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 a safe product."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"Their performance is most valuable."
"It's got the capabilities of amassing a lot of throughput with remote access and VPNs."
"We can easily track unauthorized users and see where traffic is going."
"Cisco ASA works out-of-the-box. With the setup wizard, it was easy to get it deployed quickly, even by novice IT users."
"Its security and filtering are most valuable. Every layer of data that comes into the organization goes through it. After setting up the criteria, it automatically filters the traffic. We don't have to check it often."
"The most valuable feature is the Intrusion Prevention System."
"The management aspect of the product is very straightforward."
"There are no issues that we are aware of. It does its job silently in the background."
"The VPN feature is the most valuable. It has come in handy during this period when people are working from home. The filtering feature is also valuable because you can easily filter the sites that you don't want to visit. You can also set timely surfing quotas."
"The initial setup is very straightforward and the solution is extremely user-friendly."
"The user interface is very good. It's already quite simple and easy to use."
"The solution seems to be very easy to use."
"As a security solution, it's a very good security solution."
"Good security and a good interface."
"The solution seems pretty stable. We've had no issues so far."
"The solution has all the security features you would need for any type of environment."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"The feature which gives us a lot of pain is ASIC architecture."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"The pricing could be reduced or include the first year warranty."
"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."
"Cisco's inspection visibility could be better."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"I would like more features in conjunction with other solutions, like Fortinet."
"One area that could be improved is its logging functionality. Your logs are usually displayed on the screen, but if you want to go back one or two days, then you need another solution in place because those logs are overwritten within minutes."
"The scalability is a bit limiting, to be honest. In terms of when you look to changing landscape in terms of threats, I think to me, my personal it's a bit limiting."
"It could also use a reporting dashboard."
"If I want to activate IPS features on it, I have to buy another license. If I want Cisco AnyConnect, I have to buy another license. That's where we have challenges."
"They really need support for deployment."
"The installation could be faster and is longer than that of other solutions, lasting more than a month instead of five minutes."
"The solution could be more secure."
"The reporting could be improved in this solution by adding more details."
"Their updates can be faster and more regular."
"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."
"I would like to see the performance improved."
"Their support is fairly good, and they come back to me. I've had an issue once or twice where I couldn't understand what the support person was saying because those calls were probably routed to India. They were a bit difficult to understand, but it is generally not an issue."
"Over the last six months, we have noticed that the hardware is slow, especially the VPN connections."
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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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.