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.
"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 response is very quick and they can visually resolve our problems in a short period."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"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 product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites."
"Easy to setup and implement"
"The technical support is very good."
"User-friendly with good security and application control."
"We have not found any vulnerabilities since implementing the solution."
"The most valuable features of this solution are intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, and the advanced capture client, which provides live traffic analysis."
"I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays."
"Deep packet inspection and intelligent application control are the most valuable features. It is a very updated solution. It is very current as compared to other brands and vendors."
"A valuable feature involves the solution's manageability."
"The stability of Sophos XG is good, it has good performance."
"Dashboard is easy to use and the reporting offers a lot of detail."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The security of Sophos XG is very good."
"The installation is easy. There is a wizard that can be used for a single connection making it simple and if you have multiple connections you can configure it manually."
"Using Sophos endpoint and the firewall, synchronized security is easy."
"Sophos XG Firewall is very usable, very easy to install, and very user friendly."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"The product could expand its throughput capacity."
"It would help us a lot of SonicWall sent us more information about the latest updates and things that are changing."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"The scalability is something that should be improved."
"They are not ready for managed security services. Their Cloud GMS product is weak, barely out of beta (buggy)."
"Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster."
"The detection of malware can improve in SonicWall NSa."
"The content ID needs to be improved."
"The SD-WAN capability is not as good as it is in FortiGate, and is something that should be improved."
"The program is rather expensive."
"Scalability it is a bit limited. We did a sizing exercise before the purchase. But that was just to fit our current needs. There was no room for having an option to upgrade the device. The only option that we have if we are grow in the near future, is to go for another model with higher specs, which is actually more expensive. In other words it doesn't have that modularity ."
"It is performing well. However, the only challenges that we are facing are the effectiveness with blocking the proxy and tuneling applications, aside from proxy and similar applications. So the application filter on the product is not really performing 100%. Every now and then there are some updates that are happening on such applications, and it takes time until it gets the appropriate updates and becomes capable of capturing such applications and blocking them. A new feature I would really like to see would be some sort of an enhanced application filter with greater efficiency when it comes to the applications that can bypass firewall policies. These applications are really a nightmare. Once they are on the network and not detected, or the appliance is not really successful in capturing them and unblocking them, the bandwidth gets wasted all the time."
"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."
"Sometimes when you roll out a new firmware, you find that the rules you already have in place are broken, so it's difficult to migrate to a new firmware. That's the only downside I've experienced in Sophos."
"It would be helpful if they had a set of standard templates because it would assist in the beginning, when you are just getting started."
"The solution is tied to the US dollar. You need to pay whatever the equivalent is in your own currency, and, if the exchange is bad, it can really add to the cost."
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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