Sophos Firewall Reviews

Right now, we are using this product as a perimeter firewall just to deal with emails and to protect servers, as well as other equipment that is on the network.

What we found valuable is the way they deal with emails, as well as the way the bandwidth usage is shown. I find this information to be very interesting.

We are having challenges with social media because ever since this issue of COVID-19 came into existence, the idea of using online discussions has become relevant. Before this, they were not made the priority because they were not considered to be important. Now, we've discovered that we need to use a lot of these online applications.

We are having challenges when using Zoom with Sophos XG deployed. Our wireless network is not stable through the connection. More work needs to be done there, since the FW is doubling up as a wireless controller.

I would like to see improvements made to the display and visibility. I'm also using Sophos XG firewall as our wireless controller, but as it is now, I can't see my access points on the firewall. My wish is to see the Wireless network and reports also on this firewall cum- controller. 

We have been using Sophos XG for almost three years.

Sophos XG is stable and we have no problems with it.

I think there is a limitation on the issue of scalability, and it is related to the interfaces that we bought. Right now, all of the employees are using it. The traffic that passes through it covers close to 2,000 users.

For us, our bandwidth is growing so we may have to scale further, in terms of the hardware networking components.

We are constantly in touch with the distributor in Zimbabwe and they are excellent.

Prior to Sophos XG, we were using Cyberoam for our firewall. We switched because Cyberoam was acquired by Sophos.

The initial setup is very simple. It takes perhaps an hour to complete, which included importing rules from Cyberoam.

We completed some certifications for using this product, but for the implementation, we were assisted by IDSS. In some instances, we are doing the maintenance on our own. When we have a challenge, on a case-by-case basis, we might contact the vendor and may require them to come in and assist.

The issue of a recurring license is a hassle because every year, we have to subscribe. It causes us problems in our organization.

We are expanding and setting up a new data center, and I want to put a new firewall in. We have an interest in diversifying, in terms of vendors, so that we do not create a single point of failure in case one product fails. Ideally, we want to have different products.

This is a product that I can recommend for anybody who is looking for a firewall.

I would rate this solution a eight point six out of ten.

We are using this product as the firewall for our head office, so any connections going outside of the office go through it. We are also using VPN clients and especially during the lockdown, it was very helpful.

The feature that we find most valuable is the VPN, which ensures that people working remotely have a secure connection.

The email security and other security-related features are useful.

We feel that the GUI can be improved a bit because it has a lot of information and looks a bit outdated.

Nowadays, you hear a lot about next-generation firewalls, so some additional features can be added from an EI perspective. Products like FortiGate, for example, have a lot of features apart from the basic firewall. 

We would like to see integration with existing IPAM and IDAM products.

In the future, I would like to see new kinds of automations, as well as the inclusion of artificial intelligence-related features. A lot of other firewalls already have these now.

I have been using Sophos XG for approximately three years.

We have not had many issues, perhaps two or three of them, when using Sophos XG.

Scalability-wise, they have different models. With the requirements that we have, this firewall did a good job. It's still doing a good job in terms of performance. For a larger enterprise with a higher number of users, they can recommend other models.

Currently, we have approximately 100 users.

We have received good support. For the small number of issues that we have had, we received help from IT. This included assistance with configuring some additional policies. Whenever we reached out to them, they were very prompt in terms of responding to us.

Prior to Sophos XG, we were using a firewall by Palo Alto. The major reason we began looking for a different one was that the support was not very good. The firewall was pretty decent but whenever we wanted some help, it was a bit difficult to reach out to them. To summarize, it was not very prompt.

The initial setup was simple. Within one to two hours, we were done. This was not just the installation, but the complete configuration.

We performed the deployment with the Sophos team guiding us over the phone. It was not complex. There was one person from Sophos who was coordinating it, and it was done by our internal IT manager.

For the most part, I can say that we plan to continue using this product. However, we would like to see if they have come up with new models and what additional features have they been incorporating. With cybersecurity, I know there have been a lot of threats of late, so we would like to see some new technologies or new features being incorporated.

This is a product that I can recommend. My advice for anybody who is implementing it is to first try to understand what the major use cases are. People need to know that there are quite a few options, such as Fortinet, and all of them have different advantages. Sophos fits perfectly for a smaller group of users, with perhaps between a hundred and two hundred people. For larger enterprises, I recommend that they implement Fortinet or Check Point.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

This solution does everything and anything a firewall can do.

I am tempted to say that all of the features are valuable. 

When you choose a firewall you have to make a strategic decision, much more than a tactical one. We decided that everything we use within it, goes through and it's got protection.

The dashboard is intuitive and user-friendly.

Training on the devices is an area that needs improvement. Their training mechanisms are not perfect, and this is where you lose a good appreciation of the product.

The documentation for implementation is not good. For example, when you look up the details on a firewall rule to validate it, the details are not there.

If you click on the help file, they say a zone is an area where you can define specific logical network areas. This is where they stop, with nothing more. If you want to go further into the concept of it, which you know there is, you have nothing. Then you have to revert to the internet and go onto newsgroups to try to see if anybody has had your type of experience. Then you find someone, they explain it to you then say, "Oh, it only makes sense". So, then when you want to implement this, it's much easier at that time. So, that's the best-case scenario that I can explain.

There is an area that is very specific to our setup, where working tools you cannot easily establish a VPN between two internal networks.

When you want to establish a VPN with different wizards, they assume that you're always going through your internet link. 

If you want to create, with the zero-trust concept, which is where you don't trust anybody or any device, you want to make sure that everything on your network is segmented and everything is relative, depending on its flexibility, behind its firewall or a firewall segment. At some points, you might want to establish VPNs between certain network segments. 

Since you cannot establish VPN tunnels from the Sophos interfaces, plus if you are doing something that's going through the internet, then you lose flexibility. 

Currently, let's say we have a factory V-LAN and you don't want anybody within the factory V-LAN to be able to connect to another unless it is to a specific V-LAN, and you want to use VPN technology, you can't do it because you can't establish the connection again between two internal interfaces.

I have been working with Sophos XG for six years.

It's a stable product.

In regards to scalability, it's difficult to ascertain at this time because we haven't scaled it necessarily. 

The use cases that we have are very particular, and we're not in a mode of having scaled it yet. We have approximately 100 users in our organization who are using  Sophos XG.

Their support, we have a mixed review of it. It's good, but where it's bad, is because they're an international company that relies on many different continents to be able to get the support at different levels.

When we get into the people that are from India, that's where the support becomes not as efficient as we would want it to be. They have different rules of operating under and they don't show themselves to be flexible. Whereas where I am, currently I'm in Canada. When I speak to the support people within Canada, they're much more flexible when it comes to trying to follow us up on what we're trying to do and get the thing working. They're more flexible.

It was a combination of 75 percent straightforward and 25 percent complicated.

It's approximately $6,000 for each device. We have three devices and it was somewhere around $18,000.

I would recommend Sophos XG to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I am using it for unified management.

I like the firewall, inbound, and outbound modules the most. The VPN feature also works well. It is very easy to configure rules in Sophos XG.

We have got local service here in Zimbabwe from Sophos, which is something that I like a lot. We have got good local support, and they come on-site when we have any challenges.

Sophos provides a lot of good training all around Zimbabwe. They are quite dominant here, similar to other solutions like Fortinet or WatchGuard.

When you are using it as a controller for the wireless access points, it doesn't perform well.

It is not suitable for the public cloud. It is more suitable for enterprise data. It is not really the equipment for cloud data centers. I am looking for a data center firewall.

I have been using Sophos XG for more than five years. I started with Cyberoam, which was bought by Sophos.

It is stable. I have managed to secure my network. It has been good so far.

It is not so scalable. If you want to upgrade, you have to buy another appliance. I don't see so much scalability. You can only change a port from 1 gigabit to 10 gigabits. There are other solutions like Fortinet that are more scalable.

Their support is good. We get local support from them.

The initial setup is straightforward. The deployment took two days.

The pricing is flexible. Sophos looks at a country's economy and offers flexible pricing. This is how they have managed to penetrate the market.

I would definitely recommend it. It has good support and training.

I would rate Sophos XG a seven out of ten.

We are going to be hosting our own website and we are using the Sophos XG because we want to make sure that it is well protected. We also want to make sure that the rest of our LAN is not compromised.

In addition to using this firewall ourselves, we resell the product to our customers. We have a well-trained team that can perform the implementation and deployment.

Our network is now much better protected than it was. If you don't have your network and your infrastructure secured, as a business, which is about more than just putting a firewall in place, then you're asking for trouble. There is a lot of hunting going on, and it's not just the large corporations. It's the small businesses, too.

The most valuable feature is that it scans all of the data for any kind of malware.

It logs everything that goes in or out, and the logs are helpful.

The simplicity of the setup is very good. I can add whatever ports I need and it's pretty easy to set up.

It would be helpful if they had a set of standard templates because it would assist in the beginning, when you are just getting started. They do have a template, but I mean specifically for different use cases. For example, an existing template for setting up a web page would suggest what kind of security we need to have in place. They do have help menus and videos, but additional templates would be useful.

I have been using Sophos XG for about eight months.

The stability has been rock solid and it hasn't gone down once.

For me, there is essentially no limit when it comes to scaling. I have never used all of the connections but the limitation is between 50,000 and 200,000. I would say that scalability is enormous. If we had a bigger network then I would probably get a bigger Sophos.

At this point, we're just starting and only have three or four people who are regularly using it.

The technical support is awesome.

We did have a Cisco router prior to using Sophos XG, but I don't know much about Cisco or how to get it operational. I also realized that it was getting old, so we switched to a high-end Sophos model. With malware in this day and age, where we have a 6000% increase in the number of malware attacks compared to two years ago, we wanted to be well protected.

The initial setup is straightforward. If I can do it then anyone can do it. The deployment took a couple of hours. Because we are new to this type of solution, our strategy will be to begin by blacklisting everything and then whitelisting only the things that we need.

Our in-house team handled the implementation and deployment. We have more than 200 people that are very well trained, so we can set up pretty much anything. 

We paid for our licensing for three years, upfront, and there are no costs in addition to the standard fees.

I evaluated several options and sought out advice before selecting Sophos XG.

I am happy with this solution, which is one of the reasons that we are selling it. I don't like to sell or recommend things that I have not used. I have tried a lot of the features but I would say that there is a lot more potential I haven't even tested at this point.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are a managed service provider and the primary firewall that we sell and maintain is Sophos XG. It is also used in the company.

The most valuable feature is that it is a next-generation firewall.

The fact that it is integrated between endpoints and the firewall, and then the firewall and a central Sophos operation center, is very good.

The cloud-based interface makes it easy to manage.

The integration with the Intercept X approach means that Sophos XG can do things that none of the others are doing.

The main area that needs improvement is the documentation.

Sophos needs to be a little better at communicating with partners about changes, issues, patches, and so forth. 

The weakest point is the technical support because they are difficult to get into contact with.

We have been using the Sophos XG series for three years.

This solution has been very stable and it's a good product, otherwise, I wouldn't be using it.

The technical support team is knowledgeable and they are good, although it is very hard to get a hold of them. You sometimes have to wait in queue for over an hour to speak with somebody. To me, that is the most frustrating thing about Sophos.

We did not use another similar solution prior to Sophos XG. Since the MSP business started, it has been our primary firewall product because of the pricing and support.

The initial setup is complex, as is setting up any next-generation firewall today. You have to know what you're doing with firewalls in general, although beyond that, it isn't as bad as some of the firewalls that I have seen.

The deployment typically doesn't take longer than a few hours or a day, depending on the type of client and what it is that we have to do.

The Sophos pricing, in general, is better than SonicWall, Fortinet, WatchGuard, or anybody else. Because of the partner program, the pricing I get is extremely good compared to what I would get from any of the others.

I have evaluated several firewall products and I think that Sophos is better in terms of ease of use, performance, and pricing.

I would highly encourage others to evaluate Sophos and adopt it. I've discovered that compared to other products, it is easier to manage and I think that it operates better.

Overall, I think that they've got a pretty complete set of features and they seem to be on a really good path. My only complaints are about the documentation and the availability of technical support. 

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution internally in our company and we also deploy it for our customers.

We have many Sophos solutions that we use together. We use Sophos UPM and Sophos XG. Next, there are just firewalls. The Sophos UPM is the basic firewall; Sophos XG is a mix of Cyberoam and Surface (Sophos acquired Cyberoam three years ago). We use all the features within these solutions and we have a full set of licenses. They offer IPS, IBS, BPM, web publishing, web protection, etc. We're using everything. 

They should expand their DDoS feature. It's basic. They need to enhance it.

Technical support needs to be improved.

The solution needs a mobile application for the administrator. Today, as an administrator, you cannot manage the solution from your tablet or from your mobile. You can only go through a web console. Other vendors have mobile apps. Some vendors also have the ability to manage and check the chart report and change some settings from a mobile application. This would be an excellent add-on for administrators who are traveling. It could help a lot. 

For the past seven years, we haven't had any issues with the hardware or software. It's stable. If a customer misconfigured it, they might face issues. Out of the box, however, it's stable; it is an appliance that customers can depend on.

The solution is scalable. Sophos has plans for customers who want to upgrade or add another appliance in the same environment. As a customer, I've deployed to as many as 300 users or as few as 30.

Technical support isn't as good as it needs to be. In most cases, these days, the partner has to work hard to support the customer. The response time and the experience of the support team are not as expected. As a partner, we've never opened a case. Our customers, however, have told us they have had issues.

The solution is straightforward. Deployment took about 30 minutes.

Price-wise the solution offers acceptable rates. You can find cheaper solutions on the market, but when you go cheaper you have fewer features. Today, based on iQuate market the price is very reasonable and affordable, and it's good if you get a good discount. Discounts can be offered by the vendor. If it's a competitive upgrade which means the customer is upgrading from another vendor, Sophos provides extra discounts so they can win the deal. In general, it is a good price.

We are a Sophos partner. We both use the solution and recommend it to clients.

Compared to other competitors, I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. However, for very large enterprises, the largest firewall appliance from Sophos might not be enough for thousands of users. If I was rating the solution for enterprises, I would rate it eight out of ten because of this. 

I would recommend the solution, however. We often recommend the solution to our clients and it works very well for them.

I use the solution as my endpoint firewall and at the same time, I use it for load balancing and spillover.

What I like the most is the reporting. 

The integration with the Sophos firewall is brilliant. I don't need to be physically present in the office. I can monitor everything from Sophos Central. That is a great feature and it's one thing that I really appreciate about the solution.

I like the fact that it can self remove malware and do updates on the cloud via Sophos Central.

The interface is good.

Although I enjoy the reporting elements of the solution, it can still be improved. I still can't drill down. There is some information that I would really, really like to see, but I still can't access it.

On reports, they sometimes give a summary, but it lists different users as unknown. There are times that I really want to know which user or which IP is causing a problem. 

There is something that have observed and I don't know what exactly the problem is. Right now, from my ISP I'm supposed to have unlimited bandwidth, but I observed behind the firewall my bandwidth seems low. I'm not exhausting what I have from my ISP. I've checked the TOS and there's no limit. When I spoke with one of the resellers they said that they too had experienced it before and that probably I should restart the device.

That they observed that the clients that restarted had their internet service improve. I don't think that is a good solution. I don't want to have to restart my device to have the internet service improved.

I've checked the setup. I even checked with the reseller, who told me everything is okay. I've gone for XG training. Even after the XG training, I've gone back to look at my setup. I can't see anywhere the bandwidth is being shared. I'm not sure if it's the device itself, but I've checked everything.

The scalability is okay. We have about 200-250 users.

Technical support can be improved upon. There are times that I've had some issues that I've tried escalating in technical support and it takes a while before we really get it resolved. 

Once I was getting a particular malware from an unknown source on one of my servers which was behind the firewall. I asked their support why. Later they advised that I should install Intercept X for servers on that particular device. I was confused about how it was behind a firewall; the firewall should be able to detect which system is getting infected. The system doesn't really go to the internet and nobody browses on it. The only thing I could imagine that could cause it was a Windows update. If it was from an update they least it should have been able to say, "Okay, it was from this particular update that this malware was filtered in."

Out of ten, I would give their service a five.

The solution we were using previously was Cyberoam.

The Cyberoam device was about five years old and had started malfunctioning. It wasn't giving us the output it had previously provided. At that time, Sophos had already bought Cyberoam. We had the option to either upgrade the OS to a Sophos OS or to a Sophos device.

We decided to go for a Sophos device since the Cyberoam device was already problematic.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I used a reseller to assist with implementation.

We pay on a yearly basis. 

We have Sophos XG, but we also have Intercept X for our endpoint and recently we just deployed Intercept X for the servers. I've not done a calculation of the costs of all three to know what my yearly maintenance costs would be.

Once you have basic networking skills and firewall management it's easy to set up. With Sophos Central, I think it's a good solution for any IT department.

I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

As it is now, the solution is good, but I believe that there's still room for more improvement. I still believe the reporting could be improved. Sophos, from my experience, seems to affect my bandwidth. I didn't set any limit, so I don't know where that is coming from, but it's something that we've noticed with the XG.

We use the solution as an internet firewall, and a VPN concentrator.

It streamlines the process of creating VPN access for users. Because of the AD integration, it makes it very easy to manage these users from different locations from a central source. It also helps us to get a good idea of what our risks are, or if there's any risky activity going on with the users. 

The SSL VPNs are the most valuable feature for me. I have a lot of systems out of the head office that need to connect to the local networks, and they all connect via the Sophos VPN client.

The initial set up process can be a little tricky, especially when you are registering with Sophos and you have a poor internet connection. Setup is not necessarily complex, but it's not trouble-free. You do have connectivity issues at the initial setup with registering the device on the Sophos platform to access the advanced features. It doesn't always go through the first time around. That may be an issue with the quality of our connection. I'm not sure exactly what it is. 

The single sign-on client I get maybe a 60% success rate on. There are times when it will use single sign-on for verification of users to access Internet resources. It still doesn't always catch the user. The user gets sent to the web login. Even though the single sign-on is helping, it doesn't always work. 

I would like to see a better single sign-on performance. I'd like to see a more streamlined way of managing your licensing as well.

There are no issues with stability. It's a very stable system and you almost never have serious problems for any reason. It's only when you do an upgrade that you have to restart. Stability-wise, for the on-premise solution, I'd give it 4 stars.

Once you've bought the specific version, you are locked into the limitations of that plan. You can't exceed the number of VPNs, connections, etc. There's no way to increase that capacity, per se. You do have options where you can increase the port count and so on. However, in terms of scalability, you have to buy the capacity you require.

On the system I have now, it's not fully populated, but we have about 100 users. The plan is to eventually support about 1,400 users.

I don't use the solution's technical support. I typically just use the documentation. There are lots of guides and videos available. In most cases, I search the guide. There's a step-by-step guide to deploy so I don't have to contact technical support.

The initial setup isn't hard, but it can be tricky. Since I've been using several Sophos devices, I now find it's fairly simple. I get the deployment done in two hours, including integration. For others, it may take about a day to get everything done. 

There's almost no maintenance. There's really only the requirements of adding users and populating VPN connections. One person does that on a part-time basis.

I handled the implementation myself.

We do see an ROI. It would be the cost of the support. If I had to hire a CCNP in Nigeria, I would be paying about $10,000 per annum for a CCNP minimum. For a less experienced person, I can get for about $6,000. I am probably saving about $4,000 a year in personnel costs from going with the XG rather than the ASA.

We are paying about $1,500 yearly for the Enterprise Plus. As far as I know, there aren't costs above this standard fee.

We evaluated Cisco ASA as well as the FortiGate before ultimately choosing Sophos.

I chose Sophos over FortiGate because I'd already had experience with Cyberoam and it was a fairly similar migration in terms of configuration from the UTM over. But in terms of features and capabilities, I think FortiGate is pretty similar to the Sophos. Cisco ASA I choose not to go with because it's much harder to configure. I also needed to be able to have someone other than myself manage it and not need to have someone with CCNP sitting down just to add VPN users etc. I felt that the Sophos solution was a better option because it gave me all the functionality of the ASA, but it's much easier to manage.

We use the on-premises deployment model.

We definitely plan to increase the usage and also add high variability too. Right now, it is the main internet gateway and firewall for my network.

We're using both Sophos XG and Sophos UTM.

I would warn those considering implementation that, once you've got it, you're stuck with it. You can't really increase the capacity very much beyond what you have. It's always good to have the expertise available to take care of the box because even though it's a lot easier than the Cisco ASA, you still need someone that has a little expertise in managing it.

You can get very good performance without spending all of your money and without having to send a lot of high-end techs in-house to monitor processes.

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

We use Sophos XGS primarily for VPN and security with clients and supplies.

Sophos XGS has some rules and intelligence to scan all vulnerabilities in our network.

The most effective feature in enhancing our network security is the threat intelligence capability.

The technical support could be improved as it is currently not competent and pretty slow.

I have been working with Sophos XGS for three years.

The technical support is rated three out of ten, indicating it needs significant improvement.

Negative

The pricing of Sophos XGS is okay. It is approximately two thousand and a half per year.

I would rate it an eight out of ten.