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 I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a stable solution."
"We are very happy with the general bandwidth agility we have seen from one website to another website."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"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."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"I like its order management feature. It doesn't have the kind of threat intelligence that Palo Alto has, but the order management makes it much simpler to know the difference."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"In terms of the reporting, it's beautiful. It integrates with Azure monitoring and with Azure policies. That piece is a big help. You can set governing policies and you can use the application firewall, as well as the Azure Firewall, to enforce those policies."
"Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"Sophos is a stable solution, and we haven't had any bugs or limitations."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG for our use cases are its firewall capabilities, its ability to connect to wide area and local networks, and its VPN functionality."
"The features that I have found most valuable are first the Web Filter and the Web Application Firewall SD-Wan on Version 18. Additionally, RED Tunnels allows a Sophos vital to speak to another Sophos vital in headquarters."
"I like the dashboard, the interface, the management console, and the remote login."
"Great reporting feature and great customer support."
"The solution is stable. I've had very few problems with it."
"Sophos CG is cost-effective, which makes it really suitable for SMB. If you want basic security and more embedded features, go with Sophos XG."
"Most of the features Sophos XG has are valuable. However, if I have two different ISP, I'm able to create an automatic switch between the two ISPs. I can do the same thing for the cloud as well. If I have two subnets coming from the cloud, I'm able to create a type of switch between both of them where if there is traffic on one and has the traffic drop, I'm able to switch to the other ISP without any problems. It's a normal feature and I get to enjoy the ability to switch between services with no issues."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"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."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"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."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"They can improve the pricing of Azure Firewall."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"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."
"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"There could be some room for improvement in its pricing since my clients usually feel like the product is on the expensive side."
"The price should be cheaper."
"They need to do more quality checks before they release firmware upgrades. Currently, a few Cyberoam firewall customers are facing some issues while upgrading the Cyberoam firmware to Sophos. After the new firmware is installed, they are seeing some performance issues, which require some bug fixes. The performance is fine after getting the required support. Customers who are already using Sophos hardware are quite satisfied with this solution. Their support should also be improved. We are facing difficulties getting support on time through email or phone."
"The security of Sophos XG could be improved."
"Fortinet surpasses Sophos in terms of support, particularly with its comprehensive five-one feature console."
"We feel that the GUI can be improved a bit because it has a lot of information and looks a bit outdated."
"It would be beneficial if the platform provided more flexible support for a variety of devices."
"We are not very happy with the customer support they provide — it's quite slow."
Azure Firewall is ranked 22nd in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 6th 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, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and OPNsense, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG report.
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