We performed a comparison between SonicWall NSA and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy for users to manage the entire solution from anywhere. The solution is very light, stable, and provides excellent real-time control. Many users have experienced stability issues with SonicWall NSa. They feel it can be a bit buggy, resulting in occasional freeze-ups and downtime. The solution does not scale easily.
"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The solution is stable."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The most valuable feature I've found is VPN and web protection, particularly with navigation assessment. We use the application control feature to create rules controlling specific application navigation."
"The DPI-SSL is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's handy."
"We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the URL filtering by category, DMZ zoning, load balancing and site-to-site VPN."
"It has good reporting, the reporting is marvelous."
"It allows us to block applications, i.e., websites by application type category. It is far more capable than content filtering alone."
"What I like best about SonicWall NSa is the security it offers compared to other solutions in the market. Its reduction rate is also better than others."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the GUI pre-filtering and the ATP (advanced threat protection)."
"It's very flexible and meets our customer's needs."
"I recommend the solution due to its ease of use and pricing."
"I like their firewall and the intrusion detection feature"
"The most valuable feature, according to the setup we have at our work place here, is the flexibility of the system or the firmware that's running the appliance. It's so flexible, performing multiple rules with different configurations. According to the set up here, we need to implement several firewalls with different access levels, because we have a variety of users. For this requirement, it's very flexible and very easy to use."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"The solution has good performance and is easy to use."
"The performance is good."
"Everything is consolidated into a single box, offering comprehensive functionality, including Wi-Fi access and other features."
"We recommend Sophos XG as a priority as it is much more reliable and has efficient technical assistance."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"The security of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"It doesn't require much improvement. The only improvement area is that cloud reporting, assessment reporting, and other reporting features should be available with the subscription. They should provide reporting features with the subscription base, which is currently not there. We bought the reporting tool, but there are some complications. They have made some changes to the application, and now the reporting management is completely on the cloud."
"Needs a more detailed reporting feature."
"We have used other solutions such as pfSense and Linux native firewalls. I prefer SonicWall NSa but if you are going to use something for an enterprise you need another solution."
"You can do zero-trust networking with them, but it's not easy."
"When it comes to security I think all of the features are currently open to improvement."
"The scalability is something that should be improved."
"SonicWall NSa's reporting could be improved."
"An area for improvement would be SonicWall NSa's integration with antiviruses."
"We are not very happy with the customer support they provide — it's quite slow."
"Sophos XG does not have the ability to disconnect a user."
"The support from the vendor needs to be improved."
"It is performing well. However, the only challenges that we are facing are the effectiveness with blocking the proxy and tuneling applications, aside from proxy and similar applications. So the application filter on the product is not really performing 100%. Every now and then there are some updates that are happening on such applications, and it takes time until it gets the appropriate updates and becomes capable of capturing such applications and blocking them. A new feature I would really like to see would be some sort of an enhanced application filter with greater efficiency when it comes to the applications that can bypass firewall policies. These applications are really a nightmare. Once they are on the network and not detected, or the appliance is not really successful in capturing them and unblocking them, the bandwidth gets wasted all the time."
"Scalability could be improved. It could be better."
"The pricing can be high unless you choose a longer contract."
"Having a web portal where you could make requests for the categorization of non-categorized items, would be beneficial."
"I would want the level of integration to have another device on your network that is also reliable."
SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 77 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Untangle NG Firewall. See our SonicWall NSa vs. Sophos XG report.
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