Sophos XG Reviews

The product has a console that is based in the cloud for all their products. In this console, they have email security, firewall security, endpoint security, et cetera. All of the products on offer in the console are very useful for us.

The solution is stable.

The solution works well for enterprises and large-scale organizations.

The manuals or guides we are given are too simple. When we are implementing the product, it is difficult for us as we don't have more detailed information. 

The technical support on offer is slow. When I have questions, they answer me very slowly. Sometimes within 24 hours, I have a response. However, it can be longer. In Mexico, Sophos doesn't have technical support locally. It's in Argentina or in other countries. It would be nice if support was available in the country.

The stability is okay. That said, as an enterprise solution, it can be a bit unstable during the initial implementation.

The solution works well for enterprise-level organizations.

We're not overly satisfied with technical support. We'd like to see local support, from within our country. Due to the fact that it is coming from outside, the response is very slow. We'd like it to be faster. We aren't completely satisfied with the level of service we get. 

The initial setup is difficult in that there isn't enough documentation available to walk a user through the process. It can cause some issues. It's not exactly straightforward.

Sometimes we need to work with other resellers. We don't always implement the solution by ourselves. 

We are partners with Sophos.

We are using the 130-type of solution.

We take a hybrid approach to deployment. Some servers are on-premise and some servers are in-cloud.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

The most valuable feature is the VPN aspect. It has been beneficial for my users who work from home. Connectivity and from a security aspect.  The security aspect of this is quite good. It measures up to the standard that I expect.

From a Firewall perspective and then user management, easy to manage and the user experience, profile, are giving me what I am expecting.

During this COVID era, the VPN has really been helpful. We can seamlessly connect to the applications remotely and work from home.

In the Firewall, the Intrusion Prevention System can be improved. Now because COVID has come to stay, people tend to work from home, and cybersecurity has been on the high side. 

It can improve more on the security aspect of this so that it can combat any major threat or common bug. I am not saying that the security has become compromised, as it is usually active, but they can improve on it.

Local and technical support can be improved.

When firmware updates are complete, there were issues with connectivity and VPN users. Recently, I stopped updating the firmware because I didn't want to obstruct the connectivity of the staff working remotely at different locations. 

I have stopped doing any updates until the issue can be addressed.

I have been using Sophos XG for approximately 12 months.

When you compare with Barracuda, Sophos is quite a bit cheaper. 

With Sophos, you can upgrade on what you need and upgrade as time goes on. I think that it's relatively open, compared to other products.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I use it for one of our universities in Palestine. It's an Arabic university and there were about more than 10,000 students. So, our user base ranges from 1 to 10,000. I use it as the main firewall. I use it for High Availability (HA). That's the main use case why we use Sophos XG. We do intend to keep using it.

As a security solution, it's a very good security solution.

Some features are not available on the graphical interface. So you need to return to the command line to solve some issues that are faced by the customer. I used it for enterprise networks, I decided that it is not very good for enterprise networks. There is some issue with its hardware. I have faced two problems and that were resolved by Sophos earlier. They changed the appliance. In other products, I have not seen such problems in the hardware. So I think that the hardware is not heavy duty. You can say it's not heavy duty like other vendors. The performance is not as it says on the datasheet. They should improve the hardware. If they can do that, it would be a very good product.

I am using the appliance from XG 110. We use versions 105 TO 370. I use more than one product for small to medium size businesses. We also use Intercept X firewalls. We deploy Sophos XG on-premise. 

It is scalable for some things. It can have an extendable host. The appliance can be customized for more than one connection point. You can put it in the same fibre and DSL connection.

They have proper support in the technical point of view, and their English language is not clear. You know that they are not native English speakers. That's one of the things that I faced. But they have very good knowledge.

The installation of Sophos is very easy and straightforward. 

It's not very expensive. 

I recommend it for small to medium businesses, not for enterprise businesses. I'll rate it 8 out of 10.

We generally deploy this solution for our clients for its basic functionality; our clients generally don't have sophisticated requirements. The solution is used for the firewall rules and the VPN rules, as well as the WAF functionality. We are silver resellers of this product and I'm head of the software department. 

The most useful aspect of the solution is the concept of integrated security which is why I use and recommended this firewall to clients. However, given that we never use endpoint protection, there is less incentive for us to continue using it. Initially it provided a specificity which enabled one kind of endpoint protection managed through the appliance together with the WIFI integrated within the firewall, managing all basic security aspects for TPD. However, because the endpoint protection is not that good and there are problems with malware and we can't prioritize facility management over security of the finances, we can't continue to work this way.

I think the management console could be improved. I also find the partner portal difficult to work with because it never functions correctly and it's exhausting to deal with. They should also improve the failover management and the reliability of failover, and there are sometimes issues with the WAF functionality, whereby a number of applications can't be used correctly. Finally, I think the support could be improved because when you open a ticket, there's a long wait time for a response. 

I've been using this solution for three years. 

The stability is quite good there are no major vulnerabilities. 

The technical support is a real weakness but that seems to always be the case. Sophos has improved over the last couple of years. It's better than before but it's still not good.  

I find the solution too expensive, to be honest. It's one of the reasons I'm looking for an alternative. It's overpriced for what they offer.  When you buy a commercial appliance, the only thing you really need is good support, and they don't provide that, so the cost for hardware and software is too expensive. If the support was responsive, I'd be happy to pay. Now I'd prefer to acquire my own hardware and install pfSense and spend the money helping technicians and engineers gain good skills and improve our own support. We'd have the same level of protection at a lower cost. 

I rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

We are a solution provider and Sophos XG is one of the security products that we implement for our customers. We always provide them with the latest version.

The number of ports, especially on the entry-level appliances, should be increased.

The price of adding ports should be reduced to make it more competitive.

The vendor needs to create materials to show the differences between Sophos products and those from other vendors.

Network management needs to be included in the package.

As it is now, it only supports ten multiple users, which is something that should be increased.

I have been working with Sophos XG for approximately two years.

This solution is stable.

This is a scalable product and we have approximately 150 users.

We get our support from the local distributor.

Prior to Sophos XG, we used products from Fortinet and Forcepoint. 

The Forcepoint product is doing well. We have a different perimeter firewall for our data center that uses it because we use different vendors for different sites.

This is an on-premises appliance and the installation is straightforward. It can be deployed in less than an hour. However, according to the number of users and the number of ports that will be connected, the design may vary. This makes it difficult to estimate the time required to do a full implementation of the product.

We have four people in charge of maintenance, although they do not work exclusively with Sophos. We have another appliance from another vendor. The entire team, including their manager, is about 10 people.

The price is in the mid-range and it is very good for small to medium-sized businesses. One license opens everything.

Overall, this is a good product and I would recommend it for small to mid-sized customers.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

The antivirus features are valuable.

The price should be cheaper. Xstream must be included in future releases.

I have been using the solution for five years.

I rate the tool’s stability a seven out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a ten out of ten. Our clients are SMBs.

I rate the ease of setup a ten out of ten. The solution is deployed both on-premise and on the cloud. The deployment takes half an hour.

I rate the pricing a six out of ten.

We are distributors. We sell the solution. We have many customers. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

This product is our perimeter firewall with web filtering and application filtering, as well as also providing site-to-site VPN and SSL VPN. We are end-users and customers of Sophos. I'm a network administrator. 

Sophos XG enabled our organization to establish site-to-site connectivity with our Branch offices and enabled work from home during pandemic through very easy to deploy SSL VPN solution for our employees. 

Reporting is the most valuable feature. They also recently provided the SDWAN solution and we're currently working on implementing that. 

I'd like to see improved throughput performance in a box. It's already a cost effective solution but I'd like to see the cost further reduced for annual renewals.

I've been using this solution for four years. 

Sophos has the same issue as all firewalls where it's scalable for virtualization and for cloud deployment, but it's not so scalable when it comes to the hardware. 

Customer service is good but has room for improvement like all others. 

Positive

The initial setup was very straight forward. 

Vendor team has very good level of expertise, transfer of knowledge was excellent and we are managing firewalls at our own. 

I believe there are better products on the market so I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

Sophos is a comprehensive solution which allows me to configure all the attendant products, such as Sophos' firewall, Endpoint and Encryption features. 

A nice feature of Sophos is that it offers in sync and heartbeat security. When my clients have a perimeter involving Sophos firewall and endpoints with Sophos Endpoint, they can communicate with each other. 

Heartbeat security is a great feature. 

In light of all the firmware upgrades, maintenance, feature and general releases of firmware, I really appreciate the support offered by Sophos. It is really good. 

However, the response time could stand improvement, as I do not benefit from immediate support. There is a delay involved. This can be problematic when I need urgent support, such as when my device is in a production environment. 

The support is really good. With all the firmware upgrades, maintenance, feature and general firmware releases which occur nowadays, I really appreciate Sophos support. It is really good. 

This said, it could be faster, as it is not immediate. This can be problematic when I require urgent support, such as when my device is in a production environment. 

When it comes to the firewall, everything hinges on the configuration. Every firewall is good, but one can see the importance of the configuration in the firewalls of Sophos and SonicWall. This is the most important thing, since users occcasionally disable the app control, IPS or anti-spyware features. They do this out of a lack of familiarity with the security, something which allows attacks to occur. Therefore, the configuration is key. I configure every firewall I employ, be it Sophos, SonicWall or Fortinet. 

I have not encountered any issues when it comes to the configuration. 

I was a gold partner with Sophos XG. As such, I make suggestions about the appropriate model in line with my customer's requirements. Essentially, over the last two years of the COVID-19 crises, most users required an SSL VPN license, something for which SonicWall charges but which Sophos offers for free. 

SSL VPN involves two factor authentication. This is free of charge. Both email and key OTP are options. While SonicWall also offers SSL VPN capabilities, it is problematic. When I needed a license, I purchased an additional perpetual SSL VPN license. 

SonicWall makes available all the different models, such as TZ and NSA. I am familiar with all the models. Sophos only has an entry-level model, which is actually 87, 107 and 116. 

Fortinet offers the Forti ATF model. 

I recommend the solution to other clients, but make certain to first understand their individual needs. I would be doing them a disservice were it otherwise.

I really like Sophos.

In the past, when Sophos employed XG firewall, I was forced to deal with a slow GUI. This is because its back-end kernel is Linux. Now that XGS is provided, many changes can be seen in the hardware appliance. The hardware has been upgraded. The XGS firewall is faster than the XG series, so the problem has been resolved. 

While I rate Fortinet as a nine out of ten, I give Sophos XG a rating of eight.