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.
"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."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"The VPN is the most valuable feature."
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"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."
"One of the best features is that it natively integrates with Azure Services and tools. When you have a third-party offering, that is not the case. But Azure Firewall provides a comprehensive and seamless security solution for your Azure resources."
"It's helped us improve our security posture."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"The SIEM that Azure Firewall provides us is very robust."
"The initial setup is straightforward; Azure Firewall does not have a complex implementation process. It is very simple; you just need to enable the service within Azure. It does not require any maintenance because it is managed by Microsoft, that is, it is a fully managed service."
"Overall the solution works well."
"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."
"So far, I'm happy that they have recently added a firewall role, so I feel a little more comfortable with the security. The threat management is good."
"What we found valuable is the way they deal with emails, as well as the way the bandwidth usage is shown."
"The security of Sophos XG is very good."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"Sophos Control Center is a good feature. We can monitor everything from the control panel."
"Each user has the ability to manage the solution."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"It would be nice if backups could more easily migrate between different models."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now."
"The product could be made more customizable."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"You have to have a defined IP range within your network to associate it with your network. The problem is you have to plan ahead of time if you expect to use the firewall in the future so that you don't have to reconfigure your subnets or that specific IP range. Other than that, I don't any issues. I use it for basic configuration for a single application, so I really don't try to leverage it for multiple applications where I might find some complexity or challenges."
"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."
"It's a little heavy compared to a FortiGate or other firewalls."
"For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall."
"The VPN is in need of improvement."
"Our clients use Karios, and while it integrates well with it, the integration could be improved."
"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."
"I'd like the dashboard to be improved. It could be a bit more customizable."
"While it is a secure solution, I believe it could be improved."
"Scalability could be improved. It could be better."
"In the next release, I would like to see improvements made to the policy and simplify the policy-making, as the complexity of it makes it really tough."
"The GUI and support could be better. I think there are other products that we are going to deploy instead of Sophos. We have already upgraded a month ago because the interfaces and support for Sophos are really weak. But other products like Juniper, Cisco, or FortiGate are better than Sophos. It's also complicated, and the end-user or client does not understand it."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th 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 Zscaler Cloud Firewall, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG report.
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