We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is praised for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and an easy-to-use interface. Sophos XG is highly regarded for its functionality, user-friendly interface, web filtering capabilities, detailed reporting, and seamless integration with other Sophos products.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM could use improvements in key activation, log management, cloud management, MFA offerings, web filter options, application inspection, GUI features, bandwidth issues, VPN connectivity, pricing concerns, performance, and quality control. Sophos XG requires improvements in antivirus features, graphical interface, logging, technical support, initial setup, configuration, functionality, sales policies, firewall upgrades, network control, data protection, bugs, user interface, integration, support, high-availability clusters, scalability, education and training resources, security features, Dynamic IP support, and specific user requests.
Service and Support: The feedback for customer service for Fortinet FortiGate-VM varies, with positive comments regarding the promptness and expertise of the support team with some negative remarks about delayed responses and challenges in accessing information efficiently. The customer service for Sophos XG receives a range of opinions, including compliments for helpful and responsive assistance, as well as complaints about unhelpful and unresponsive support and slow response times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is generally uncomplicated and simple, whereas for Sophos XG, it can be considered either effortless or difficult depending on the user's familiarity and technical expertise.
Pricing: The setup cost for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is affordable and less expensive compared to Palo Alto and Check Point. The pricing options for yearly or monthly licenses are flexible. Sophos XG provides a customizable pricing structure based on the needed functionality. The cost varies depending on the model, edition, and activated security modules. In general, both products are reasonably priced and provide good value for their features.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is known for its enhanced security and stability features, whereas the Sophos XG is renowned for simplifying management processes and enhancing workflow efficiency.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred choice when compared to Sophos XG. Users appreciate Fortinet's strong security capabilities, ease of use, simple deployment, intuitive interface, and scalability. They also find features like geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and intrusion prevention systems valuable.
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"The GUI is good."
"FortiGate Secure SD-WAN includes best-of-breed next-generation firewall (NGFW) security, SD-WAN, advanced routing, and WAN optimization capabilities, delivering a security-driven networking WAN edge transformation in a unified offering."
"I only deal with it from a security analyst's point of view. I don't really get into the features of the actual FortiGate. From the security point of view, it works, and it does its job."
"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."
"The most valuables features are the ease of use and deployment."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"The solution can scale well."
"It’s easy to integrate the solution with our network infrastructure."
"The solution is very secure, and its technical support is on point."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"The user interface is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The ROI is good since I get free support."
"The user interface is very good. It's already quite simple and easy to use."
"Sophos is easy to use."
"There are many valuable features."
"It is feature-rich, I like the server authentication, and the reports are good."
"The filtering is very easy to do. You can segment and create profiles for usage very easily."
"The interface is very user-friendly and it's easy to manage."
"Orchestration of the firewall is the most valuable feature. It is a fast and agile solution. It is good with protection. It is also very easy to deploy and manage, and its user interface is easy to use."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"If I could add one feature, it would be free security profiles."
"In the first two releases of FortiOS 5.6, we had some trouble with the SSL VPN service. Sometimes it stopped working, and the IPS daemon too."
"We haven't attempted to scale the solution just yet. If we want to scale this solution we may have to look at other models. With certain requirements, we probably wouldn't be able to scale it so well as it is right now."
"The tool is expensive."
"The solution could use very well-defined support for resellers."
"Not a ten because I think that Cisco is better."
"The graphical user interface should be enhanced."
"It needs an Application Inspection."
"The VPN is in need of improvement."
"It would be great if the user can have a portal to check on activities related to their account."
"Sophos can definitely improve with the interoperability between solutions."
"Everything is working as expected at this moment, but the anti-spam solution in Sophos XG needs to be improved. It needs more granular features and more stability. The anti-spam solution currently doesn't have many features, and we would like to have more features. At this moment, there is no expression filter for anti-spam. We need something to be able to filter subjects or attachments in emails based on the keyword. Sometimes, there is an issue with anti-spam, and Sophos XG suddenly stops processing incoming or outgoing emails. The only solution for this issue is to restart the appliance. Their support should be improved. It takes a long time to escalate a support case from level one to level two."
"When it comes to improvements that the vendor can make, we see that the cloud integration for managing all the firewalls is essentially a replacement of the on-prem version we had and is not sufficiently mature."
"The security of Sophos XG could be improved."
"I would like the update process to be easier, to update the firmware of the boxes. I think it's much better automatically than having to do it manually: Download the file, do network discovery. I they can make the update process much more automatic that would help."
"Network security is in need of improvement."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Sophos UTM, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Sophos XG report.
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