We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is praised for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and an easy-to-use interface. Sophos XG is highly regarded for its functionality, user-friendly interface, web filtering capabilities, detailed reporting, and seamless integration with other Sophos products.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM could use improvements in key activation, log management, cloud management, MFA offerings, web filter options, application inspection, GUI features, bandwidth issues, VPN connectivity, pricing concerns, performance, and quality control. Sophos XG requires improvements in antivirus features, graphical interface, logging, technical support, initial setup, configuration, functionality, sales policies, firewall upgrades, network control, data protection, bugs, user interface, integration, support, high-availability clusters, scalability, education and training resources, security features, Dynamic IP support, and specific user requests.
Service and Support: The feedback for customer service for Fortinet FortiGate-VM varies, with positive comments regarding the promptness and expertise of the support team with some negative remarks about delayed responses and challenges in accessing information efficiently. The customer service for Sophos XG receives a range of opinions, including compliments for helpful and responsive assistance, as well as complaints about unhelpful and unresponsive support and slow response times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is generally uncomplicated and simple, whereas for Sophos XG, it can be considered either effortless or difficult depending on the user's familiarity and technical expertise.
Pricing: The setup cost for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is affordable and less expensive compared to Palo Alto and Check Point. The pricing options for yearly or monthly licenses are flexible. Sophos XG provides a customizable pricing structure based on the needed functionality. The cost varies depending on the model, edition, and activated security modules. In general, both products are reasonably priced and provide good value for their features.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is known for its enhanced security and stability features, whereas the Sophos XG is renowned for simplifying management processes and enhancing workflow efficiency.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred choice when compared to Sophos XG. Users appreciate Fortinet's strong security capabilities, ease of use, simple deployment, intuitive interface, and scalability. They also find features like geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and intrusion prevention systems valuable.
"It is very flexible to use."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."
"The interface is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"Technical support has been super responsive and dedicated to getting any challenges resolved."
"The most valuable features are site-to-site connections and UTM."
"I find the simplicity to be most valuable."
"All the security features that are built into the product are valuable."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its ability to deploy it on live physical hardware. Specifically, when providing firewall services for clients, we can leverage such hardware appliances to support multiple customers on the same hardware."
"Initial setup is very straightforward with a wizard, if needed."
"The functionality provided is very good."
"The best part about FortiGate-VM is its strong security."
"The most valuable feature is the Intercept X. It is the advanced features that are used for malware detection, and antivirus."
"Sophos XG is easy to use."
"As a security solution, it's a very good security solution."
"It's a good security tool and it aligns with the rest of our security stack."
"The features that I have found most valuable are first the Web Filter and the Web Application Firewall SD-Wan on Version 18. Additionally, RED Tunnels allows a Sophos vital to speak to another Sophos vital in headquarters."
"Sophos is a comrehensive solution which allows me to configure all the attendant products, such as Sophos' firewall, Endpoint and Encryption features."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The most significant aspect is the protection it offers."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."
"In the first two releases of FortiOS 5.6, we had some trouble with the SSL VPN service. Sometimes it stopped working, and the IPS daemon too."
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The tool does not have a good name in the market, consisting of enterprise-class businesses, making it an area where the product lacks and needs to improve."
"The performance could be better. Some features need to have quality control when the switch is working. The dedicated bandwidth for some users is not reliable."
"The tool is expensive."
"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."
"The user interface could be improved."
"The logging side of it could definitely be better. Some of the logging lacks, and the information that they provide you, especially in the spam filtering section, could be better."
"Some of the firewall rules are complicated for us to understand, they should be simplified."
"The current bandwidth consumption is no longer shown in the XG and XGS."
"Scalability it is a bit limited. We did a sizing exercise before the purchase. But that was just to fit our current needs. There was no room for having an option to upgrade the device. The only option that we have if we are grow in the near future, is to go for another model with higher specs, which is actually more expensive. In other words it doesn't have that modularity ."
"They made some changes to the firmware update sometime last year, which moved some of the policies from where they were before. Some of the policies, such as NAS policies, were separated, which made it a bit hard for people to trace the policies they had configured."
"Lacking network access control, user profiling and analytics dashboards."
"Better instructions should be provided as part of the technical support so that we can understand the functionalities. This will help us to troubleshoot faster."
"In the Firewall, the Intrusion Prevention System can be improved."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Sophos UTM, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Sophos XG report.
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