We performed a comparison between Check Point CloudGuard Network Security 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: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is notable for its cutting-edge threat prevention, centralized administration, and focus on safeguarding cloud environments. Sophos XG is highly regarded for its robust capabilities, user-friendly interface, and extensive defense against harmful threats.
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security could benefit from enhancements in the support system, feature additions, data protection visibility, DLP feature, configuration process, integration, documentation, and flexibility. Sophos XG requires improvements in antivirus, graphical interface, performance, logging, support, setup process, configuration, functionality, sales policies, firewall upgrades, network monitoring, content filtering, GDPR features, search engine, stability, user-friendliness, firmware upgrades, and remote access.
Service and Support: Some customers appreciate Check Point's technical support, while others are dissatisfied with the slow response time. Sophos XG's support receives mixed reviews, with some customers finding it helpful and responsive, while others express dissatisfaction with unhelpful and unresponsive assistance.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is described as straightforward and uncomplicated, although some users note that it can be challenging and necessitates technical proficiency. Sophos XG's initial setup is generally considered simple and straightforward, although certain users find it difficult or extremely challenging. The ease of setup is influenced by factors such as familiarity with the product and technical expertise.
Pricing: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is considered costly for setup, whereas Sophos XG provides flexible pricing based on functionality. Check Point's pricing varies with organization size and country, while Sophos offers competitive pricing, particularly for educational institutions.
ROI: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security offers a cost-effective solution with improved performance, providing an ROI ranging from 80% to 85%. Sophos XG boasts an ROI of 100% or higher, reducing support costs and enhancing security practices.
Comparison Results: Check Point CloudGuard Network Security outperforms Sophos XG. Users find the setup of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security to be simple and intuitive. Check Point offers a wider range of valuable features, including VPN Blade, IPS Blade, URL filtering, and Applications Control Blade, along with advanced threat prevention capabilities and centralized security.
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The solution is stable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The interface is very good."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"Now, we can filter which websites users can access and block categories that are a risk. For example, we can block social media and gambling sites. This has helped to decrease the risk of access to malicious content on the internet."
"The Capsule solution and application filters are the most valuable. It is pretty straightforward to implement, and it also has good stability and scalability. Their technical support is also really good."
"We find all the features valuable, particularly the firewall, application control, URL filtering, and HTTPS detection."
"When browsing, it scans sites to ensure that they are safe and that no harm can be caused."
"We primarily secure our network using CloudGuard Network Security's next-generation firewall features, including anti-spam, IPS, and URL filtering. Our chosen package for the go-to-market strategy is NGTP. For customers seeking more features, we provide options to upgrade to the tool's advanced packages."
"It offers remarkable flexibility in how we configure and utilize the resources."
"We are using gateways, and I appreciate the high-availability gateways they have. They stand out more than the competitors."
"The notifications, the visibility, and the deployment are the most valuable. It could be packaged in such a way that it took a lot of time and resources off our hands, so it was more efficient."
"The most valuable feature is web filtering."
"Because of the pandemic, the VPN is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is more cost-effective than FortiGate, Cisco and Palo Alto, which have very expensive licenses."
"The most valuable is the synchronized security between Sophos XG and Sophos endpoint because it provides a lot of visibility about unknown applications. The endpoint shares the information of unknown applications, and you can learn about those applications and create policies to allow or block those applications."
"The product offers many great features."
"The SD-WAN feature stands out as the most valuable aspect."
"The product has a console that is based in the cloud for all their products. In this console, they have email security, firewall security, endpoint security, et cetera. All of the products on offer in the console are very useful for us."
"Overall, this is a good product and I would recommend it for small to mid-sized customers."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"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."
"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."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"They need faster serviceability and more security features."
"Improvement is needed in the Web Filter quotas to restrict users with allocated quotas."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"We faced issues while upgrading our CloudGuard Network Gateway. When we tried to use the template that Check Point offers on their site, it was not available for the second to the latest version, so I was forced to upgrade my management server. That was very challenging for us."
"The networking system updates, when delayed, can lead to misconfigurations and data loss."
"I think they have pretty much mastered what can be done. There are some nuances like when you fail over from one cluster member to the other, the external IP address takes about two minutes to fail over."
"The API integration is complex, which is an area that should be improved."
"Regarding CloudGuard Network Security's integration with various resources like application gateways and application-based security groups, there's room for exploring dynamic access in those areas. A significant concern is the upgrade process. Unlike an in-place upgrade, upgrading the tool in Azure requires deploying a new resource, which can be hectic and less reliable. We have to spend something new to have the tool's latest version."
"The connection to the on-premises management requires using the CLI. It's not just a click, and you cannot edit in the management to prepare everything. You need to do it online and in real time. After that, you must execute a script, and then you should be happy that it appears in the management."
"Its architecture and user interface need improvement. The user experience for this solution also needs to be improved, particularly in implementation, management, and operations."
"I would like to see a step-by-step initial installation of the firewall. That would be really helpful. Like in Oracle appliances, when you start it asks you, what's your current IP address? An initial setup should be a step by step and intuitive process. You click on "begin," it asks you some simple questions. You fill in the blanks - your current IP address, what you want to do, you want to set up a site to site VPN, for example, that kind of thing. That would be the smartest thing to have."
"I would like to next release to be able to support on-premise deployment. The construction of the rules within the firewall could also use some improvement."
"The two main areas where this product needs improvement are routing and reporting."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to have remote access to clients using a static IP for a certain period of time."
"The price should be cheaper."
"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."
"An area of improvement would be the reporting as diagnostic graphs take a long time to load and refresh. If there could be an option to show only select graphs, it may speed up the graphics."
More Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Pricing and Cost Advice →
Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is ranked 8th in Firewalls with 119 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is rated 8.6, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Check Point CloudGuard Network Security writes "The solution has good threat emulation, threat extraction, and reporting features". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Check Point CloudGuard Network Security is most compared with Azure Firewall, VMware NSX, Akamai Guardicore Segmentation, Cisco Secure Firewall and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Check Point CloudGuard Network Security vs. Sophos XG report.
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