Sophos Firewall Reviews

We sell Sophos XG devices.

Sophos XG includes all basic features and has a secured proxy mechanism. Network security proxy authentication is available through a web-based proxy. The older proxy mechanism is not there. Pricing is very competitive, much cheaper compared to other brands like Palo Alto, Check Point, and Fortinet. Additionally, the performance of the hardware has been increased, although it is not negligible compared to other brands.

The direct proxy or proxy mechanism is missing. Legacy applications should have this option, but Sophos XG has removed it. This feature was available in UTM nine but not in XG.

I have been using Sophos XG for one or two years.

Deploying Sophos XG was not difficult. It took a couple of weeks to fully deploy the solution, and the process was quite fast and not complicated.

I have premium support from Sophos, and the support is good. They respond well and have a good support team.

Pricing of Sophos XG is very good compared to other brands. The pricing is very cheap. For example, if Palo Alto is priced at 200, then Sophos is priced at 75, which is a significant difference.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate the overall solution between seven and eight.

I use Sophos XG as a channel partner, providing it to our customers for next-generation firewall solutions, Wi-Fi access points, and other security features. My customers include industries such as banking, manufacturing, IT, hospitals, and healthcare.

I regard Sophos XG as a superior choice among firewalls due to its advanced security, user manual, and control panel features, among others. The firewall offers effective policy management, bandwidth management, and group policy features from a sales perspective. 

Additionally, customer support is highly regarded, with a technical representative swiftly addressing customer queries through the Sophos partner portal.

Sophos XG is reaching its end-of-life and end-of-support; therefore, the user count limitation of particular models should be improved.

I have been working with Sophos XG for around five to six years.

I would rate the stability of Sophos XG as ten out of ten.

I rate scalability as ten out of ten, indicating that it is easy to scale up for a larger number of users.

The technical support from Sophos XG is excellent. When my customers raise a ticket, a customer representative calls them immediately to address their queries. I rate customer service nine out of ten.

Positive

The setup process is easy and I would rate it ten out of ten.

My customers see a return on investment and value for money with Sophos XG.

I consider the pricing reasonable; it depends on the model and license type, like one-year, two-year, or five-year licenses. Compared to other firewalls like Fortigate, SonicWall, and Palo Alto, I find Sophos XG cost-effective. 

I highly recommend using Sophos XG for enhanced security purposes and organizational structure implementation. Furthermore, I rate Sophos XG as ten out of ten.

On-premises

I use Sophos XG mainly as a gateway. It also serves as the DHCP server on my network and is utilized for web control.

The Sophos XG offers intuitive configurations, which is primarily what I find valuable. It is easy to configure due to its graphical interface, reducing the reliance on specialized IT personnel and cuts down on time used for support and troubleshooting.

The reporting side could use improvement. Having more reports on the dashboard would be beneficial. While there might be different tools or licenses for various purposes, having more reports available would be helpful.

I have been working with Sophos XG for nearly five years. I started with Cyberoam and then transitioned to Sophos.

The deployment process was smooth. There were trained engineers available, and it was easy for my team to adopt.

The solution has been stable. It's on 24/7 and has consistently been reliable over the years.

I have not had the need to scale, which might be due to having more capacity than needed.

I rely on local vendor support, so I haven't directly engaged with Sophos technical support.

Neutral

Before Sophos, I used Linux-based firewalls that I configured myself. Cyberoam was my first physical firewall, which naturally progressed to Sophos due to cost considerations and local support.

The initial setup was straightforward. It wasn't a lengthy project, and within three days, the deployment was completed.

I did not use a specific project methodology. I followed my regular project plan, which included an initial meeting to kick off the deployment.

I benefit from reduced reliance on specialized IT skills, especially during staff turnover. The graphical interface of Sophos XG simplifies configurations, saving time in support and troubleshooting compared to the Linux-based solution I previously used.

The decision to go with Sophos was influenced by pricing and strong local support.

During my evaluation process, I looked at Cisco and Palo Alto in addition to Cyberoam.

For organizations considering Sophos, it is important to evaluate their network deployment plan, especially if they have a hybrid environment. They should consider if Sophos XG, in its basic deployment, can provide sufficient security or if additional tools are required. I would rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

On-premises

Most of our customers want to block their websites, especially those in the financial sector. They desire access to only required websites while blocking the rest. We have also installed certificate-based scanning for inspection.

Sophos XG provides us with unlimited VPN users, which is very useful. Its in-built reporting functionality is also highly beneficial. Additionally, we are currently utilizing the threat intelligence features.

Sophos XG should concentrate on improving SD-WAN solutions. Currently, the in-built GUI doesn't support configuring SD-WAN. If configuration from the firewall itself was possible, it would be very useful for us. Presently, we rely on Sophos Central to make configuration changes.

I have been working with Sophos XG for over six years.

I would rate the stability of Sophos XG as a nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Sophos XG as a six out of ten. There is room for improvement in the scalability aspects.

The technical support from Sophos is good and satisfactory.

Positive

The initial setup of Sophos XG is simple.

The pricing for Sophos XG is comparatively low. Compared to other firewalls, it is low in price.

I would compare Sophos XG to SonicWall. SonicWall has multiple features, including inbuilt endpoint security and a lot of features compared to Sophos XG.

Overall, I would rate Sophos XG as a seven out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

People use Sophos XGS because the overall channel support is very good, so they don't face issues. Additionally, it is competitive in pricing against Fortinet in some cases, especially when considering high availability, email subscriptions, and gateways.

Sophos XGS has provided stability, security, and ease of management. It also offers better reporting options.

Sophos XGS has very good reporting capabilities and effective IPS signatures based on the latest versions. The threat detection capabilities are effective, especially against CNC and certain viruses not coming through emails.

In previous versions, NAT rules were easier to create. After version 18.5, creating a NAT rule has become more complex, requiring the creation of a separate policy and an additional component. 

Reducing the complexity of creating rules would make it easier for administrators, especially when troubleshooting and managing.

I have been working with Sophos XGS since it was released, approximately for the last three years. Additionally, I have been working with Sophos for six to seven years.

The stability of Sophos XGS is very high. It is rated at nine out of ten for stability and is very reliable.

The scalability of Sophos XGS is rated eight out of ten.

The response time from Sophos technical support can be slow in most cases, which can be challenging. However, in some cases, they perform well.

Neutral

The initial setup is very straightforward, simple, and easy to understand. It clearly defines outgoing policies, sources, and destinations while applying web controls or IPS rules.

On the pricing side, pricing is rated eight out of ten, indicating that it may be relatively expensive.

Based on my experience, I would definitely recommend Sophos XGS to others.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

On-premises

We use Sophos XG firewall primarily for threat management, including firewall and endpoint equipment protection. We are in the process of upgrading to Sophos XG 33 firewall.

Sophos has greatly improved our network's security posture. In terms of network security and user activity reporting, it has helped us to manage and analyze the activities of the users. From the reporting, we can now see areas where we need improvements, such as blocking certain sites from users.

The most valuable features are its protection capabilities like threat prevention, malware security, web protection, and web security. The security features are very good.

There should be a workaround in case of equipment breakdown, like a stopgap measure while the equipment is being returned or replaced. An improvement in the product's pricing would also be beneficial so that more people can afford it.

We have been using Sophos XG since 2018.

Sophos' technical support is very prompt and efficient. For instance, when our equipment failed to reboot, their team was quick to diagnose and resolve the problem by exchanging the equipment within two weeks.

Positive

We used another firewall before Sophos.

Having a Unified Threat Management system like Sophos XG has helped us spend less on network security, thus providing a good return on investment by managing our income effectively.

The price is reasonable, but if reduced, it could become accessible to more people. Currently, it costs about four million shillings in Kenya.

Before using Sophos, we used another firewall.

Regular prompts from Sophos to the users for instant reporting of any challenges would be very beneficial. Including more YouTube videos, webinars, and other educational content would also help users understand and utilize the product more effectively.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.

On-premises

We use the product for traffic and security control. 

We currently have multiple clients, and many users are working remotely. We need antivirus protection to guard against malware introduced from public networks. One of the most beneficial features of Sophos XG is its integration with Sophos Central. If any file is detected as malicious on any endpoint or firewall, Sophos Central immediately identifies the threat and publishes the information across all endpoints and firewalls. If a single system gets infected, the threat is communicated and addressed across the entire network, including all sites and remote users.

One drawback I've noticed with Sophos XG is that sometimes, the platform can become unresponsive. I've observed that it occasionally hangs, causing traffic to get stuck. During these times, users cannot access the internet or any services routed through the Sophos Firewall. This issue happens randomly and isn't something we've encountered with other firewalls like FortiGate, which we used in the past.

Dealing with licensing has been a big challenge for us. Despite our efforts to resolve issues through our sales contact, we've faced limitations. After confirming our purchase orders, we had to escalate the issue. We were ready to extend our licenses for two or three months.

I have been working with the product for a year. 

We haven't seen any major issues with customer support from Sophos. We have faced some problems, but we understand that the support team can sometimes be unresponsive.

Positive

When comparing FortiGate to Sophos XG, I would say that if I'm working on large-scale asset monitoring and security purposes, especially if I have a data center that requires firewall security, then FortiGate would be my choice. It's faster and more responsive than Sophos XG support. 

The tool's deployment takes two to three hours to complete. It doesn't require any maintenance. You would need one engineer to handle one application. 

I can say there has been some return on investment. It's good, but I would still say it's higher by about 10-15 percent compared to other market products with similar configurations.

The tool's pricing and licensing are very complex. As a developing company, we need approvals from management to make a purchase, which can take time. We asked Sophos XG to renew our current firewall license for one or two months while we plan to accommodate our increasing IT assets.

I rate the overall product an eight out of ten. 

We have experience with Sophos XG, which is the older version as well. It has been around three or four years that I have been working with Sophos XG.

We are the partners of Sophos XG, and we are in the partners platform.

For Sophos XG, we are not using it in our on-premise environment, so we pitch it to customers based on their requirements.

In some scenarios, we offer maintenance for the firewalls, especially in high availability situations.

The interface of Sophos XG is basic, and we can manage it easily compared to other firewalls; for example, it is much easier for configurations than Palo Alto.

Regarding the security level in Sophos XG, we need to see the Gartner reports because there are competitors such as SonicWall that we have to consider.

As for valuable features in Sophos XG, I am not able to recall many at this moment, but it has good integrations with Active Directory Protocol and others.

I do not have any specific ideas on what disadvantages Sophos XG could improve upon.

Everything has been good; I have not encountered any major challenges or problems.

AI could be one of the area for improvements.

It has been around three or four years that I have been working with Sophos XG.

We have found that Sophos XG is stable; I would say it is stable overall.

I am not sure how scalable Sophos XG is.

We have not reached any enterprise customers pitching for Sophos XG, so I have no clarity on its effectiveness for them.

The technical support from Sophos XG is good, and the response times are also good.

Positive

The installation of Sophos XG is quite easy, and we have not found any difficulties in the process.

That is the older version of Sophos XG.

Generally, Sophos XG is used in an on-premise environment.

Adding AI features would be practical, especially given the current trend of integrations across products.

Clients would use AI in the product for addressing configuration issues or simply to query the AI when they face problems.

Regarding disadvantages, only the potential for AI in configuration seems to be the area for improvements; I cannot clarify any more disadvantages.

I give Sophos XG an overall experience rating of nine out of ten.

On-premises

The primary use case for Sophos XG is for two reasons: the firewall capability for protection against malware and Sophos XG's extended capability in routing and IP routing. I use it in a small organization.

The most valuable feature of Sophos XG is its routing and network routing capabilities. I particularly appreciate the routing capabilities that Sophos XG has.

There is room for improvement in the cybersecurity and personal information protection areas of Sophos XG.

I have been using Sophos XG for about seven years.

The initial setup was complex, but since our last conversation, I am happy with what I have.

I rate the stability of Sophos XG as nine out of ten.

I would rate the scalability of Sophos XG at about an eight.

The technical support directly from Sophos is not that great, which is why I had to employ a local company that deals with it more to assist me.

Negative

I used a different solution before Sophos XG, but it did not provide the routing capabilities that Sophos XG has, which is why I switched.

The initial setup of Sophos XG was complex, but after our last conversation, I am content with the product.

As an end user, I am not involved in the installation process.

The problem with the return on investment for Sophos XG is the three-year license. The license fees are extremely expensive, and in most cases, once the license has expired, Sophos requires the purchase of new hardware if one decides to run it online, which is a major drawback.

Sophos XG is extremely expensive compared to other products, but its capabilities warrant the cost. However, the three-year license fees are significantly high.

I looked between Sophos and FortiGate before deciding on Sophos XG.

Based on my experience, I would recommend Sophos XG to other people. The overall rating I would give this solution is seven.

On-premises

I sell Sophos XGS and SonicWall products, recommending them for both small and large companies. I handle selling around 100 to 200 units each month. My firm works with Sophos for enhancing network security, reporting on user base vulnerabilities, and managed protection.

The most effective features of Sophos XGS in enhancing my network security have been its ability to report on larger user bases and identify vulnerable users. It provides good protection services. The AI and ML capabilities are beneficial, and it offers a wide range of connectors with competitive brands.

Sophos should work on its marketing strategy as it seems to lag behind Fortinet. Their pricing strategy creates difficulty due to high availability, causing price undercutting without maintaining regular margins.

I have been using their products for 14 years.

Their support is excellent. Any issues are quickly addressed by their support team, which is not common among all OEM manufacturers.

Positive

The main competitors in the region include Fortinet.

The initial setup was very easy and intuitive.

The company is quite aggressive with its pricing, offering discounts. The competitive pricing is beneficial, although a lot of stock in the market affects margins.

I would definitely recommend Sophos XGS to others. I rate the overall solution ten out of ten.

On-premises

Other