We performed a comparison between Sophos XG and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: WatchGuard Firebox comes out on top in this comparison. It is easy to use, performs well, and has robust security protocols. In addition, its support is better than that of Sophos XG.
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"The customization potential is quite impressive."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"The product offers very good security."
"I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager."
"I particularly like the visibility it provides into network traffic, allowing us to identify and address issues efficiently."
"I like the dashboard, the interface, the management console, and the remote login."
"It is very user friendly and easy to manage from the administrative point of view. It is good, reliable, and easy to implement."
"It's a complete firewall solution that has everything."
"The product's initial setup phase was straightforward."
"The most valuable features are the central management, the user VPN, and communications."
"I like it for its simplicity. It is very simple to configure and implement. It is a very good product for medium-sized organizations."
"A valuable feature involves the solution's manageability."
"The solution has many security features. We have an intrusion provision system and filtering and block filtering."
"It saves us time in the respect that we now have the template built for it so we can get in and get it done. We've had much less problem supporting Voice over IP technologies from different companies. Because our client base has grown over the years, we're probably saving 20 to 30 man-hours a month now that we've got this on a good stable level."
"The most valuable features of this solution are live logging, rule setup and maintenance, and VPN creation."
"Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager."
"Simple to move settings between WatchGuard boxes."
"What I found most valuable in WatchGuard Firebox is that it's a functional platform that works, and each of its features works well. The solution also has good reporting and dashboard capabilities. I also find the overall performance of WatchGuard Firebox great."
"The set up was quite straightforward and we handled it in-house. It took a few hours to deploy the product."
"From my experience with their customer service team, I would say that they seem quite knowledgeable and fairly quick to respond."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"It is very expensive, and their support is not very good. I hope that their technical support will be better in the future."
"Quality control on their firmware versions needs improvement. When they introduce new firmware, there tend to be bugs."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"Everything is working as expected at this moment, but the anti-spam solution in Sophos XG needs to be improved. It needs more granular features and more stability. The anti-spam solution currently doesn't have many features, and we would like to have more features. At this moment, there is no expression filter for anti-spam. We need something to be able to filter subjects or attachments in emails based on the keyword. Sometimes, there is an issue with anti-spam, and Sophos XG suddenly stops processing incoming or outgoing emails. The only solution for this issue is to restart the appliance. Their support should be improved. It takes a long time to escalate a support case from level one to level two."
"Technical support is difficult to access."
"The installation could be faster and is longer than that of other solutions, lasting more than a month instead of five minutes."
"The initial setup, specifically when activating the license, is a nightmare and is quite difficult."
"In Sophos XG, the throughput for larger networks is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"In the Firewall, the Intrusion Prevention System can be improved."
"The response time could stand improvement."
"The uploading and downloading of reports should be included."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"I would like to see the devices made more flexible by adding modules to increase the ports that we can use."
"This solution needs the option to add an external hard drive."
"The drawbacks are just sometimes not having the technical information that we need in order to easily make connections with all of our Internet-based clients."
"Its documentation could be improved. Sometimes, you need to search a bit longer to find what you are looking for."
"A 12-hour power outage... got our batteries."
"The few issues that we have had, such as not knowing where to go, they have been answered quickly."
"In terms of what could be improved, I would say their web blocker feature. It is still quite a confusing setup, especially when you want to filter out a particular category for granularity. For example, you do not want to filter Facebook but you do want to filter Facebook games only. It can be done, but the process to do it is very confusing."
Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Sophos XG is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Check Point NGFW, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Sophos XG vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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