We performed a comparison between Sonicwall TZ and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy to manage the entire solution and it can be done anywhere. Users find it very light, stable, and it provides excellent real-time control. Users say SonicWall TZ struggles a bit with load balancing and data filtering, making it a slightly less desirable solution.
"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."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"We are using the FortiGate 100D series. VPN, firewall, anti-malware, OTM, and intrusion prevention are useful features."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"The interface is very user-friendly and I like it very much."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"No negative impression of the scalability."
"It lets me monitor in live time if someone is 'hogging' bandwidth."
"User-friendly firewall solution which scales well, is stable, and has high availability."
"The most valuable feature is the protection available, and then ease of use and flexibility."
"I've found the technical support to be helpful."
"The most valuable features are security and technical support."
"The stability is very nice."
"The solution is stable."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"We can configure rules with the user, traffic, etc., making it a very versatile solution for our network."
"The solution comes with a common bundle which comprises all the feature."
"The most significant aspect is the protection it offers."
"SD-WAN features should be added."
"It is very easy to use. You can configure and monitor everything from one unique dashboard."
"Orchestration of the firewall is the most valuable feature. It is a fast and agile solution. It is good with protection. It is also very easy to deploy and manage, and its user interface is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature, according to the setup we have at our work place here, is the flexibility of the system or the firmware that's running the appliance. It's so flexible, performing multiple rules with different configurations. According to the set up here, we need to implement several firewalls with different access levels, because we have a variety of users. For this requirement, it's very flexible and very easy to use."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"In some cases, its initial setup could be hard for customers."
"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."
"There is a point I don't like about SonicWall in the past and now. Most of the destinations we look at when we're detecting some user using too much bandwidth or something like that, SonicWall just gave us destination IP address, instead of the full qualified domain name. I think that's the most important part that is still missing. I think that's the most important for us."
"Although the pricing is good, it could always be lower. If we get to pay less, we're happier."
"I would like to see lower antivirus pricing."
"I'd like to have cloud management at no additional cost. Unfortunately, leveraging SonicWall's cloud management capabilities is cost-prohibitive, so we don't use it. They should have a reasonable subscription or offer it to us at no cost as an MSP."
"The technology in this particular version is very old."
"It could be made more user friendly."
"The solution's antivirus checking could be improved so that we can have a deeper inspection of the packets."
"The user support could be improved because you have to go outside to get that kind of support."
"For the moment, managing the Sophos interface is a little bit challenging."
"The VPN features can be improved. Due to covid-19, we have a lot of employees that work from home and we need better VPN capabilities."
"The initial set up process can be a little tricky, especially when you are registering with Sophos using your registration number. Setup is not necessarily complex, but it's not trouble-free. You do have connectivity issues at the initial setup with registering the device on the Sophos platform to access the advanced features. It doesn't always go through the first time around. That may be an issue with the quality of our automation. I'm not sure exactly what it is."
"When I call, I have to wait at least one to two hours to reach them."
"Sophos XG could improve the policies, they are a bit confusing when creating them. There are many options that make it confusing and it could be simplified."
"Sophos can definitely improve with the interoperability between solutions."
"Lacking network access control, user profiling and analytics dashboards."
"Sometimes when you roll out a new firmware, you find that the rules you already have in place are broken, so it's difficult to migrate to a new firmware. That's the only downside I've experienced in Sophos."
SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". SonicWall TZ is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa, WatchGuard Firebox and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, Meraki MX and Sophos UTM. See our SonicWall TZ vs. Sophos XG report.
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