We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between these two products is the scalability. While Azure Firewall users say the scalability could be improved, users of Sophos XG are satisfied with the solution’s capability to scale. Azure users also mention that the interface and the reporting, logging, and monitoring features all need improvement.
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"The security on offer is very good."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The SD-WAN function is very developed. It has SD-WAN functionality with security features in one device. We can manage from one single console SD-WAN and the security policy."
"The IPsec tunnels are very easily created, and quite interoperable with devices from other vendors."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"It is easy for me to protect certain ports or even the IP addresses, as well as do whitelisting, blacklisting, and the FQDN when we want virtual machines connected and to protect certain websites."
"One of the notable advantages of Azure Firewall is its user-friendly interface, which closely resembles or shares similarities with other Azure components."
"It's helped us improve our security posture."
"The solution is stable."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"Good security and a good interface."
"It is feature-rich, I like the server authentication, and the reports are good."
"The initial setup is very straightforward and the solution is extremely user-friendly."
"What I like about his program, is that it is easy to use and easy to manage."
"We get good usage out of the features. It has enabled us to gain popularity. It has great features."
"The most valuable features are the central management, the user VPN, and communications."
"A valuable feature involves the solution's manageability."
"The stability of Sophos XG is very good. However, there have been some issues with other weaker models because they are limited in hardware in resources."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"The pricing could always be better."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"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 tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"It is a cloud service, but the lending speed for each region is not always the same. For example, in China, the speed is slow. They need to think about how to make sure that the service pace or speed is always the same in all regions. It would be a great improvement if they can provide the same pace worldwide."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"The threat intelligence part could be better. I don't see why our customers have to get an additional solution with Azure Firewall. It would be great if they made it on par with Palo Alto."
"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"Sophos XG could improve the policies, they are a bit confusing when creating them. There are many options that make it confusing and it could be simplified."
"The UI needs improvement because it can be a little weird at times."
"Their technical support needs improvement. I've been on hold with them for hours waiting for their support."
"When upgrading the firewalls, the process could be easier."
"The weakest point is the technical support because they are difficult to get into contact with."
"I need to open the email to see what it contains and the value of it before I know whether to access it or not."
"In Sophos XG, the throughput for larger networks is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I would like to next release to be able to support on-premise deployment. The construction of the rules within the firewall could also use some improvement."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Easy to use and configure but could be more robust". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG report.
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