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Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs Sophos XG comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
316
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos XG
Ranking in Firewalls
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
196
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 19.8%, up from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos XG is 11.3%, up from 8.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sep 25, 2024
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
Deminda Dilan - PeerSpot reviewer
Apr 26, 2024
Good for enterprise-level businesses and offers many features like URL filtering and antivirus capabilities
Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7. Currently, I don't think it's available. If they can improve that, it would be better. We wouldn't need to purchase a separate WAF solution because they already have advanced URL filtering. But I don't think that advanced URL filtering has the same features as a dedicated WAF, like F5 or other solutions. That is an area for improvement. If they can improve the WAF feature, customers won't have to buy a separate WAF solution. They could do it with the same Palo Alto firewall, perhaps through a subscription-based model. So the web application firewall feature has to be improved.
Akshay Y P - PeerSpot reviewer
Feb 20, 2024
Has good technical support services, but the GUI needs enhancement
The product’s new variant allows for faster processing of data packets from LAN to WAN, surpassing the capabilities of an 8G firewall. It provides threat prevention features, including WAF, IPS, and AV. We have configured SSL VPN capabilities for different branches, which have been working efficiently. For our minimalistic usage, it has been performing well in transferring data from on-premise devices. It helps us generate detailed reports on the dashboard. The product’s integration with Sophos Central enhances security architecture by enabling centralized management under a single dashboard. We recommend Sophos XG as a priority as it is much more reliable and has efficient technical assistance. It is much easier for configuration, web filtering, or web extension than one of its competitors. I rate it a seven out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The technical support is great."
"Palo Alto blocks the new threats better than other tools."
"The most effective features for threat prevention in the PA-Series are its integration with Cortex and the use of machine learning AI for advanced threat detection."
"It is a scalable solution."
"It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides."
"When I compare the tool with other firewalls, it’s the most powerful. It's the most powerful security engine. All the traffic going to the Internet passes through it as the first layer of protection. Because of its good performance, we also use it for decryption."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The solution has a three-layer architecture, and it helps customers to deploy the solution quickly."
"Palo Alto has predefined applications that you can control at the application level."
"The most valuable feature is web filtering."
"The most useful aspect of the solution is the concept of integrated security."
"I like the firewall, inbound, and outbound modules the most. The VPN feature also works well. It is very easy to configure rules in Sophos XG. We have got local service here in Zimbabwe from Sophos, which is something that I like a lot. We have got good local support, and they come on-site when we have any challenges. Sophos provides a lot of good training all around Zimbabwe. They are quite dominant here, similar to other solutions like Fortinet or WatchGuard."
"The security of the solution, thanks to the built-in unified threat management, is one of its most valuable features. Plus, one single pane of glass is all you need to manage the whole solution, and web management can be done from anywhere."
"I like the fact that it can self remove malware and do updates on the cloud via Sophos Central."
"It is very user friendly and easy to manage from the administrative point of view. It is good, reliable, and easy to implement."
"It is feature-rich, I like the server authentication, and the reports are good."
"The firewall feature of Sophos XG has been the most effective for threat prevention."
 

Cons

"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"The anti-malware engine could use an upgrade."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"The support provided by the solution is not that good."
"Currently, they are not protected with any data security when they work from home or outside the network. They surf the Internet directly and should implement a proxy or firewall to monitor the data between the endpoint and the internet."
"Pricing flexibility could be an aspect worth considering, as it has been a concern for some of our clients."
"There are constant updates for the operating system. It is a nice thing also, but it has its own disadvantages. Continuous updates are there. The users face issues like, how often do I need to update that? Within a period of five months, I'm updating it two or three times. It gives them a feeling that they are not confident about their product and have to update it so frequently."
"As we migrate fully into the cloud, additional features like capacity upgrading and improvements to hardware resources will be necessary, especially since our equipment consists of older-generation switches and routers."
"I encountered a slight issue with the application portal, which was not functioning correctly."
"Utilizing these features as a unified solution can require additional setup, particularly when incorporating Panorama for centralized management, which may involve extra costs."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"The solution should have the ability to be up to date with the most recent threats."
"The management console could be improved and the solution lacks good technical support."
"Technical support can be slow to respond, which is something that should be improved."
"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."
"We recently did an upgrade on the Sophos XG firmware and we were surprised that after the upgrade, the automatic switch actually we were using did not work anymore."
"There could be some room for improvement in its pricing since my clients usually feel like the product is on the expensive side."
"I wish to see an antivirus feature added to the solution."
"Inability to investigate incidents, there is no tracking."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."
"There is a license to use Fortinet FortiGate."
"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."
"Before choosing a piece of equipment you have to take into account the cost-benefit offered by each one. Sometimes it is not worth paying a very cheap price to have a minimum level of security."
"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."
"It is an inexpensive solution."
"It is a very expensive solution."
"This product has an affordable and reasonable price point."
"From my perspective, managing the price is important, especially because we're a small business. For larger organizations like Barclays, we provide our requirements to the client, and they place the order on BigFix. It's their responsibility to consider their budget and make decisions accordingly. We appreciate the features we get, but the cost-sharing still depends on the client."
"The tool's pricing was reasonable when we bought the product. We pay around 60,000 dollars per year."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"The product is expensive."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series's price is much higher than other firewall brands."
"Price-wise, Palo Alto offers high-price products."
"We paid for our licensing for three years, upfront, and there are no costs in addition to the standard fees."
"This is a budget-friendly product with reasonable pricing."
"The price is in the mid-range and it is very good for small to medium-sized businesses."
"The price is reasonable in my opinion."
"Sophos XG can be considered as an averagely-priced tool in the market."
"We have our license for three years."
"The price is not reasonable."
"The product is well priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
21%
University
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
6%
 

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 Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
The reporting feature and application ID functionality within Palo Alto Networks PA-Series are incredibly valuable to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
It's not cheap. In Sri Lanka, it's expensive compared to other firewalls. But considering the features and the potent...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7. Currently, I don't think it's available....
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 si...
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 Fact...
What Is The Biggest Difference Between Sophos UTM and Sophos XG?
The Sophos UTM is a UTM and Sophos XG is the NGFW. First, you must know about the difference between a UTM and NGFW. ...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
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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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs. Sophos XG and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
815,854 professionals have used our research since 2012.