard, they need to do some enhancements. 

Sophos has the upper hand on reporting on the firewall itself. For small to medium-sized businesses Sophos is better than the competition.

If the organization is small or medium-sized I would recommend this solution. I would give it a nine out of 10 in this case. If the company is enterprise level, I would rate the solution a five out of 10.

Overall, I rate the Sophos XGS a seven out of 10.

We are happy and satisfied with all the features. There is nothing special there.

The main thing that we would like to see improved is ransom. They could provide something better. We are not using a public IP. 

I have been using Sophos XGS for the past year.

It is stable for our intended purposes.

Sophos XGS is scalable.

Technical support is very good.

It depends upon the requirement you may have. If we see that it is a straightforward requirement, it will be easy to implement.

Compared to Fortinet, the cost is high. Even compared to the U.S. market the market price is high.

We work with SonicWall and Fortinet. This depends upon the requirements you have. Sometimes the client wants a particular price, sometimes they are considering a solution, and sometimes it is pricing. It's based on the distributors, support, and installers.

I would rate Sophos XGS a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a firewall.

Sophos XGS is okay. It’s excellent for firewall purposes.

For me, the platform is stable. It's very stable. It works when it's configured. Also, when you're checking, the logs, the graph, and the graphs are easy to read.

I can also use it for other purposes. For example, it's got a DSCP from there. It can be a distribution. I can have other functions work there, so I can do a lot more than just the firewall components.

It gets easier and easier to set up.

It works. However, Sophos configurations are a bit complex. It's not very user-friendly. I don't find it user-friendly when it comes to setting up the firewalls.

The user interface for the technical admin can be better. It should be set forward to configure a firewall. if a firewall has complexities. I don't know why they did that. However, you should be able to quickly set up a rule to minimize the mistakes that a security administrator or a firewall administrator can make and configure. If not, that becomes an issue. One mistake on a firewall could result in a bridge.

It should be more straightforward. If you compare it with GFI Carrier Control Firewall, which is very straightforward, you can see why it’s helpful when it's easier.

I’ve used the solution for about three years now.

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze. It’s reliable and the performance is good.

The solution is scalable. However, it depends on the model of the physical appliance. There are virtual and physical appliances, so it depends on which one you use. Obviously, there could be a limitation on the number of interfaces you need to use since you may want to have additional services plugged in. Then, the number of ports available may only be two, and yet you actually need to have 10. Maybe you need to buy a module that plugs in; however, there could be a challenge there.

In our organization, we have three to four security administrators.

I've never spoken to technical support directly the way I've been talking to the Fortinet team. I was working with a local partner to get it set up.

In our case, since we were doing it for the first time, we took about a week to complete everything. We were doing a lot of other things and learning as we went. If I had to redo it now, it wouldn't take me a week as I know exactly what I need to do after learning over a period of time. Also, I have backups that allow me to back up and restore, so I just restore the configuration. It’s much more manageable. The first time there’s a learning curve.

We work with a partner and distributor. We are working with the sales party since it was the first time we used them. They offer us professional services.

I found the solution to be expensive. I pay close to $10,000 per year, which I find to be expensive compared to the other similar solution or equivalent solutions.

It's just that one cost, and it's an annual license. As long as my appliance is working okay, I don't need to replace it. However, it's just that. Of course, within that, there are also support services. You might have technical support costs depending on which one of the tiers you pick.

I'm a customer of Sophos.

We’re using the most up-to-date version of the solution. It’s around version 18.

A new user needs to get trained on the appliance to understand how to implement rules and fully appreciate how to work with it. It's not that straightforward. You need to understand what the different areas are. It's complex in the way the rules are set up. My colleagues in the industry have similar comments about Sophos. It’s more complicated than it looks.

I’d rate the solution a seven out of ten, mainly due to the complexity. If I make a mistake, then that firewall is of no use. It needs to be easier to set up so that it provides me or guarantees me that what I want to set up is what I've set up to secure my environment.

I mostly use Sophos XGS for URL and web filtering and application control.

Sophos XGS' best features are simplicity and its built-in reporting tool.

Sophos XGS could be improved by adding a built-in hyper-converged solution.

I've been using Sophos XGS for three years.

Sophos XGS is very stable.

Sophos XGS is scalable.

Sophos XGS' technical support is very responsive.

Positive

The initial setup was quite simple, and the configuration took around an hour and a half.

Licensing for Sophos XGS is around $150 per unit, split into $100 for the hardware and $50 for the license. Sophos XGS is competitively priced.

I would rate Sophos XGS eight out of ten.

Mainly, we use it as our internet gateway firewall for scanning internet traffic that comes to our network from WAN and for internet distribution such as thin client. We have a thin client environment. It also works as a distribution layer for internet users, especially in thin client environments. It scans the traffic that passes from this device.

In this solution, the most valuable feature is that it's a security device. Maintaining security is very valuable for us.

The other feature that we did not find in other products is that it works well with thin client environments.

Sometimes, we haven't received proper support. They couldn't find the solutions that we required.

One thing that we need is an NTP server facility. The Sophos XGS device does not have this capacity or this feature.

We've been using Sophos XGS for almost one year.

It's stable. We haven't had any issues with it.

I don't think it's scalable. It's a product that we bought with a specification, and we cannot improve that. We cannot upgrade; we can only upgrade its OS; nothing more.

Only the network administrator uses it, but we might set it up in another business unit next year.

I would rate technical support at six out of ten because we haven't received proper support sometimes.

Neutral

We worked with Cyberoam, and when it reached the end of life, we replaced it with Sophos.

The initial setup is easy, and I'd give it a two out of five.

Because this is a security appliance, we cannot calculate the ROI exactly. However, every time security devices work well and guard us from attacks, it is a good ROI. This device has a good ROI.

The licensing cost is in the normal range and is not very costly.

Overall, we have had a good experience with Sophos XGS and would rate it at six on a scale from one to ten.

We are using Sophos XGS for basic purposes, such as the NAT rules it provides.

The most valuable features of Sophos XGS are the ease of use and powerful interface. 

In version 18 of Sophos XGS, the log details are not very good. However, in version 19 they are more detailed. The Fortinet FortiGate has better detail overall compared to Sophos XGS. They provide updates to the solution frequently, but they do not fix the problems that exist.

In the next release, the searching inside of Sophos XGS needs to improve. It is difficult to learn about the functionality and the modules. Additionally, there needs to be more automatic or less manual operations.

I have been using Sophos XGS for three years.

Sophos XGS is highly stable.

We have a small company therefore I am not sure about the scalability.

We have two people using this solution as administrators. The total number of users that are using the solution is approximately 200.

I have not used the support line directly from Sophos XGS, but I used the online knowledge site they have for support. They have good documentation.

The best support is provided by Cisco, Palo Alto, and Fortinet FortiGate because all the knowledge is available easily.

I rate support from Sophos XGS a four out of five.

Positive

The initial setup of Sophos XGS is not easy. 

The price of Sophos XGS is less than competitors worldwide. However, in Turkey the solution is expensive.

I have evaluated other solutions, such as Fortinet, Cisco, and Palo Alto, and the Sophos XGS has a more powerful interface. Fortinet FortiGate has too many options while Palo Alto is over more robust than Sophos XGS. However, if your company does not have a large number of users then Sophos XGS is best.

My advice to others is if you are going to purchase a firewall in Turkey, Sophos XGS is the best choice because of the dealers and support available. The second best in Turkey would be Fortinet FortiGate.

I rate Sophos XGS a seven out of ten.

Sophos helps us set public restrictions and add category filtering to secure the network. It provides ATS and IPS scanning for further protection.

I like the Sophos UI. It interface has a more comfortable feel than the competitors.

I recommend Sophos increase the user capacity of the firewall by 1.5 times. For example, say the firewall can accommodate 1,000 users now, then it should handle a load of 1,500 users.

We've been using Sophos XGS for seven years.

Sophos is a stable product.

Sophos XGS is scalable. My company has almost 6,000 users.

We've contacted Sophos support multiple times for help troubleshooting.

We used a Cisco firewall for four years before Sophos. My company has multiple locations, and some had Sophos, but others used Cisco. After we had a good experience with Sophos, we moved the entire company to Sophos.

Installation is pretty straightforward compared to Juniper and Cisco products. The Sophos installation offers better guidance. 

We handled the installation and configuration with our in-house team.

Sophos isn't expensive. It's a mid-range solution that's cheap but not too much cheaper than competitors. It's a good price that meets all our compliance requirements. 

I rate Sophos XGS eight out of 10. 

We use XGS as a firewall, for web filtering, and network control. I'm an IT manager. 

The VPN is the best feature because I'm working a lot from home now. 

I think the earlier SG version was easier to configure and manage. The XG is a little different and somewhat more complicated. I'd like it to be easier to manage and configure.

I've been using this solution for three years. 

The solution is stable.

Right now we're having some issues but they're related to the environment and not the solution.

The customer support is not great, it takes them too long to respond. 

Neutral

The initial setup is very easy. 

I believe we pay for licensing every three years and I think it's around $1,800 which includes the hardware. It's a reasonable price. 

I recommend this solution and rate it eight out of 10. 

It is a firewall appliance that is used to provide security for network infrastructures. We have it deployed at the edge of our network and we also sell it to other clients to protect their network infrastructure. 

This solution is really easy to use and deploy. It has a dashboard where you can see everything going on within your network. There is also a cloud component so if you need to secure your computers or servers, this can be done using Central Intercept X Advances. Everything is connected to their cloud platform where you can manage either your end point solution or your firewalls.

I have been using this solution for five years. 

It is very stable. I have not heard of any issue where clients would have to replace hardware. It's been really stable for a long while.

This is a scalable solution. This does depend on the are different categories of the XGS. The license you buy would be determined by the number of users intended to use it. 

The support team are helpful when you eventually get hold of them which takes a long time. They can improve how quickly you get technical support.

Neutral

The initial setup is straightforward and takes 15 minutes. The time it takes to setup depends on what you're trying to achieve and how complex you want your configuration to be. 

We completed the implementation in-house for our business and for some of our clients. 

We have started seeing ROI using this solution because one of their products helps you to prevent ransomware. It has helped to prevent ransomware from encrypting one of the systems of one of our staff. That is a huge return on investment

The cost is $10,000 for an annual subscription. 

This is a good product for small and medium enterprises. I can't say how it performs in a large environment. It is a very stable solution. Just like every other product, you need to have someone that has the necessary skill set to manage it. Somebody needs to learn how to set it up and configure it depending on the environment.

The interface is great.

It's a very easy-to-use product.

The product was easy for us to install. 

The pricing is okay. 

We've had many problems lately. We're having issues with its firmware, now, and we are trying to fix it with the supplier, the Sophos supplier in Turkey. 

It has recently started to suddenly block and crash. We don't know what will happen. We're not sure if it is the device or something else. We're trying to fix the problem with Sophos. 

It's not extremely scalable. 

I've been using the solution for six months. 

I'm not sure what the issue is, however, it has been crashing and we're trying to find a fix or a solution. 

I don't find the solution to be very scalable. 

We have 300 people using it right now. 

We're working with a Sophos supplier in Turkey. When we run into issues, we reach out to them. We're dealing with them right now. 

The installation process was very simple and straightforward. It wasn't overly complex or difficult. For us, the deployment took about two days. 

You only need two people to maintain the product. It's not labor-intensive. 

I'm not sure of the exact amount we paid, however, compared to other firewalls, the pricing isn't too bad. 

I'm a customer and an end-user. 

We bought three devices from Sophos. We're just dealing with some issues with crashing right now.

I'd rate the solution five out of ten. 

Potential new users should clearly investigate other firewall models. They need to be sure of what they pick before they pay for any solution.