We performed a comparison between SonicWall NSA and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy for users to manage the entire solution from anywhere. The solution is very light, stable, and provides excellent real-time control. Many users have experienced stability issues with SonicWall NSa. They feel it can be a bit buggy, resulting in occasional freeze-ups and downtime. The solution does not scale easily.
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"SonicWall has all the usual functions, like LAN configurations, security features, word filters, etc., but it also has the CFS agent, which isn't available in any other firewall. Reporting port support is also there."
"User-friendly with good security and application control."
"SonicWall has USCS and anti-virus at the gateway level. Everything is filtered, and if it detects an intruder, it drops the line."
"The basic firewall rules of the solution are great."
"SonicWall NSa has a user-friendly firmware"
"The stability is better than other products."
"With the deployment of the SonicWall NSA solution, we never suffered a problem due to invasion or contamination of any kind."
"The most valuable feature is the sandbox."
"Sophos Control Center is a good feature. We can monitor everything from the control panel."
"Reporting is the most valuable feature."
"This kind of strategic technology makes it much easier to remove malware and address vulnerabilities quickly."
"Definitely, its usability is very good, and it's a very robust firewall."
"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."
"I like the dashboard, the interface, the management console, and the remote login."
"The solution is very easy to use and straightforward."
"The most valuable feature is the Intercept X. It is the advanced features that are used for malware detection, and antivirus."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security."
"It needs more available central management."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"Some of the web policy reports could be improved."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"Sometimes I found the GUI and some of the features a little bit hard to navigate, as opposed to Fortigate, which is much more user-friendly."
"The anti-spam requires a specific Java version on the server side (do not update it, otherwise it will break)."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us."
"It doesn't require much improvement. The only improvement area is that cloud reporting, assessment reporting, and other reporting features should be available with the subscription. They should provide reporting features with the subscription base, which is currently not there. We bought the reporting tool, but there are some complications. They have made some changes to the application, and now the reporting management is completely on the cloud."
"The features I would like to see improve are the dashboard and the UI."
"The thing main thing is that there's no user admin and in other firewalls, we can enable the scalable features, but SonicWall doesn't have that feature."
"The stability is not there. The features are there, but they are not stable. They need to improve on this product because I feel that they have launched this product without much R&D."
"Our clients use Karios, and while it integrates well with it, the integration could be improved."
"Data traffic analysis could be better. I think Fortinet products like FortiAnalyzer are very effective in analyzing data traffic. I think it's better than Sophos. It could also be more stable."
"They should improve the hardware. If they can do that, it will be a very good product."
"Scalability could be improved. It could be better."
"I wish to see an antivirus feature added to the solution."
"It would be great if the user can have a portal to check on activities related to their account."
"While it is a secure solution, I believe it could be improved."
"We are having challenges when using Zoom with Sophos XG deployed."
SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Untangle NG Firewall. See our SonicWall NSa vs. Sophos XG report.
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