Sophos XG Reviews

We are a solution provider and Sophos XG is one of the security products that we implement for our customers. We always provide them with the latest version.

The number of ports, especially on the entry-level appliances, should be increased.

The price of adding ports should be reduced to make it more competitive.

The vendor needs to create materials to show the differences between Sophos products and those from other vendors.

Network management needs to be included in the package.

As it is now, it only supports ten multiple users, which is something that should be increased.

I have been working with Sophos XG for approximately two years.

This solution is stable.

This is a scalable product and we have approximately 150 users.

We get our support from the local distributor.

Prior to Sophos XG, we used products from Fortinet and Forcepoint. 

The Forcepoint product is doing well. We have a different perimeter firewall for our data center that uses it because we use different vendors for different sites.

This is an on-premises appliance and the installation is straightforward. It can be deployed in less than an hour. However, according to the number of users and the number of ports that will be connected, the design may vary. This makes it difficult to estimate the time required to do a full implementation of the product.

We have four people in charge of maintenance, although they do not work exclusively with Sophos. We have another appliance from another vendor. The entire team, including their manager, is about 10 people.

The price is in the mid-range and it is very good for small to medium-sized businesses. One license opens everything.

Overall, this is a good product and I would recommend it for small to mid-sized customers.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

We use the latest version.

We are very familiar with the solution. It's pretty straightforward, our personnel is properly trained and we use it efficiently. The solution integrates very easily with other brands.  I've done VPN tunnels with other brands, and that was fine as well. The solution is quite stable and we don't have any issues with it. The VPN is easy and has good logging, monitoring and notifications.

When compared with Sophos XG, Fortinet lacks the notifications and reporting features. 

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. It's not mature yet, being still in its infancy stage. That would require some improvement. As I have many firewalls, having the ability to delegate access to use, such as exists with Microsoft CSP or other services, would be a nice feature to see. 

Also, as a tech person, I know that executives do not wish to receive complicated reports, so a simplified executive report for executives would be a nice improvement. This would save us from having to explain issues which are beyond the scope of their knowledge. 

Sophos XG is basically a mix of UTM9, Check Point and several other technologies. It is essentially a merging of technologies. We've been using it since version UTM9, at which point we switched to Sophos XG..

The solution is quite stable. 

The solution is scalable, but an organization should assess in advance its size based needs. Say, for example, a company utilizes the XG 125 version, but grows rapidly. At this point it may need to switch to the 210 version. Yet, switching from one version to another would not really present an issue. One can restore the backup configuration version on the new hardware and be up and running. 

Technical support is pretty good, although I did have some issues with its availability during the COVID-19 pandemic, even though this seems to have been a challenge faced by all major support companies. There were delay issues owing to their teleworking, but the support they offer is quite supportive and they have all the necessary documentation.  The truth is that I have a need for many cases, although the ones I require have to do with things that are out of my control, such as licensing or the occasion of a new app that failed to show up in the console. I have many sub-sites and I did face a serious issue. Technical support was pretty helpful even though I had to redesign the typology of one of my sites. They actually tried assisting me with the original design and I found them to be quite helpful and to possess a good base of knowledge on the site. 

It is important for a person to properly learn the features of any product so that he can optimize its utilization. The setup of the solution is pretty straightforward. What is truly important for a person with only a basic network background is to undergo proper training, so that he may learn about all the features and how to configure them. 

For any product a person uses, it is a good idea to do a test run. Sophos allows for its product to be evaluated without any financial commitment. It offers a free virtual machine for home use testing of the features. 

At present, Fortinet seems to have a slightly higher rating than Sophos XG, so if it were also to turn out to be more cost effective this would affect my rating of it. The reason is that this factor does have an impact on the decisions reached by CEOs when it comes to cost-benefit analysis.

This said, I rate Sophos XG as a nine out of ten, because we are very happy with it and don't really have any issues. We have actually been replacing Cisco normal routers, not sets, with Sophos and we're very happy with them.

We manage all the network services, like DHCP, of each branch office.

It has helped us because we have identified some of the loopholes in our assets that we did not know existed.

I like using the combination of XG firewalls and the XDR product with the end user. I also like the integration of all the solutions and the visual of all our clients and the traffic routing in to the network from inside the console. The synchronization and the integration with all the products in the central office, such as Office 365 or AWS, make it a valuable solution.

We can configure rules with the user, traffic, etc., making it a very versatile solution for our network.

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.

We've been using Sophos XG for three years.

It is stable.

Sophos XG is a scalable solution. We have about 1,000 users.

Technical support is good, in general.

We used Fortinet, and we changed the solution because there were additional costs for reporting, licensing, and centralization. If we compare Fortinet to Sophos XG, the XG firewall costs less and performs better. That's one of the reasons that we moved to XG.

The other and the most important reason is the integration with our security solution, Sophos XDR.

The initial setup was very easy. It's much easier than that for other products. 

Deployment and maintenance can be done by one or two people. I am a specialist, and an engineer and I worked on the deployment and maintenance. 

The provider of the solution implemented it, and it took about a day.

We have seen an improvement in security not only in terms of technology but also in terms of internal practices in our company.

We predicted that it would take three years to obtain an ROI.

We bought the three-year license, and there are no additional costs.

We evaluated Check Point, Barracuda, and Palo Alto.

It's a good product, and you should go ahead with it.

I would rate Sophos XG at nine on a scale from one to ten.

It is a firewall. It is used in my defense line. It provides defense and a form of security for my internal network.

IPS and advanced threat protection (ATP) are the most valuable features. I am able to segment my network traffic and block incoming connections. It is also easy to use.

I would like to have better SSL decryption and HTTPS decryption. There should be filtering of SSL and HTTPS 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 have been using this solution for two years.

It is stable.

Its scalability is fine. We have about 40 users. We don't have any plan to increase its usage at the moment. However, it depends on recruitments and other things. If required, my company would change my box to a bigger one for better processing speed.

Their technical support is okay. Sometimes, during the webinars, when I have some questions, they respond to them, but sometimes, I don't get any response.

I have worked with Check Point before. Check Point is very expensive. At this time, we are not thinking of switching to another solution. If we were switching, Cisco Firepower would have been an option, but my colleagues, who have good experience with such solutions, would prefer to stay with Sophos XG. Cisco Firepower is a little bit complicated to use. It is also expensive. Cisco and Check Point have different boxes for different things, whereas Sophos brings everything into one box.

It was straightforward.

Its price is fair. It is cheaper and way better than others.

I like this solution. I would rate Sophos XG an eight out of ten.

I like the web filter, application filter, and VBA. There are so many good features. The most powerful thing is clearly the software. I can easily do whatever I want.

Their updates can be faster and more regular. Right now, it's updated monthly. When I need to update the firmware, I want it done within weeks, not months. There are also some changes in version 18, like rules, that aren't needed.

Sophos XG is a very powerful and stable solution. It's more stable than Cyberoam.

Sophos XG is scalable.

Technical support is good and easy to deal with. If I have a problem, I open the ticket, and I call, and the problem's solved automatically by them.

We used Cyberoam ten years ago and then transferred to Sophos. We switched because it was the latest technology.

The initial setup was very easy because you can follow the manuals, follow your past experiences, and so on. We also need about three to six people a day to maintain this solution.

At first, I thought the price was very high. But when I read about the machine's features, we decided to go with it. Now I think the price is reasonable.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Sophos XG a nine.

This product serves as our current firewall solution, which is a network protection gateway.

This is a very simple solution.

It integrates well with Sophos Endpoint Protection, and we use the two of them to form a holistic security perimeter control. 

Software updates always come with issues. For example, I just upgraded to the next version, 80.5, and it came with VPN issues. It started dropping my VPN users. So, I had to roll back to before the software update. I think that the main area for improvement is the quality assurance of the updates.

The management console is a little bit rigid.

Scalability can be improved.

I think that it performs a little bit slow when it comes to connectivity, and having the speed increased would be better.

We have been using Sophos XG for the past four years.

This is a very stable platform. In the four years that we have had it, it's never gone down.

It is not a very scalable product. I would rate the scalability a seven out of ten because where you order it, it comes with prefixed ports. You will only have perhaps two for the WAN, and then maybe four LAN ports, and one console. In this regard, it's not scalable. 

When you buy it, you can't change the port configuration. In order to get more ports, you may have to upgrade to a bigger firewall.

We have about 130 accounts for approximately 80 employees.

Technical support for Sophos is very good and they have a big presence in South Africa. It uses something called Sophos Central, where support can fix the problem before you, as the user, actually finds it.

It is a very simple and very quick initial setup and configuration. Because it is a next-generation firewall, it does most of the rule development in the background. You just need to set up the basics and start it up.

For what you are buying, it's good value for the money.

Sophos is very good when it comes to pricing. A firewall has a lot of things to look for when you're buying it, including throughput and its features. When we purchased this product, Sophos was the best on the market.

In addition to Sophos, we looked at FortiGate, SonicWall, and Cisco. We were looking for a next-generation firewall, and Cisco was out of range because it was too expensive. We settled on Sophos because we already had the endpoint solution in our environment, and the price was very good as well.

Sophos XG is a firewall that I recommend because it's a very simple firewall. It's not complicated, and a LAN expert can just start using it and learn very quickly. Definitely, its usability is very good, and it's a very robust firewall.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

It is very user friendly and easy to manage from the administrative point of view. It is good, reliable, and easy to implement.

It is a very basic and entry-level firewall. It doesn't give very granular control over the traffic. It should have more granular control over the traffic. This feature should be there similar to Palo Alto and Cisco. It should have such advanced features.

I have been using Sophos XG for the last two years. We are using the latest version.

Its stability and reliability are fine.

If you want to have multiple firewall rules, it has this type of scalability. When I compare it with some other products, such as Palo Alto, I can't find similar scalability in Sophos XG. In Palo Alto, we can have rules based on applications or app IDs, and we can create multiple rules for a single ID. We can create a single user or single IP, but such options are not there in Sophos XG. Granular level scalability should be there in Sophos, and they should do better.

I appreciate their support. Their support is good.

I also use Palo Alto. Palo Alto provides application IDs, which is a very powerful feature. Sophos XG is a very normal next-generation firewall with URL filtering, application filtering, and all such features. It is not something extraordinary. It is a very normal next-generation firewall. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It is a single day task to do the initial configuration and move the traffic over there. The firewall hardening, of course, will take some time depending upon the traffic, but the initial setup is a single day task.

It is a normal firewall. All the basic features are there. However, it is not as advanced as some of the other solutions, such as Palo Alto. As we have more security threats, we need more granular control, but these features are not available in Sophos XG.

I would rate Sophos XG a five out of ten.

Sophos XG can be deployed on-premise and on the cloud.

We use Sophos XG as a network firewall for many use cases, such as offices, residential, and data centers. 

Sophos XG could improve the connectivity with Microsoft 365 or Azure Active Directory(AD). It doesn't work directly as other solutions do, such as Fortinet FortiGate. The client needs a separate AD server which is a problem.

There is no endpoint software for Linux systems, only the server version runs on Linux.

I have been using Sophos XG for approximately fours years.

The stability of Sophos XG is very good. However, there have been some issues with other weaker models because they are limited in hardware in resources.

We had an issue, but after speaking to the technical support, I understood it was a problem with Sophos, not a firewall problem, but with the endpoint that was related to the encryption of the disc. The problem is if you have a computer controlled by Azure at the same time as Sophos, then there may be some incompatibility problem between them because both of them are trying to control the computer and the encryption of the hard drive.

I have used other firewall solutions, such as Fortinet Foregate and Check Point.

The initial setup of Sophos XG is simple, but Cisco Meraki is easier. 

Since I have used Sophos XG long time it is easier than Fortinet FortiGate or Check Point.

Sophos XG is not an expensive solution. If you are willing to pay more, then there is the Check Point firewall which is the best out of all the vendors.

I would advise other Sophos XG is a great solution because it is synchronized security between the endpoint and firewall which is unique. I'm not sure if Fortinet FortiGate has this technology, but it is a good technology in Sophos XG. Sophos was perhaps the first to use this kind of technology. What it does is if your computer gets infected, then the endpoint tells the firewall that, it is infected and the firewall doesn't allow the use of the network at all. It'll lock it down on this computer.

I rate Sophos XG a nine out of ten.