Sophos XGS Reviews

We are system integrators implementing Sophos fvarious of clients, including government agencies, industry, small offices, and schools. We can implement this solution for any organization. They have Sophos on the cloud, but we only install on-premises for our clients. 

We receive an email report on the number of attacks Sophos has stopped each day. Since we installed the solution, the number of detected attacks has increased considerably. 

Web filtering and intrusion detection are essential features. As system integrators, we also like the dashboard because it's easier to configure all the features.

Our only issue is the price.

I started working with Sophos about four years ago.

Sophos is stable.

Sophos is scalable. You can do high availability and a lot of other things with it.

I rate Sophos' support five out of 10. It's sometimes difficult to contact them, and finding a solution is not easy.

Sophos is one of the best solutions on the market, but Meraki and FortiGate are on the same level. We only work with Sophos and Meraki. We don't use any other vendors. Meraki is installed for specific situations, but we use Sophos for the rest.

There is an installation wizard, so the deployment is straightforward. The basic installation takes about an hour. However, it takes longer to build a customized solution for a client with multiple policies that must be configured. It is easy to do it, but it takes time.

After the deployment, there isn't much maintenance. They notify us when they need to install an update.  We can do it without rebooting the system, so the customer has no downtime. 

I rate Sophos XGS five out of 10 for affordability. Sophos has several license tiers. The basic license is Network Protection, and you can purchase additional modules. Right now, if I want to upgrade one client to the new one, they give me a 99 percent discount on hardware. However, the hardware cost is nothing because the license is expensive.

I rate Sophos XGs nine out of 10. Aside from the price and the support, the solution is excellent. My only advice is to be careful because you cannot renew the license again once Sophos products reach the end of life. You have to purchase a new solution.

I am a user and we are also resellers of this solution. Our company is in the Ivory Coast, we are partners with Sophos and I'm a technician.

It's very easy to manage this solution. 

There are issues with some designs being able to work on high availability. We design our architecture in three tiers on the network. There is the core tier, the distribution tier, and the access tier. We haven't succeeded in our attempts to configure this and haven't been able to find documentation on how to go about it. Sophos has a single sign-on, but it requires configuration to communicate with the firewall and that is lacking. The configuration on Sophos is well described, but the configuration on the Windows system is not well described in relation to the Sophos knowledge base. It took a lot of my own research to figure out what was wrong. I'm a cyber security guy so it's very difficult for me to implement the solution.

I've been using this solution for seven years. 

My customers find the product to be stable.

I believe that the solution is scalable. 

We now have access to French support, English support, and Indian support. We had great support from India and we worked well together. I now choose French support, because that's my mother tongue but it's quite difficult to work with them.

The initial setup is simple and straightforward. When you connect on the wizard, you just click through and you're there. 

The pricing has changed a lot over the years. Sophos says they are less expensive than other solutions in the marketplace, but that's not my experience. I believe this product is more expensive. 

If you're looking for equipment that's easy to manage, this is a good product. I rate this solution eight out of 10. 

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.

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. 

When it comes to different interfaces there is some speed issue that can be improved in Sophos XGS.

I have been using Sophos XGS for approximately seven years.

Sophos XGS is a stable solution. It has a very good operating system.

The scalability of Sophos XGS is very good.

The support of Sophos XGS needs to be improved. Support is very poor. The approach they use needs to improve. We have to call and raise a ticket, but they don't resolve quickly. There are times when their technical support people, are not the right people for the right ticket. It wastes a lot of time. Since this is a business-critical device, there needs to be quicker support. There should be quicker support from the company. 

I have used Fortinet previously. When you compare Sophos XGS with Fortinet, Fortinet is a  better device. However, if their country has good support for Sophos XGS, then it's fine. Sophos XGS is more economical than Fortinet and they have similar features. For a business-critical solution, Fortinet would be much better because of its stability.

This solution would not have a return on investment for larger companies. However, for smaller businesses using this solution, it is better and faster.

Sophos XGS is priced lower than some of its competitors, such as Fortinet

I rate Sophos XGS a seven out of ten.

We are using it as a unified threat management system.

We use it on a daily basis. There are about 600 people using this solution in our organization.

The solution is deployed on-prem.

The threat management system and VPN are most valuable.

Reporting could be improved. The structure could be better because most of the reports aren't detailed.

It's stable for now.

It's scalable.

Initial setup was easy. I would rate it 4 out of 5.

Setup was done in-house.

I would rate this solution 9 out of 10.

We work with two clients with Sophos XGS. One of our clients was replacing old firewalls, and they choose Sophos XGS. The other client has a new project that he's planning to move his endpoint solution to Sophos XGS.

One of the main advantages of Sophos XGS is the processor. You don't have to wait a long time for when you are managing the firewall and the traffic is faster now.

Sophos XGS could improve by having better integration with Active Directory.

I have been using Sophos XGS for approximately one year.

Sophos XGS is stable.

I have found Sophos XGS to be scalable.

The technical support is good. However, they should provide quicker support in other languages, such as Spanish.

The initial setup is easy.

We do the implementation of the solution and the number of people we need depends on the project. However, typically we have two people that handle the implementation. 

Since COVID we have been trying to work remotely as much as possible. After the initial setup, the solution can be managed remotely.

Sophos XGS is a good investment because these solutions work for a long time.

I live in Bolivia and the price of Sophos XGS is high. However, they have adjusted their price a little over the past while but the price could still be less expensive to be affordable.

I have evaluated other solutions, such as Fortinet.

I rate Sophos XGS a nine out of ten.

Users have distributed networks. They use it as an SD-WAN to connect the branch’s site or multiple locations. We are using RED channels or devices for branch-to-branch connectivity.

You don't need an additional subscription for IPS or an antivirus. It has an engine of antivirus applications for IPS. You have an email gateway for people who are still using on-prem exchange. Comparatively, other firewalls might need multiple subscriptions separately for each feature.

Sophos might discontinue the UTM features, as they've been promoting the newer XGS Series appliances. While the XGS offers great features like detailed logging and audit reports, it currently lacks essential functions in the UTM. For example, the XGS doesn't provide basic audit tracking for configuration changes, which is crucial for understanding who made modifications, what was changed, and when. Sophos claims they'll add this functionality later. Its absence significantly hinders the usability of the new firewall.

Additionally, while XGS offers decent day-to-day management, there's room for improvement. Many users transitioning from UTM find the XGS interface less intuitive, causing a learning curve.

I have been using Sophos XGS as a reseller for a long time. We are working with the latest version of the solution.

The newer version is stable. Earlier versions, like V8, were quite unstable.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight-point five out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is good. We cater the solution to small, medium, and enterprises.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Support is mostly good, but sometimes it takes too long to escalate the solution.

Neutral

The initial setup is very easy. It depends based on the scale of the deployment. There are different use cases according to the customers. Based on the requirements, the deployment can take between one day to a month. We have a small customer with a few hundred users. We can configure that within two to three days and finish the deployment quickly. It requires meticulous planning, and doing it then takes time based on the size of the customer , especially if it's a big customer. A small deployment is very easy. Larger deployments take time based on the customer requirements and different timescopes of the customer and downtime.

Sophos is comparatively cheaper than other products. The total cost of ownership is better in Sophos.

I rate the product’s pricing a five out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

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