We performed a comparison between Sophos XG and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: WatchGuard Firebox comes out on top in this comparison. It is easy to use, performs well, and has robust security protocols. In addition, its support is better than that of Sophos XG.
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"FortiGate has a very strong unified threat management system."
"The stability has been excellent."
"Sophos offers great disk encryption, anti protection, and the interface is very user-friendly."
"Reporting is the most valuable feature."
"It is very easy to configure and straightforward. The firewall rules are straightforward. It works great out of the box. It has been working as advertised, and I haven't had any issues with it."
"Sophos XG Firewall is very usable, very easy to install, and very user friendly."
"Web publishing is important, as well as the importance of the antivirus patch."
"The solution seems pretty stable. We've had no issues so far."
"It is feature-rich, I like the server authentication, and the reports are good."
"It has everything we need in terms of functionality."
"There are many fantastic features."
"One of the most valuable features is the Geolocation. Because we aren't a multinational corporation, it allows me to look at things which might be suspicious to make sure that they are legitimate transactions rather than people sniffing around the network."
"HostWatch makes it so I can see, in real-time, activity in the event that there is something weird happening on the network. This simplifies my job."
"The firewall aspect and the branch office VPNs are the most valuable features... We don't have any issues with it. We don't have to spend a lot of time maintaining it."
"Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process."
"WatchGuard Firebox is the most powerful firewall for Wi-Fi security."
"The solution simplifies my business. Normally, for administration, we are using NetApp System Manager on Window since it's easy to create new policies. In a short amount of time, you can create new policies based on new requirements. For example, in the last few months, many requirements changed due to the coronavirus, adding the use of new services, like Office 365, and eLearning tools, like Zoom."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"The interface can bit a bit more user-friendly."
"We encounter difficulties while navigating through certain features and functionalities of the product."
"The vendor doesn’t publish the price on the website."
"Better instructions should be provided as part of the technical support so that we can understand the functionalities. This will help us to troubleshoot faster."
"They should include fiber ports on smaller product models and the tools should be improved for scalability."
"The SD-WAN capability is not as good as it is in FortiGate, and is something that should be improved."
"The pricing can be high unless you choose a longer contract."
"The product's user interface has certain shortcomings where improvements are required."
"They are working on cloud-based options. However, they do not have the options fully functional in their solution at this time."
"We would like to see granular notification settings and more advanced filtering in traffic monitoring."
"In WatchGuard Firebox, the antivirus and malware detection systems are areas with shortcomings that require improvement since they are the most important elements of a cybersecurity tool."
"The next release should have better software and configuration systems that can also be used on Linux."
"The performance of the solution's processor needs to be faster."
"The user interface for WatchGuard Firebox has room for improvement. Right now, it's a bit complex to work with and could be easier."
"WatchGuard Firebox could improve the speed of updates, such as new features or improvements. However, they are frequently improving the solution in many areas, such as geo-locations, definitions, and web blocking."
"The way Secure Sign-On authentication is happening needs to be improved. When the Secure Sign-On portal is turned on, anybody who comes into the campus, whether he or she is a staff member or a guest, has to go past the initial portal. One of the shortcomings is the username. It shouldn't allow permutations or combinations with upper or lower cases. For example, when there is a username abc, it shouldn't allow ABC or Abc. It should not allow the same username, but currently, two separate people can go in. Therefore, its authentication or validation should be improved, and the case sensitiveness should be picked up. If I have restricted someone to two devices, they shouldn't be able to use different combinations of the same username and get into the third or fourth device. It shouldn't allow different combinations of alphabets to be used to log in."
Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Sophos XG is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Check Point NGFW, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Sophos XG vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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