Fortinet FortiGate vs Sophos XG comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Fortinet Logo
123,063 views|89,961 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
Sophos Logo
60,004 views|43,112 comparisons
93% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Sep 13, 2023

We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG agreed that deployment was quick and straightforward.
  • Features: Reviewers of Fortinet FortiGate felt the software has excellent stability, great features, and an excellent firewall and VPN solution. Sophos XG is regarded as a complete firewall solution that is suitable for small and mid-sized businesses. Users say the VPN is valuable for remote workers.
  • Room for Improvement: FortiGate users said the solution was hard to integrate with non-Fortinet solutions, and a few remarked that the SD-WAN could be improved. Sophos XG's interface earned mixed reviews, with many feeling it was overly complex. Others said that the reporting features also need some work. 
  • Pricing: Whereas users of Fortinet FortiGate felt that the software was costly, especially since each feature needs a separate license, reviewers of Sophos XG felt the software was reasonably priced, and a few remarked on the benefit of the flexible pricing offered.
  • Service and Support: Fortinet FortiGate users mentioned that the software needs better and quicker support. In comparison, Sophos XG users had mixed reviews on technical support. Some were very happy with the level of support, while others felt there was a significant delay in response time.
  • ROI: Users of both Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG saw a great ROI after implementing the software.

Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG had similar user ratings regarding ease of deployment, service and support, and ROI. In terms of features, each software has its pros and cons. Fortinet FortiGate offers some great features, but it is a little more complex and needs better reporting. Sophos XG provides a stable, complete firewall solution, but it fails to integrate well with other products, and the SD-WAN needs improvement. Sophos XG was the better option for pricing, as they offer flexible pricing based on region.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos XG Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Q&A Highlights
Question: Which solution do you prefer: Fortinet FortiGate or Sophos XG?
Answer: I evaluated both for a multi-site environment, and eventually chose FortiGate, based on the centralized management and reputation of Fortinet. Eventually we plan to move to FortiSwitches and maybe even Fortinet access points, so it makes sense to use Fortimanager to manage all the Fortinet devices. Sophos also have a good solution, but reading reviews of the XG I got the impression they were not as reliable or had as many features as Fortigate.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us.""The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration.""The security on offer is very good.""The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration.""The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox.""The base firewall features are quite valuable to us.""The SD-WAN function is very developed. It has SD-WAN functionality with security features in one device. We can manage from one single console SD-WAN and the security policy.""You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"One feature of Sophos XG that I found incredibly beneficial for threat prevention is its endpoint protection.""The initial setup was straightforward.""SD-WAN features should be added.""The most valuable feature of this solution is that the license offers everything.""It's a good security tool and it aligns with the rest of our security stack.""The most valuable is the synchronized security between Sophos XG and Sophos endpoint because it provides a lot of visibility about unknown applications. The endpoint shares the information of unknown applications, and you can learn about those applications and create policies to allow or block those applications.""The most useful aspect of the solution is the concept of integrated security.""I like the firewall, inbound, and outbound modules the most. The VPN feature also works well. It is very easy to configure rules in Sophos XG. We have got local service here in Zimbabwe from Sophos, which is something that I like a lot. We have got good local support, and they come on-site when we have any challenges. Sophos provides a lot of good training all around Zimbabwe. They are quite dominant here, similar to other solutions like Fortinet or WatchGuard."

More Sophos XG Pros →

Cons
"The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are.""I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees.""Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment.""Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement.""Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation.""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.""MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA.""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."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"LAN inbound and outbound traffic requires more control.""For the moment, managing the Sophos interface is a little bit challenging.""The solution could be improved if it offered more documentation or at least provided more information about the products themselves.""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.""The reports could improve, they do not seem complete and more information could be added.""It is already secure but it could be better in terms of other breaches that may occur.""Their support is fairly good, and they come back to me. I've had an issue once or twice where I couldn't understand what the support person was saying because those calls were probably routed to India. They were a bit difficult to understand, but it is generally not an issue.""The VPN device could be improved upon."

More Sophos XG Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "For licensing the XG 210, we paid approximately $3000 for three years. There are no additional fees on top of this."
  • "It's a suitable price and license."
  • "We are paying about $1,500 yearly for the Enterprise Plus. As far as I know, there aren't costs above this standard fee."
  • "The Sophos pricing, in general, is better than SonicWall, Fortinet, WatchGuard, or anybody else."
  • "We paid for our licensing for three years, upfront, and there are no costs in addition to the standard fees."
  • "The price is cheaper than that of some competing vendors."
  • "The pricing is flexible. Sophos looks at a country's economy and offers flexible pricing. This is how they have managed to penetrate the market."
  • "It's approximately $6,000 for each device."
  • More Sophos XG Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    I have used both Sophos and Fortinet products in production and I have found the Sophos UTM appliances (hardware and virtual) to be a better fit most of the time -- with a few caveats which I will touch on below. In both instances, the transition from TMG will be mostly straightforward. The main hang-ups will be with the VIP/load balancing and SSL. For some reason that completely escapes me, both of these vendors make getting valid certificates onto their boxes unnecessarily difficult -- the Fortinet appliances more so than the Sophos UTM appliances. At one point a Fortinet engineer had to write an entire manual on how to get an SSL certificate uploaded successfully on the 4.x firmware Sophos: The one feature that is missing (and this makes some amount of sense) from the Sophos appliance is BITS caching for updates. Other than that, Sophos offers a full replacement for TMG on UTM9. The XG platform also offers a replacement for the TMG; however, some of the rumblings about upcoming releases suggests that Sophos is going to give XG the Apple iOS treatment and "streamline" the interface...potentially cutting out/hiding some functionality. On the effectiveness of the NGFW, Sophos is mostly good but has a few issues blocking all pieces of an application. For instance, we had to build custom blocking rules for OpenVPN (the vpn was being used to bypass the content filter) because the default Application Control wasn't effectively blocking the application. Fortinet: If it… Read more →
    Answers from the Community
    Sherif Anter
    Harish (Kumar) - PeerSpot reviewerHarish (Kumar)
    Real User

    Go with Sophos XG or if you have tight budget and technical expertise then can move with pFsense.

    Dr. Ravi_Sharma - PeerSpot reviewerDr. Ravi_Sharma
    Real User

    Dear Sharif.


    For 150 users any firewall will work perfectly. You can choose as per your convenience, availability, price, and better implementation partner in your region. Keep a bigger box at the central location and configure SD-WAN. SOPHOS has by default SD WAN. Make sure you have secure access to the cloud and all endpoints should have endpoint protection else only firewall will not help.

    Most of the cloud service providers work on any-any rule because their responsibility is network uptime and availability. Security of your setup is your responsibility.

    Manageability is better in Fortinet however features are better in SOPHOS. License bundle & ATP functions are are good in SOPHOS. Support response is good in SOPHOS but you will find less tickets in FORTINET once it is implemented as per your setup.

    Overall both are good for your setup. You can choose as per convenience.


    Hope this will help.. Greetings .. Ravi

    Yafar Khan - PeerSpot reviewerYafar Khan
    Real User

    In my opinion, the first point of strength is the support, and FortiGate is doing a great job in terms of support. It has numerous reference guides for configuration. The other advantage is ease of management in both the UI and CLI levels. You can use FortiGate modules to protect against web and virus attacks.

    Andre Boettcher  - PeerSpot reviewerAndre Boettcher
    MSP

    Hello Sharif,  


    I prefer FortiGate SDWAN Devices (FortiGate) even though we also deliver Sophos to our clients. 


    The decentralized FortiGate devices work as firewalls with an excellent security ecosystem. FortiGate and most other items work as Hardware units or on virtual machines.



    As a Telco company we have a lot of companies working in different industries with various requirements. We can support them all with FortiGate.
    Our customers prefer the security features, the stable ecosystem for life cycle management, for device/user/policy management, thread detection & prevention, intrusion prevention, sandboxing, ... the low operation effort to build a stable company network that supports the need of any customer size.

    In our business, we also like that the architecture of a company network can be easily changed if the customer requirements change. From single-line sites to Data Centers with high availability and Cloud integration FortiGate can be used in any design.

    The different security features that can be added by the license are powerful and integrated into the management dashboard. Updates of protection mechanisms against new threads happen automatically as soon as a new protection mechanism is available when new threads occur. The security team at Fortinet is excellent.

    Greetings
    Andre

    Cesar Reza - PeerSpot reviewerCesar Reza
    Reseller

    Hi, XG is EOL the new series is XGS, both are excellent equipment but I prefer Fortigate, why ??? DHCP slection, leader SD-WAN, many IPSEC dynamics is possible on SOPHOS but is limit the are conflicts with many IP's dynamics you need to use DDNS, SSL tunnel for remote clients, VRF, advanced routing with OSPF and BGP ("as path"). Greetings  









    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage at large. In my opinion, Fortinet would be the best option and l use Fortinet too.… more »
    Top Answer:From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to… more »
    Top Answer:As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite good. The most valuable features for me are their web and email filtering. I would… more »
    Top Answer:Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat signatures and updates. I also appreciate that I can just import addresses and URL… more »
    Top Answer:Hi Arvind P ,  The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form Factor. The Sophos XG appliance that offers a direct competition to the Fortigate 80F… more »
    Top Answer:The Sophos UTM is a UTM and Sophos XG is the NGFW. First, you must know about the difference between a UTM and NGFW. They can not be compared with each other because the price, license, firewall… more »
    Ranking
    2nd
    out of 59 in Firewalls
    Views
    123,063
    Comparisons
    89,961
    Reviews
    48
    Average Words per Review
    661
    Rating
    8.4
    7th
    out of 59 in Firewalls
    Views
    60,004
    Comparisons
    43,112
    Reviews
    22
    Average Words per Review
    494
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    Sophos XG Firewall is a complete firewall solution that provides all the real-time security and insights you need to protect your network from ransomware and advanced threats. Sophos XG Firewall provides visibility into suspicious users, unknown and unwanted apps, encrypted traffic, and other threats. With its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, Sophos XG Firewall immediately identifies potential risks and intrusions on web servers and networks.

    Sophos XG Firewall Features

    Sophos XG Firewall offers a wide range of security features, including:

    • Application control: Prevent widespread infections with XG’s Security Heartbeat. XG Firewall automatically identifies the source of an infection on a network and automatically prevents it from accessing other network resources.

    • Synchronized user ID: Eliminate the need for client or server authentication agents by sharing user identification between the endpoint and the firewall through Security Heartbeat.

    • Centralized management: Easily manage all activities with Sophos Central. The XG cloud management platform allows users to easily set up, manage, and monitor XG firewalls along with other Sophos products. Some of Sophos Central’s features include alerting, backup management, one-click firmware updates, and rapid deployments of new firewalls.

    • Lateral movement protection: Automatically isolate compromised systems at every point in the network to stop attacks dead in their tracks.

    • Network protection: Protect networks from attacks and threats while providing secure network access.

    • Web protection: Gain clear visibility and control over all users’ web and application activity.

    • Web server protection: Solidify web servers and applications against hacking attacks while providing secure web access.

    • Email protection: Consolidate email protection with anti-spam, DLP, and encryption. XG’s Live Anti-Spam provides protection from the most recent spam campaigns, phishing attacks, and malicious attachments. Data Loss Prevention automatically triggers encryption on sensitive data in outgoing emails.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sophos XG Firewall stands out among its competitors, among other reasons, for its intrusion detection capabilities, its user-friendly management platform, and in general, for being a complete and robust firewall solution.

    Niranjan P., a network & system support engineer, writes, “Sophos is a comprehensive solution which allows me to configure all the attendant products, such as Sophos's firewall, endpoint, and encryption features. A nice feature of Sophos is that it offers in sync and heartbeat security. When my clients have a perimeter involving Sophos firewall and endpoints with Sophos Endpoint, they can communicate with each other.”

    Antonio D., sales manager at INFOSEC, notes, “The product has a console that is based in the cloud for all their products. In this console, they have email security, firewall security, endpoint security, et cetera. All of the products on offer in the console are very useful for us. The solution is stable. The solution works well for enterprises and large-scale organizations.”

    Antony M., ICT/HMIS supervisor at a healthcare company, writes, “The VPN feature is the most valuable. It has come in handy during this period when people are working from home. The filtering feature is also valuable because you can easily filter the sites that you don't want to visit. You can also set timely surfing quotas”

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    Information Not Available
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company11%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Healthcare Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company17%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Government6%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business61%
    Midsize Enterprise24%
    Large Enterprise15%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise43%
    Buyer's Guide
    Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos XG
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos XG and other solutions. Updated: March 2024.
    768,886 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Check Point NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Fortinet FortiGate 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.