We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks PA-Series and Sophos XG based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It is easy to use. We chose this product for the possibility to have virtual domains (VDOMs). We are building another company in the group, and we would like to split the firewalling rules and policies between these two companies. Each company would be able to manage its own policies and security rules, which is an advantage of Fortinet FortiGate. We can define VDOMs, and every company can manage its own VDOM as if it has its own physical firewall, but in fact, we would be using the same physical appliance because we are also using the same internet lines. So, it allows us to reuse the existing resources without the disadvantage of having to compromise on policies and security. Each company can choose its own way of working."
"I like how we can achieve total integration."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"The solution is stable."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"Overall security features and performance routing is good."
"The product offers very good security."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"The cloud-based aspect helps significantly. It integrates seamlessly with other Palo products like Prisma Cloud, offers robust VPN protection, and it's all in one convenient package."
"It offers application-based policy enforcement. Palo Alto Networks firewalls help us recognize protocol anomalies, contrasting with other vendors that may require policies based on port numbers. With Palo Alto Networks, the port number isn't a constraint because their devices handle protocol traffic at Layer 7, allowing for accurate identification of protocol usage and port numbers. They can identify which protocol actually uses which port."
"The solution is used for security and IoT security."
"Palo Alto blocks the new threats better than other tools."
"Palo Alto Networks firewalls offer single-mode panel processing with live scanning."
"The solution provides good customer support."
"It is a stable solution. Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is stable. I've had very few problems with it."
"My clients gain efficiency in protecting against attacks from malware such as ransomware and hacker attacks. It also provides them efficient internet access control, and full visibility of ports, applications, and websites."
"Web filtering is easy enough to deploy, manage, or make exceptions to."
"It's a good security tool and it aligns with the rest of our security stack."
"The performance is good."
"I like how you can integrate with other endpoints and Intercept X in one central management platform. I think it's a perfect solution. Sophos will manage everything in one container. You can manage many firewalls or endpoints within one panel."
"Overall, this is a good product and I would recommend it for small to mid-sized customers."
"The initial setup is very straightforward and the solution is extremely user-friendly."
"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 are problems with the custom reporting of the unique traffic. The data is there, but it is too difficult for us to extract."
"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."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining this process for smoother transitions."
"As we migrate fully into the cloud, additional features like capacity upgrading and improvements to hardware resources will be necessary, especially since our equipment consists of older-generation switches and routers."
"The SD-WAN feature of Palo Alto Networks is not good compared to FortiGate."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved because it is an expensive solution."
"The pricing of the solution needs improvement."
"Compared to other vendors, the solution's community should be strong enough to solve the problems engineers face."
"With Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, I find that the support team takes a long time to resolve the issues that a user may face during the use of the product."
"Palo Alto should integrate artificial intelligence for security purposes in the background for well-known threats and new risks coming to the market."
"I would like to have better SSL decryption and HTTP decryption. There should be filtering of SSL and HTTP traffic. Sophos XG consumes a lot of endpoint resources. It consumes a lot of RAM and CPU resources, and they should look into this."
"Content filtering could be more effective and efficient."
"Fortinet surpasses Sophos in terms of support, particularly with its comprehensive five-one feature console."
"This solution could be improved with more effective bandwidth. I found that when I enable DDoS detection for our clients, bandwidth is reduced. If DDoS detection is disabled, the bandwidth will be high, but it isn't secure. We recommend that customers enable DDoS detection, but if they need high bandwidth, we recommend Palo Alto and FortiGate instead of Sophos."
"The interface of Sophos XG could be improved. I would prefer the Sophos XG to have an interface for the technician who is setting it up similar to the Sophos SG. I felt the Sophos SG user interface was superior. however, in terms of the functionality of the product, Sophos XG is in many ways more powerful than the Sophos SG. I have no complaints about the quality of the product or the end result. For someone who has used both, I preferred the old interface to the new one."
"I'd like the dashboard to be improved. It could be a bit more customizable."
"The price should be cheaper."
"They need to improve the SD-WAN feature."
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, SonicWall NSa, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs. Sophos XG report.
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