Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs Sophos XGS comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Juniper SRX Series Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (5th)
Sophos XGS
Ranking in Firewalls
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
82
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.3%, up from 17.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Juniper SRX Series Firewall is 1.5%, down from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos XGS is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
MURALI NIDAMANURI - PeerSpot reviewer
Highly scalable, user-friendly UI, and easy to maintain
We have used Juniper SRX Series Firewall in airports and multiple other industries The most valuable features of the Juniper SRX Series Firewall are the user-friendly UI, and accessing the solution is simple. The pricing strategy of the vendor could improve. I have been using Juniper SRX Series…
Jaffar Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Has provided stability, security, ease of management, and better reporting options
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,…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The integration with Active Directory is one of the good features. Most of the customers are now looking for the Single Sign-on feature. So, being able to integrate Active Directory with the firewall is useful. It is also easy."
"The deployment is quite easy and fast."
"The features that I have found valuable are the ones for the main purpose we are using Juniper - its firewall to protect our network for our internet access."
"The solution's stability is very good."
"Most of our clients use it as a traditional firewall, blocking Layer 3 and Layer 4, blocking by transport."
"The most powerful feature in Juniper SRX is definitely NCLS."
"It is a complete security bundle. The cloud-based Sky Advanced Threat Prevention feature is very valuable. I am 100% satisfied with the performance of the Juniper firewall. It has a very good throughput. It works very fine. We use our firewall as a site-to-site VPN or Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN). In both cases, it has a very good and optimum performance. Their service support is very good in India. I get really good support from the Juniper team."
"We did not have problems with scaling, as we have less than 500 users in our organization."
"It provides good routing and high performance of the data center."
"The solution offers more antimalware and antivirus feeds than others."
"It’s popular because it’s easy to manage, the cloud console is excellent, and it supports VPNs. It can also integrate with endpoints, though this is optional. Regarding threat intelligence, customers in Central Europe often prefer managing their threat hunting rather than using the more expensive service from Sophos. This feature is handy for large international companies with many employees. Threat intelligence requires separate licensing and is optional. Customers can either manage it themselves or purchase the additional service from Sophos, which includes further actions and is more expensive. Smaller companies often don’t have the budget for this."
"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 is cost effective and provides all necessary security features and throughput."
"The threat management system and VPN are most valuable."
"Sophos XGS that's a good firewall. If you use the endpoint, then you have what Sophos calls synchronized security. That will mean that if one of the endpoints is affected, it will be automatically set in isolation."
"It is scalable."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
 

Cons

"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"If I had any criticism that I would give FortiGate, it would be that they need to stop changing their logging format. Every time we do a firmware upgrade, it is a massive issue on the SIM. Parsers have to be rebuilt. Even the FortiGate guys came in and said that they don't play well in the sandbox."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"As a networking person, I don't really have any major issues with this device. Based on my experience of using it in a cluster, it could be more stable. I had an incident when one of the SRXs in a cluster couldn't learn ARP. It is a good solution, but firewalls don't seem to be an area of development for Juniper. They are focusing on data centers, routers, and switches, not firewalls."
"The Juniper product has to improve in terms of innovation."
"It's a good stable firewall, but it's nowhere near what it needs to be for a next-generation type firewall."
"I would like to have a better web UI for administration. Juniper could simplify the web UI and make it more compatible with mobile devices."
"The solution's configurations and syntax are specific and more complicated than other platforms."
"Juniper SRX is stable, but it could improve. FortiGate has better stability than Juniper SRX."
"The CLI is verbose. You have to say a lot to do a little. I don't like that part of it. Cisco's command syntax seems to be a good bit more concise. When you're trying to get something done, you don't want to have to type a bunch."
"The CPU switch could be improved for a better overall performance of traffic flow."
"The user interface has improved significantly over the past few years, and having a more competitive price model could make it a preferable choice for customers."
"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."
"Areas for improvement in Sophos XGS include better balance when handling high availability configurations, smoother firmware upgrades without the need for turning off devices, and simplified configuration after firmware updates."
"The SD-WAN feature isn't very good. It's there, but it doesn't work properly."
"It has recently started to suddenly block and crash."
"There are issues with some designs being able to work on high availability."
"We'd always like the solution to be a bit less in terms of cost."
"One area for improvement would be including automatically generated certificates for HTTPS, which was available in earlier versions but might not be in the latest."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing is lower than Cisco."
"The cost of Fortinet FortiGate is competitive and not expensive compared to other enterprise- grade solutions. On average, the license cost per year is around seventy percent of the firewall's purchase price."
"We have the full version of Fortinet FortiGate and we are on a three-year contract with a commitment of five years."
"The price depends on the size of the company. From the beginning, you just want to know the internet bandwidths, speed, and the number of users to be able to offer the right product and model. They have a lot of products in FortiGate according to the size of the company, like 200D and 300D."
"Licensing is usually on a three-year period."
"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."
"As far as I'm aware, in our case, it's just a yearly pricing arrangement with no additional licensing costs."
"The pricing is flexible."
"While the price of support is expensive, the price of the solution, itself, is not."
"I find the price to be reasonable for an enterprise-level solution."
"The pricing is very inexpensive which is the main reason I bought the solution. One device costs around 50 EUR through the University's vendor who is modernizing our network."
"For a medium-sized organization, the cost for the licensing and implementation of Juniper SRX for 10 users would be about $300-400."
"Its price is comparable to the competition."
"This is an expensive product."
"We were able to lower our overall operating costs over a three year period by 25%, mostly recovered from maintenance/support costs."
"Juniper SRX is reasonably priced."
"The licensing cost for Sophos XGS is high. However, they do apply competitive discounts and different layers of discounts."
"We paid around 17,000 pounds for a three-year package."
"The pricing for Sophos XGS is reasonable."
"The license for Sophos XGS is for three years, paid on a yearly basis. Everything is included with the license; there are no additional fees."
"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."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and their target market is small to medium-sized companies."
"It's highly effective and well-suited for medium and small companies. The pricing is attractive, and our customers find it suitable for regular license renewals."
"The price of Sophos XGS is average compared to other offers from other OEMs."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
53%
Computer Software Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
4%
Financial Services Firm
4%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
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...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What do you like most about Juniper SRX?
Juniper SRX Series Firewall is a stable solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Juniper SRX?
Customers always want cheaper solutions. Fortinet is a cheaper solution than Juniper.
What advice do you have for others considering Juniper SRX?
Overall, I would rate it an eight out of ten because of the complexity of configurations and the maintenance.
What do you like most about Sophos XGS?
The policies are the greatest feature. They allow us to configure granular control over our network traffic.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos XGS?
The pricing is justified, and the solution is considered budget-friendly compared to other vendors.
What needs improvement with Sophos XGS?
Hardware stability needs improvement. I have experienced multiple hardware complaints, particularly during firmware u...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Juniper SRX
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
7-Eleven, AARNet Pty Ltd, Allegro Networks, alltours GmbH, Apollo Hotel Papendrecht, Armstrong Atlantic State University, Atlantech Online, Availity, Bajaj Capital, Baloise Insurance, BancABC, BAS Group, Black Lotus, Blue Box, Borealis, Carilion Clinic, Catholic Health System, CATV, Champlain College, Chinas Ministry of Railways, China University of Mining and Technology (CUMT), Cloud Dynamics, CloudSeeds, Cloudwatt, CODONiS, Colt Technology Services, Cork Internet Exchange, CSS Versicherung AG, CyrusOne, Danish Crown, Deloitte Belgium, Department of Energy, Divona Telecom, DQE Communications, DreamHost, European Government Agency, Expedient, Financial Market Information Services Provider, Fluidata, Fonality, Fox Sports, Global Financial Institution, Global Investment Bank, Global Investment Company, Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), Goethe University, HEAnet, High Performance Networks Inc., Hillenbrand
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs. Sophos XGS and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.