We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure 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 two solutions are very comparable. The only major difference between the two is that some users of Cisco Secure Firewall consider the deployment to be somewhat complex.
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."
"Overall, the pricing of the solution is very good. The product offers good value."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"REST API offering with rich capabilities which makes the product very robust."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to block almost all of the ports."
"It's very scalable. You can go to different models of the ASAs and they scale up to as big as you want to go."
"The solution's dashboard is fine, and in terms of support, Cisco is better than other OEMs in the market."
"I found that setting up rules for HTTPS and SSH access to the management interface are straightforward, including setting the cypher type."
"I like that it is easy to change the settings."
"This solution made our organization more secure and gave us better control."
"VPN, firewall, and IDS/IPS allow us to deliver services to meet client needs across various industry verticals."
"The most valuable feature I have found to be the reporting function."
"So far, I'm happy that they have recently added a firewall role, so I feel a little more comfortable with the security. The threat management is good."
"This kind of strategic technology makes it much easier to remove malware and address vulnerabilities quickly."
"What we found valuable is the way they deal with emails, as well as the way the bandwidth usage is shown."
"The solution has all the security features you would need for any type of environment."
"The performance is good."
"I like their firewall and the intrusion detection feature"
"The most useful aspect of the solution is the concept of integrated security."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"I don't like that anything more than very basic reporting is not included."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"It needs more available central management."
"I have to say that the initial setup was complex. The deployment took a few days to get set up. Initially, we were using an IPVanish. We switched to this tool since we thought it would be easier. But it turns out it wasn't easier to set up and run."
"I wouldn't give them a ten. Nobody is perfect. I'll give them a nine because they help me with any issues I've had."
"The most valuable features of the product are the VPN and the NextGen firewall features such as application control, URL filtering, etc."
"It needs more tunneling capabilities."
"If they want to add better features to the current Cisco ASA, they can start by increasing the encryption. That is the only thing they need to improve."
"Sometimes, it is not easy to troubleshoot. You need to know where to go. It took me quite awhile. It's like, "Okay, if it doesn't go smoothly here, then go find the documentation." Once you do it, it is not so bad. However, it is sometimes a steep learning curve on the troubleshooting part of it."
"While this applies to all vendors, pricing can be always lower. In my opinion, Cisco is the most expensive. The pricing can be reduced."
"The process of procuring modern-day technology within the DOD needs to improve."
"They really need support for deployment."
"Content filtering could be more effective and efficient."
"They need to do more quality checks before they release firmware upgrades. Currently, a few Cyberoam firewall customers are facing some issues while upgrading the Cyberoam firmware to Sophos. After the new firmware is installed, they are seeing some performance issues, which require some bug fixes. The performance is fine after getting the required support. Customers who are already using Sophos hardware are quite satisfied with this solution. Their support should also be improved. We are facing difficulties getting support on time through email or phone."
"The solution could be more secure."
"Technical support could be improved. They aren't as responsive as they could be."
"The manuals or guides we are given are too simple. When we are implementing the product, it is difficult for us as we don't have more detailed information."
"Technical support can be slow to respond, which is something that should be improved."
"There's an IP address delivery for our VPN client and a limited range of IP addresses. So this is a problem in the latest firmware release, but rather than using homework scenarios, we need a lot of VPN clients."
"For the standard end user, self-based training is necessary. When you get into the Sophos XG firewall and try to start creating NAT rules, it can be a little cumbersome for a novice. It's pretty easy once you know how to do it, but it will be hard for anybody who doesn't have experience."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and SonicWall NSa. See our Cisco Secure 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.
My preference is the Sophos XGS, particularly when you team it up with the Sophos Endpoint Protection client and configure it for synchronized security.
Both can be managed through Sophos Central and are available at a decent price for the power they offer the SMB.
I recommend Sophos XGS firewall. It will offer the best solution for malware protection.
Also, I recomend Sophos CIXA with XDR (Sophos Endpoint), so you can use Syncronized Security.