We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Sophos XGS 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.
"It is very flexible to use."
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"It's an easy solution to set up."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"We get the Security Intelligence Feeds refreshed every hour from Talos, which from my understanding is that they're the largest intelligence Security Intelligence Group outside of the government."
"It makes it very easy to have delineated roles and responsibilities between network engineering and network security."
"VPN, firewall, and IDS/IPS allow us to deliver services to meet client needs across various industry verticals."
"Cisco Firepower NGFW is really easy to use right now to determine when my file requires a shift from primary to secondary status, and it can be done with automation. Earlier we used to do this with patching."
"I have access to the web version of Cisco Talos to see the reputation of IP addresses. I find this very helpful. It provides important information for my company to obtain the reputation of IP addresses. The information in Talos is quite complete."
"On the network side, where you create your rules for allowing traffic — what can come inside and what can go out — that works perfectly, if you know what you want to achieve. It protects you."
"Cisco Secure Firewall is a scalable solution."
"Cisco Secure Firewall's security solutions, advanced malware protection, and DDoS communication are very good."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The centralized security is very good."
"The threat management system and VPN are most valuable."
"It is a scalable solution."
"It's much faster than the previous firewall, so you can do the work faster."
"It is very stable. I have not heard of any issue where clients would have to replace hardware. It's been really stable for a long while."
"XGS' most valuable feature is ransomware protection."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos is the VPN solution. I also value their threat management, IPS IDS features and login features with single sign-on."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."
"Price, of course, can always be more competitive or better."
"The routing capability on the FortiGate devices has room for improvement."
"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."
"It is surprising that you need to have a virtual appliance for the Firepower Management Center. It is not good if you have to setup a VMware server just for it."
"There may have been one or two incidences of malicious threats."
"A memory leakage issue which literally freeze the nodes (we have an HA environment). The issue is still not solved and the only recommendation from Cisco is to reboot the node."
"Nowadays, nobody is in the office, so I need to figure out how to put the firewall outside. If I could have a centralized firewall that also receives information from external locations, like peoples' home offices, that would help us consolidate everything into one appliance."
"In Firepower, there is an ability to search and dig into a search, which is nice. However, I'm not a super fan of the way it scrolls. If you want to look at something live, it's a lot different. You're almost waiting. With the ASDM, where it just flows, you can really see it. The second someone clicks something or does something, you'll see it. The refresh rate on the events in Firepower is not as smooth."
"Changes you make in the GUI sometimes do not reflect in the command line and vice versa."
"The management of the firewalls could be improved because there are a lot of bugs."
"Cisco provides us with application visibility and control, although it's not a complete solution compared to other vendors. Cisco needs to work on the application behavior side of things, in particular when it comes to the behavior of SSL traffic."
"Sophos XGS could improve the automation system. It could be better if there was some level of automation, attacks automation, meaning if this happens, then it automatically executes a particular process."
"Support is great, however, it can always be improved."
"Sophos XGS could improve by having better integration with Active Directory."
"Having previously worked with the Astaro Security Gateway platform (now called Sophos UTM), I can attest that the configuration and dashboard for this older platform was easier to manage than that of both Sophos XG and XGS. If it were up to me, I would prefer to go back to the older SG dashboard."
"The application is a little slow; it takes five to ten seconds to respond to every click when configuring. If we need to do significant configuration, it can take a lot of time. This might be because we have a low-end machine, and it could be faster with a high-end one."
"Sophos XGS could improve the price."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"The reporting could be better."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while Sophos XGS is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 58 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while Sophos XGS is rated 8.0. 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 XGS writes "Highly stable, scalable, and priced well". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas Sophos XGS is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, Netgate pfSense, WatchGuard Firebox and SonicWall NSa. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. Sophos XGS report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.
