We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW 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 NGFW is praised for its extensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. It is highly regarded in terms of comprehensive protection and adaptability. Sophos XG is known for its usability, user-friendly interface, and straightforward installation process. Both options provide robust threat defense and the ability to expand as needed.
Check Point NGFW, needs to improve various aspects, including integration with other infrastructures, hardware upgrades, cost and pricing, stability and security, UI, complexity issues, redundancy options, and memory management. Sophos XG needs improvements in antivirus features, graphical interface and performance, bandwidth management and VPN capabilities, reporting and user management, support and response time, and specific issues and feature requests.
Service and Support: Some customers have found Check Point NGFW's customer service to be helpful and responsive, while others believe there is room for improvement. Sophos XG's support has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers have found it to be good and helpful, while others have been dissatisfied with unhelpful and unresponsive support.
Ease of Deployment: The initial setup for Check Point NGFW can range in difficulty, with some users finding it simple while others find it more challenging. Knowledge and experience may be required for certain configurations and migrations. The initial setup for Sophos XG is generally seen as uncomplicated and straightforward, although some users may struggle if they are unfamiliar with the product.
Pricing: Check Point NGFW is known for its high setup cost, particularly when compared to other products. Users find it challenging to add new licensing to existing devices, especially for larger enterprise-level devices. Sophos XG provides flexible pricing options based on the required functionality, offering reasonable and competitive pricing, particularly for educational institutions.
ROI: Check Point NGFW stands out for its cost savings, simplicity, and effective security enforcement. Sophos XG offers a high ROI by reducing support expenses and enhancing security practices.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG is the favored product when compared to Check Point NGFW. Users find the initial setup of Sophos XG to be simple. They appreciate the functionality and user interface of Sophos XG, as well as its extensive protection against threats. The pricing for Sophos XG is considered fair and the technical support is satisfactory.
"The product offers very good security."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"The QoS blade is very good for controlling traffic such as Windows patches, mail traffic and other stuff."
"The solution offers very good central management, which saves time and is hassle-free."
"Its greatest asset lies in its user-friendly interface, making it exceptionally suitable and reliable for managing gateways."
"It's offering great security while also being rather easy to manage."
"The Check Point API let me make 100 net rules in just 10 minutes, which saved us time."
"The packet inspections have been a strong point. Our identity collectors have also been helpful. In many ways, Check Point has been a step up from our SonicWalls that we had in-house before that. There's a lot of additional flexibility that we didn't have before."
"Check Point is awesome from a security standpoint. Based on our experience and also the experience of the other customers, it is a very stable appliance."
"The support offers the best services I have experienced. It's better than any other IT vendor."
"It is simple to use."
"The solution has very good security features, is easy to use for administrators and users, and has informative reports."
"There are many features. VPN, firewalling, and intrusion detection are the main features that are most useful for us at this time."
"Sophos XG is very useful, it does many things."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG are the ease of management and good out-of-the-box reporting."
"Sophos XG protects our network from advanced threats."
"Sophos XG has cybersecurity. It integrates with the antivirus software."
"Price-wise the solution offers acceptable rates. You can find cheaper solutions on the market but when you go cheaper you have fewer features. Today, based on iQuate market the price is very reasonable and affordable, and it's good if you get a good discount. Discounts can be offered by the vendor. If it's a competitive upgrade which means the customer is upgrading from another vendor, Sophos provides extra discount so they can win the deal. In general, it is a good price."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"It should be user-friendly from an implementation point of view. Its setup is a little bit difficult."
"The number of physical network ports on the device should be increased to allow for greater capacity."
"There have been a few requests/issues about the Identity Awareness feature."
"It requires enhanced automation tools for regulatory compliance to ease the burden of compliance reporting and auditing."
"It would help if they were easier to deploy, without needing more technical people. It would be nice if we could just give basic information, how to connect, and that would be all, while the rest of the setup could be done remotely."
"It can be expensive, especially for small businesses."
"For the user or anyone else who is using Check Point, they are more into the GUI stuff. Check Point has its SmartConsole. On the console, you have to log into the MDS or CMS. Then, from there, you have to go onto that particular firewall and put in the changes. If the management console could be integrated onto the GUI itself, that would be one thing that I would recommend."
"In our particular case, we have different web applications developed by the same organization, however, that requires a specialized protection element such as a WAF. Having this service or feature within the same solution would be very valuable."
"I would like to have more artificial intelligence in the web monitoring service that comes with it. It should alert us when particular events happen. It has already got some of that. I know that it is more of a service, and Sophos is already looking at it. It is called SIEM."
"I would want the level of integration to have another device on your network that is also reliable."
"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."
"We had a difficult time assigning IP addresses to specific MAC addresses."
"The solution’s reporting could be improved."
"The VPN has been a persistent problem for us. It's not straightforward to configure."
"They should include fiber ports on smaller product models and the tools should be improved for scalability."
"The MTR feature needs enhancing."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 275 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". 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 NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Sophos XG report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.