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 useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are 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 product offers very good security."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"The most valuable feature is the VDOM, which allows the customer to have multiple firewalls in a single campus."
"Cisco's engineer helped us with a lot of scripting to see what existed. Previously, we didn't have a proper policy. In fact, we didn't have any policy because we didn't have any firewall for the data center, so generating a policy was a big challenge. Cisco's engineer helped us to do some scripting and find out what kind of policy we can have and organize those policies. That was nice."
"The traffic inspection and the Firepower engine are the most valuable features. It gives you full details, application details, traffic monitoring, and the threats. It gives you all the containers the user is using, especially at the application level. The solution also provides application visibility and control."
"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."
"I like all of the features."
"When it comes to the integration among Cisco tools, we find it easy. It's a very practical integration with other components as well."
"Cisco ASA works very nicely from an administration perspective. The management of the device is very nice. The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) is the software that we use and it is very easy to configure using the GUI."
"You can also put everything into a nice, neat, little package, as far as configuration goes. I was formerly a command-line guy with the ASA, and I was a little nervous about dealing with a GUI interface versus a command line, but after I did my first deployment, I got a lot more comfortable with doing it GUI based."
"It has definitely improved our organization. It gives us remote connectivity, helps workers connect remotely, and also gives us good connectivity to our other branches."
"The VPN is easy and has good logging, monitoring and notifications."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG are user-friendliness and it is highly secure."
"They really work scalability into the solution at the outset."
"In terms of the functionality, I think it's pretty straightforward. It's easy to pick up. It's also user-friendly."
"This solution is very user-friendly and even a non-professional can configure the policies."
"The solution is easy to set up and configure."
"We get good usage out of the features. It has enabled us to gain popularity. It has great features."
"Good security and a good interface."
"The cloud management and automation capability could be improved."
"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"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."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"Report generation is an area that should be improved."
"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."
"I think they need to review their whole UI because it feels like it was created by a whole bunch of different teams of developers who didn't fully talk to each other. The net policy screen is just a mess. It should look like the firewall policy screen, and they should both act the same, but they don't. I feel like it's two different buildings or programming, who don't talk to each other, and that really annoys me."
"It would be great to have all the data correlated to have an overview and one point of administration."
"The annual subscription cost is a bit high. They should try to make it comparable to other offerings. We have a number of Chinese products here in Pakistan, which are already, very cheap and have less annual maintenance costs compared to Cisco."
"Third-party integrations could be improved."
"We have encountered problems when implementing new signatures and new versions on our firewall. Sometimes, there is a short outage of our services, and we have not been able to understand what's going on. This is an area for improvement, and it would be good to have a way to monitor and understand why there is an outage."
"I would like for them to develop better integration with other security platforms."
"Content filtering could be more effective and efficient."
"Sophos XG could improve by making the remote access and VPN better."
"I would like to have better SSL decryption and HTTP decryption. There should be filtering of SSL and HTTP traffic. Sophos XG consumes a lot of endpoint resources. It consumes a lot of RAM and CPU resources, and they should look into this."
"The solution could improve by having better security."
"There could be some room for improvement in its pricing since my clients usually feel like the product is on the expensive side."
"The initial setup, specifically when activating the license, is a nightmare and is quite difficult."
"Sophos can improve the debugging of the WAPS function."
"The support from the vendor needs to be improved."
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.