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.
"The usage in general is pretty good."
"Good load balancing feature."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of configuration."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"It blocks the vulnerabilities that can negatively impact us."
"It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy."
"The solution can autoscale."
"Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage."
"Azure Firewall's feature that I have found most valuable is its scalability."
"Among the most valuable features are the DDoS protection that protects your virtual machines, the threat intelligence, and traffic filtering."
"The solution is stable."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"The solution should be capable of self-scaling, which is one of the features we like about it."
"The antivirus features are valuable."
"Over the past two years, during the COVID pandemic, the VPN has helped us a lot."
"IPS works smoothly."
"Overall, this is a good product and I would recommend it for small to mid-sized customers."
"Dashboard is easy to use and the reporting offers a lot of detail."
"I have found the feature allowing you to manage everything from a centralized location beneficial."
"The solution has very good security features, is easy to use for administrators and users, and has informative reports."
"What I have found most valuable with the Sophos XG is it's a key component of the Intercept X EDR environment. You have to have it to receive the full benefit. If you've you are using Sophos SG firewalls, they're great firewalls and in many ways, I prefer them to the Sophos XG. Since I have set them up, programmed them, and manipulate firewall rules, et cetera, the Sophos SG's a better interface. However, the Sophos XG's very powerful. I prefer it over other solutions I have used, such as Cisco Meraki and SupportNet, I don't like them. They're not very friendly to people who have to set them up and implement them."
"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."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"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."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"I think the only issue that needs improvement is the interface."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"This solution is not mature when it comes to handling perimeter traffic like internet browsing."
"An Azure firewall is not a real firewall."
"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."
"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."
"There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"There are a number of things that need to be simplified, but it's mostly costs. It needs to be simplified because it's pretty expensive."
"The interface can bit a bit more user-friendly."
"There are issues with electricity with this solution."
"Sophos XG could improve by coming out with more innovative feature developments."
"The uploading and downloading of reports should be included."
"Sophos needs improvements made to the console, such as host entry or defining rules directly from it."
"Even though things work on the back end, we have encountered bugs in the solution."
"One feature I would like to add is remote wipeout capability. This would be useful in cases where a user leaves the organization and fails to return their laptop. Remote wipeout would allow for the deletion of data from the device with a single command. Regarding technical support from Sophos XG, it's generally satisfactory. However, the response time could be improved. It takes around one hour to receive assistance, but reducing this to 30-45 minutes would benefit us."
"They can simplify its interface so that it is mostly drag-and-drop. There was an SQL injection attack on some Sophos devices. They just need to harden their devices a little bit so that they can't be hacked very easily."
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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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.
