Comparing Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG based on user reviews reveals distinct contrasts in user satisfaction levels, setup complexities, and interface experiences. FortiGate's customer service varies significantly, with some users satisfied and others seeking improvement, while Sophos XG also sees mixed support reviews but with emphasis on the need for more tutorials and documentation. Deployment times for FortiGate can extend significantly depending on the project, contrasting with Sophos XG's faster, albeit sometimes technical setup. FortiGate's interface and performance have been criticized for complexity and sluggishness, against Sophos XG's calls for a more intuitive interface and streamlined reporting. Licensing and costs are mixed for FortiGate, with some preferences over competing brands, whereas Sophos XG is noted for its reasonable, albeit varied, subscription pricing. Valuable features for each highlight FortiGate's robust security and customization, versus Sophos XG's emphasis on infiltration prevention, user-friendly monitoring, and comprehensive security solutions, displaying their individual strengths tailored to different user priorities.
The summary above is based on 426 interviews we conducted recently with Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG users. To access the review's full transcripts, download our report.
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"There are many features. VPN, firewalling, and intrusion detection are the main features that are most useful for us at this time."
"The valuable features of this solution are the VPN, load balancer, and the QoS for splitting the ISP band."
"IPS works smoothly."
"The filtering is very easy to do. You can segment and create profiles for usage very easily."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG for our use cases are its firewall capabilities, its ability to connect to wide area and local networks, and its VPN functionality."
"The solution is scalable."
"We are able to trace any user and pinpoint any vulnerability or any malicious software. We are able to synchronize between the local and active directories so we can catch users easily through their login names and IDs."
"The solution is more cost-effective than FortiGate, Cisco and Palo Alto, which have very expensive licenses."
"We would like to see better pricing."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"Their updates can be faster and more regular."
"There needs to be a way that we can distinguish between educational institutions on Youtube and other Youtube videos. You can do this on Fortinet. Basically, they can block all other Youtube videos besides those that are from educational institutions. With Sophos, you either allow for all Youtube videos or none at all. They need to allow for more specification on different websites."
"This solution could be improved with more effective bandwidth. I found that when I enable DDoS detection for our clients, bandwidth is reduced. If DDoS detection is disabled, the bandwidth will be high, but it isn't secure. We recommend that customers enable DDoS detection, but if they need high bandwidth, we recommend Palo Alto and FortiGate instead of Sophos."
"While it is possible to configure between two of the solution's devices in the same model, the high available usually fails."
"Sophos XG's user interface has some room for improvement."
"The solution should have the ability to be up to date with the most recent threats."
"There's an IP address delivery for our VPN client and a limited range of IP addresses. So this is a problem in the latest firmware release, but rather than using homework scenarios, we need a lot of VPN clients."
"We are not very happy with the customer support they provide — it's quite slow."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". 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 is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, WatchGuard Firebox and Check Point NGFW, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos XG report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
Go with Sophos XG or if you have tight budget and technical expertise then can move with pFsense.
Dear Sharif.
For 150 users any firewall will work perfectly. You can choose as per your convenience, availability, price, and better implementation partner in your region. Keep a bigger box at the central location and configure SD-WAN. SOPHOS has by default SD WAN. Make sure you have secure access to the cloud and all endpoints should have endpoint protection else only firewall will not help.
Most of the cloud service providers work on any-any rule because their responsibility is network uptime and availability. Security of your setup is your responsibility.
Manageability is better in Fortinet however features are better in SOPHOS. License bundle & ATP functions are are good in SOPHOS. Support response is good in SOPHOS but you will find less tickets in FORTINET once it is implemented as per your setup.
Overall both are good for your setup. You can choose as per convenience.
Hope this will help.. Greetings .. Ravi
In my opinion, the first point of strength is the support, and FortiGate is doing a great job in terms of support. It has numerous reference guides for configuration. The other advantage is ease of management in both the UI and CLI levels. You can use FortiGate modules to protect against web and virus attacks.
Hello Sharif,
I prefer FortiGate SDWAN Devices (FortiGate) even though we also deliver Sophos to our clients.
The decentralized FortiGate devices work as firewalls with an excellent security ecosystem. FortiGate and most other items work as Hardware units or on virtual machines.
As a Telco company we have a lot of companies working in different industries with various requirements. We can support them all with FortiGate.
Our customers prefer the security features, the stable ecosystem for life cycle management, for device/user/policy management, thread detection & prevention, intrusion prevention, sandboxing, ... the low operation effort to build a stable company network that supports the need of any customer size.
In our business, we also like that the architecture of a company network can be easily changed if the customer requirements change. From single-line sites to Data Centers with high availability and Cloud integration FortiGate can be used in any design.
The different security features that can be added by the license are powerful and integrated into the management dashboard. Updates of protection mechanisms against new threads happen automatically as soon as a new protection mechanism is available when new threads occur. The security team at Fortinet is excellent.
Greetings
Andre
Hi, XG is EOL the new series is XGS, both are excellent equipment but I prefer Fortigate, why ??? DHCP slection, leader SD-WAN, many IPSEC dynamics is possible on SOPHOS but is limit the are conflicts with many IP's dynamics you need to use DDNS, SSL tunnel for remote clients, VRF, advanced routing with OSPF and BGP ("as path"). Greetings