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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Sophos Firewall comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.2
Fortinet FortiGate-VM enhances security, reduces costs, and improves efficiency with easy management, competitive pricing, and quick integration.
Sentiment score
6.3
Sophos Firewall provides cost-effective security management, reducing investigation time and personnel costs, justifying investment for medium-sized businesses.
I observed a fifty to sixty percent reduction in operational costs after migrating to FortiGate VM.
Senior Network Consultant at Visionet Systems Inc.
They have a platform that organizes their networks and access effectively.
Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
We haven't used MPLS for over five years now, and it was extremely beneficial to see the changes from MPLS to SD-WAN using Fortinet FortiGate.
Chief Technology Officer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The costs have increased with Sophos XGS in the last few years, with license prices going up by 30%, doubling from $2,500 to about $5,000, which is a big challenge for us.
IT Manager at Bavaria Egypt S.A.E.
The graphical interface of Sophos XG simplifies configurations, saving time in support and troubleshooting compared to the Linux-based solution I previously used.
Head ICT at NIC Uganda
We purchased endpoint security for the first time last year, and even without endpoint security, it provides comprehensive security.
IT Manager , SAP HANA Administrator at Tara Paints & Chemicals
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.2
Fortinet FortiGate-VM support is generally praised for responsiveness and expertise, but some users desire faster, more consistent service.
Sentiment score
6.6
Sophos Firewall support is knowledgeable but criticized for slow response times, language barriers, and preference for email communication.
Their support is helpful and effective.
Senior Network Consultant at Visionet Systems Inc.
The end-user support is delayed at levels L2 and L3.
Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
They support us almost instantly.
Chief Technology Officer at GM Modular
Their team was quick to diagnose and resolve the problem by exchanging the equipment within two weeks.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
Any issues are quickly addressed by their support team, which is not common among all OEM manufacturers.
Owner at a marketing services firm with 11-50 employees
When my customers raise a ticket, a customer representative calls them immediately to address their queries.
Sales Representative at AVNS
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
6.7
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is scalable, flexible, and compatible across environments, despite some challenges with licensing and specific features.
Sentiment score
7.0
Sophos Firewall offers scalable solutions for various environments, with cloud deployment providing better scalability than hardware options.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM adapts effectively; for example, you have a limited number of VPN connections on VM01, accommodating around 1,000 remote users, and if the customer needs another endpoint, we can deploy VM02 and manage that transition effectively.
EMEA Enterprise Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Scalability is well-supported, with the notable ability to implement features easily.
Assistant Operation Manger at IIJ Singapore
It can start with a single core and scale up to a 32-core license for a robust deployment.
Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
You can scale up to multiple firewalls with centralized management.
Technical Consultant at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
You can't upgrade memory or storage on a specific model, which limits scalability.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
Since it uses the underlying Kubernetes infrastructure, it can scale easily if the Kubernetes cluster is sufficiently large.
CTO at GCET
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
6.5
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is dependable, with newer versions showing improved stability, despite occasional integration and update glitches.
Sentiment score
7.9
Sophos Firewall is praised for its stability and reliability, with minor issues mainly linked to updates or setup errors.
The stability of Fortinet FortiGate is excellent.
CEO at Kapstone Technological Services LLP
The product has been very stable, based on my ten to eleven years of experience.
Assistant Operation Manger at IIJ Singapore
In the past couple of years, they started releasing numerous new features, and things have become somewhat unstable.
Chief Technology Officer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
It is rated at nine out of ten for stability and is very reliable.
Director Technical Services at TechnoBIZ
Sophos XG is very stable, even when serving as a DHCP server.
Global IT Manager at Express KItchen
Sophos XGS is stable now, and I would rate its stability as a ten out of ten.
IT Manager at Bavaria Egypt S.A.E.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate-VM struggles with complex activation, integration, support, documentation, UI issues, pricing, performance, and technical assistance.
Sophos Firewall faces challenges in speed, customization, software stability, user interface, integration, VPN configuration, and technical support.
You should not look just at a data sheet, but also look at real tests in the field and load tests from companies who are making them.
Founder at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively.
Senior Network Consultant at Visionet Systems Inc.
Now, these features require separate products like FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, and a FortiCloud subscription for reporting.
Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Tekton also has an unstable API with frequent changes, making it challenging to maintain consistency across versions.
CTO at GCET
It would be beneficial if Sophos XGS offered an end-to-end solution with competitive pricing.
Head of IT at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
The DDNS features are essential for any organization, as it is better not to have a static IP address from an ISP.
it managar at rise tech
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers flexible licensing, competitive pricing, and robust security features appealing to medium and large enterprises.
Sophos Firewall offers reasonable pricing with flexible licensing, but users have concerns about annual renewals and pricing increases.
The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2.
System Engineer at Trends and Technologies, Inc
I don't have this experience with Fortinet FortiGate-VM because my colleagues in Germany are reaching better prices than me.
Network Administrator at THK Co Ltd
Savings stemmed largely from automating the process using Terraform.
Senior GCP Engineer at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Currently, it costs about four million shillings in Kenya.
Network and Infrastructure Manager at Sonysugar
The cost depends on the package you are in, such as full threat management or basic.
Technical Services Lead at Telenet Solutions
The last instance I purchased was for three years, around $3,700 for SDG 125.
CEO at Tawassul Technology
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers high security, scalability, and affordability with powerful features like SD-WAN and efficient threat detection.
Sophos Firewall offers synchronized security, centralized management, and advanced features enhancing network performance, security visibility, and scalability.
The more integrated we become, the less we spend on solving bugs and issues, allowing us to reduce time focusing on understanding and improving our network.
Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees
Fortinet is the only provider to have successfully set up a unified operating system on all its products in the network security ecosystem.
System Administrator, Security Engineer, Security Result at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees
For what we need to do, which is setting up a VPN connection between both sides and using it for SSL VPN connections for remote users, it works effectively and we haven't encountered vulnerabilities.
EMEA Enterprise Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
The firewall feature of Sophos XG has been the most effective for threat prevention.
Information Technology Specialist at stelios@biolandenergy.com
It's able to detect cloud applications like Zoom or Microsoft Teams and allows traffic shaping based on the application.
Security Engineer at Mavisco Resources Sdn Bhd
By prioritizing bandwidth for our ERP hosted in Amazon Cloud and de-prioritizing non-essential sites, it has greatly improved our network management.
Global IT Manager at Express KItchen
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
148
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Firewall is 6.9%, down from 12.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos Firewall6.9%
Fortinet FortiGate-VM2.2%
Other90.9%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

KO
Network Administrator at THK Co Ltd
Faced hardware limitations and setup challenges but have improved network protection over time
I spent much time finding exact firmware on Aruba which was working with these guns, but it is not optimal because it is not the latest version, so there could be potential security problems. We decided to replace those access points with another one. I personally have trouble because I don't know the exact life cycle of Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. I don't know if the life of boxes is five years or something else; we moved from our previous company, which sold us to other companies. Before 10 years, we had a special department that took care of core networks, including firewalls. After that, this responsibility fell to me and my colleague. It is not easy to set up these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes properly because we didn't have previous experience with this kind of solution. At first, we set up only a few rules that were not secure enough, and over a couple of years, we improved the settings and security of these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. Currently, I have one Fortinet FortiGate-VM that needs to be replaced next year, and this box is not so powerful, so I need to redirect some traffic to another Fortinet FortiGate-VM. It is stable, but because the CPU processor of this box is not powerful, I need to redirect some traffic to another box. In the future, I need to choose a higher-level box to prevent potential troubles with the power of this box.
Ashutosh Jha - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Engineer at IT Solution
Robust protection has blocked external threats and provides clear visibility into user activity
Sophos Firewall offers multiple features, including IPS, IDS, ATP, NDR, XOps, web protection, application protection, web server protection, and many more. Out of all those features, I find web protection and application protection to be very helpful and valuable in my daily work. Sophos Firewall has positively impacted my organization by preventing outside threats, allowing me to easily monitor my users, and configuring any rule for any user regarding what they need to use and what I am restricting for the particular user. I can share that it has improved productivity because if anyone could ransom my network, they could demand money to decrypt the files, thus saving us money, time, and providing reliability.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise34
Large Enterprise42
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business209
Midsize Enterprise61
Large Enterprise53
 

Questions from the Community

Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
From our perspective, it's quite good. When we have the visibility, we will make our policies depending on the threats that are coming because we are using many different other security measures. F...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...
Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat signatures and updates. I also appreciate that I can just import addresses and URL...
What are the main differences in features between Sophos XG and FortiGate 80F?
Hi Arvind P , The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form Factor. The Sophos XG appliance that offers a direct competition to the Fortigate 80...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
Sophos XG, Sophos XGS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Sophos Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
904,680 professionals have used our research since 2012.