We performed a comparison between Sophos UTM and Sophos XG based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"The next-gen features, the unified threat management capabilities are something that just about everybody is interested in at this point."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"It has allowed us to design a bespoke cloud space for our clients, while still having an excellent level of protection."
"The isolation of infected machines is a big feature. Also, the ability to detect external sources that change files on a file server is really big."
"It does not take much effort or thinking to understand how it works."
"It is a very good product. The threat monitoring process is the most valuable feature."
"I like the web filtering options."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"It allows me to easily connect with more than forty-five remote sites and more than fifty remote users between IPsec and SSL VPN, applying the web filter and application filter to ensure a secure connection."
"It meets our compliance needs in an elastic computer environment."
"We've deployed quite a number for our users and our customers, and the feedback is quite positive in terms of management and also administration."
"It is very easy to configure and straightforward. The firewall rules are straightforward. It works great out of the box. It has been working as advertised, and I haven't had any issues with it."
"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."
"One of the most valuable features is the VPN."
"Most of the features Sophos XG has are valuable. However, if I have two different ISP, I'm able to create an automatic switch between the two ISPs. I can do the same thing for the cloud as well. If I have two subnets coming from the cloud, I'm able to create a type of switch between both of them where if there is traffic on one and has the traffic drop, I'm able to switch to the other ISP without any problems. It's a normal feature and I get to enjoy the ability to switch between services with no issues."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos XG is the VBM."
"The security of the solution, thanks to the built-in unified threat management, is one of its most valuable features. Plus, one single pane of glass is all you need to manage the whole solution, and web management can be done from anywhere."
"The solution has very good security features, is easy to use for administrators and users, and has informative reports."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"I feel that the reporting needs to be improved."
"The UTM filtering needs improvement."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"The solution needs better integration with captive portals and XGs."
"The memory and processing were problematic. The interface could be better."
"The ease of use could be a bit better."
"Email spam filtering only works if you have an on-prem Exchange server. It doesn't interface with Office 365 like the XG model. That would be one feature that they could improve. They're not going to do it because they're trying to push us all to XG."
"There were a lot of features and functionality in Sophos SG UTM but nothing was state of the art in terms of technology. You did not get the latest functions. It was very monolithic as it was based on an old Linux PuTTY system."
"I would like to see Sophos UTM add support for all the new threat-detection technologies and the ability to respond to novel security threats that come along every day."
"Sophos customer support could use some improvement."
"The support could be better."
"The support service level agreement in regard to the amount of time needed to upgrade things is too low. It should be higher."
"While it is possible to configure between two of the solution's devices in the same model, the high available usually fails."
"The uploading and downloading of reports should be included."
"The solution should have the ability to be up to date with the most recent threats."
"Lacking network access control, user profiling and analytics dashboards."
"We are having challenges when using Zoom with Sophos XG deployed."
"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."
"The price should be cheaper."
Sophos UTM is ranked 1st in Unified Threat Management (UTM) with 110 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Sophos UTM is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Sophos UTM writes "It's a highly stable platform with very few hardware issues". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Sophos UTM is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall 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 Sophos UTM vs. Sophos XG report.
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The biggest difference between Sophos SG and Sophos XG is performance.
Now, there's even a newer Hardware Platform (same OS as Sophos XG, which is called SFOS) - the Sophos XGS which has different chipset architecture, to attend each security module, with its newest feature called XStream Technology.
Besides that, the GUI is very different. Nevertheless, it's worth trying the Sophos XG or XGS, since its GUI is getting overhauled for better performance and easier management, by each new release.
Sophos UTM is no longer being developed, according to our reseller. All the development effort is going into XG. So XG will be the only Sophos firewall going forward, UTM will eventually be end of life.
Hi,
The new appliances XGS have a dedicated streaming CPU (Xstream), in addition to the main CPU.
I have personally tested the differences between the XG and XGS similar appliances. The result is spectacular. 30% more perf minimum:
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/p...
The UTM-9 is soon end-life. Sophos security staff is now focused on SFOS 18, XG, XGS.
To respond to the question "the biggest difference", I think is the "Synchronized Security":
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/l...
The firewall is one of the full security solutions centralized in Sophos Central:
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/p...
At most of our customers, we implement a Sophos Endpoint locally on servers and workstations and firewall XGS. The synchronized security interact between firewall and endpoints. This can resolve the problem with the "lateral movement" of an infected computer. It can isolate a computer from the network when detected as infected:
https://news.sophos.com/en-us/...
It can be extended to secure cloud systems with Sophos ClouOptix:
https://www.sophos.com/en-us/p...
Tested with VM in AWS and Azure, work 5*!
Another big difference is the Webserver Application Firewall. All my customers with an internal webserver to be published in the net are protected with this "reverse proxy" (WAF). It really does the job of protecting IIS, Apache, etc. from externals attacks.
Another trick is the SSL VPN sites to sites. When a branch office is implemented with a front ISP router, sometimes the NAT traversal is not possible, for IPSEC VPN connections (UDP 500). With this SSL VPN, Simple NAT works and gives an SSL 128-bit AES encryption.
Finally, I have a lot of experience in implementing UTM and, now, XG(S). No way, the log is a big difference, easier to use as in Fortigates! It is similar to CheckPoint firewalls.
For my experience, no way: -> Sophos XG(S)
Here is an interesting link on differences between UTM and XG:
https://www.avanet.com/en/blog...
Regards,
A.Rastello
My understanding is that UTM is the software; SG is the hardware. You can buy Sophos UTM running on SG hardware and then later upgrade to the XG running on the same hardware.
I've been told by our Sophos reseller that Sophos are pushing the XG as next generation firewall, and developing it to at least as good as UTM. So XG will be the firewall of choice moving forward. UTM will not be developed further, according to him.
To my understanding, UTM and XG are from different legacy companies that
are now owned my Sophos. During my time researching anti-virus, UTM makes
more sense for our needs seeing as XG is primarily a firewall. From the
information I was able to find during the time of research, it seemed most
of the community felt XG had feature gaps from UTM.
UTM specifically SG series is a very mature and stable platform. It lacks some of the new features of XG; however has a very strong feature set. If you are looking for stability, ease of use and something well documented and understood than I suggest going this way. If however you are looking for a strong level of integration and have a greater than 3 year horizon then I suggest XG.
Wifi integration for example works better on the new platform.
There are several differences since there are 2 versions,
XG firewall has integrations with other products like intercept X and admin from Sophos central.
SG UTM has less integration since it's a separate product. It was formerly Astaro firewall, but the most advanced features have been only set to the XG.
There are appliance and software versions of both products. Depending on your need you might choose one or another. But basically, look at them as 2 different firewalls.