Sophos XG Reviews

I'm using the solution mainly for its firewall application and to prevent intrusion in the system. The XG platform is very powerful from the perspective of identification and to prevent potential attacks on the system due to its the capacity to predict and to anticipate the potential damage on the system.

It's integrated inside the system, meaning that it can control all the endpoints in the system and talk with them and identify any potential situation. It can also isolate one area inside the system without compromising the entire system. This allows you to isolate the initial problem without involving the entire infrastructure. 

You have real-time control of all your infrastructure. It is integrated with the hardware and offers good performance alongside the hardware and by the firmware, and these work together to control the entire infrastructure.

The real-time control on offer is excellent.

We really appreciate that you can segment and quarantine certain sections of your system without having to shut down the entire operation.

The product has artificial intelligence that has the capability to quickly identify which could be the potential risk mainly for intrusions like ransomware or a new kind of typology of attacks that are in place right now. 

The idea is to mainly prevent the condition and not to manage the situation, as, if that happens, in many ways, it's already too late. It's to identify the condition that can help the company to prevent or mainly to reduce the risk of an intrusion. In that sense, its performance is excellent. 

The product is doing it job without affecting the system with a heavy load. The activity on offer is very light in terms of resources that are required by the system. It does not require a lot of resources in terms of memory, et cetera. There is no performance impact on the system. The customer doesn't detect its presence on the system when it's working, and yet they still get all of the great benefits of protection.

The solution has been quite stable. 

It's a product that is in continuous improvement and is following what the customer is asking. They are taking inputs and designing new releases specifically according to the client and their needs.

It's one of the best products on the market as it really understands where the market is moving and iterates based on the future. It's constantly improving. It does a great job at keeping confidentiality while guaranteeing security.

The solution doesn't just offer theoretical security, it really does offer very good, real-time security and delivers on its promise to the client.

There is no specific features request right now really. I see that all the features that Sophos is implementing and is proposing on the market follow exactly what the market is asking. It's difficult to identify something that is missing compared with what the market can ask as one of the most important things that Sophos does is have the capability to anticipate in a certain way what the market expects. As a leader on the market, they tend to have the solution just before the market is asking them for it. 

The solution could offer a bit more integration with other systems, with other platforms - just to be able to extend the capability and to interface with other kinds of platforms or systems that I can find on the market as it gives the possibility to improve the level of integration.

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's very reliable.

The solution is quite scalable. You have to consider that all Sophos products are scalable. This is one of the main characteristics of the system. It means that you can start with a base solution that is very simple and improve this step by step without losing what you have done in the past. It's scalable in the sense that you have a different layout that you can cover, however, you don't have to dismiss what you have done in the past. You have just to integrate. In this way, if you consider the cost of implementation for the company, it has the possibility to optimize the cost because the company has the possibility to appreciate the system initially, and then improve the system step by step without losing what has been done in the past.

This means the company has the possibility to distribute the cost if you're in a certain period of growth. Normally some companies start to say, "I want to guarantee to control to the outside with a certificate and give the possibility to access my data in a controlled way. After that, I want to extend the security on the email that is managed by the company. I want to encrypt the data on the server and so on." All these features can be approached in a step-by-step manner instead of all at once, and you can implement them on the system in different ways and at different times.

We normally have about 50 users and around five technicians.

I also currently use Cisco products alongside Sophos.

However, we did not previously use a solution that was different from Sophos.

The initial setup is not so complicated. The system is not complicated to understand and also in can be installed without a very high level of expertise. Of course, if you have this kind of expertise, you can obtain from the system the maximum performance that the system can do, however, it means that you are not obliged to be a guru to be able to use these kinds of products. You can use these kinds of products just as an IT manager inside the company without having or needing special knowledge. 

Otherwise, you can leave to Sophos with the capability of doing something like a close box. You are sure that Sophos is able to guarantee the level of security that you are expecting. You can have it be automatic, or you can choose to go more manual in its operations. For example, if you were a professional photographer, you'd probably like a manual experience, as it would allow you more leeway with your craft, and if you were an amateur, you 'ld likely prefer an automatic camera that handles the heavy lifting for you. Sophos, in that sense, is the same. If you want, you can configure single parameters, or you can leave it to Sophos to give you something out-of-the-box.

In any case, if you stay on the automatic configuration, you are guaranteed that the system can provide the correct level of service that you want. It means that it's not required to have an expert. That said, you need of course to have a minimum level of knowledge, as it's clear that you need to know what you are managing. Starting from that, you can obtain what you need without moving into an advanced configuration.

Typically, a configuration takes about half a day or so, if you go that route. It doesn't take long, as those who would handle it would know what they are doing.

We handled the implementation ourselves, in-house. We did not need the assistance of an implementor or consultant. I have enough knowledge on the solution to manage it myself.

I'm mainly a user. Sometimes I handle installations.

I'm using the latest version of the solution. I don't have the version number on-hand.

We do plan on continuing to use the solution. I've been quite please with it overall.

I would recommend the solution to others. It's worked quite well so far and really leads the market.

I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

We use it for firewalling. Lately, we are also using it for remote access or VPN access for the users to the firewall and then onto the local network for people working from home. We've seen a huge jump in work from home. Everybody is working from home, so we need a secure connection to the office.

I am not using its latest version. I normally wait for a couple of months before upgrading the unit to make sure there are no bugs or issues. I check on the forums to see what other people are saying and whether there are any issues. 

There are many features. VPN, firewalling, and intrusion detection are the main features that are most useful for us at this time.

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.

I have been using this solution for seven years.

It is stable. We've been dealing with it for such a long time. We know exactly how to set it up. Sometimes, clients have got funny ideas, and I just say to them, "You tell me what you need, and I'll do the config and set it up." I've got two clients who have got technical skills. One of them is fairly proficient on Sophos, so he does the work as well, but for most of our other clients, we set it up, and there are no issues. It just works.

It is scalable provided you purchase the correct product. We do a bit of homework. We don't just sell you the first device on the list because that's not always suitable. We do a scope of the client's business. They may be a startup with just five users, but they might have a plan to have 100 or 200 users. We need to just size according to what they anticipate to be. It is no good if we sell them an entry-level device now, and two months later, it is too small. We purchase according to a client's requirements.

We've got clients with four users, and the number can go up to hundreds. I'm currently busy setting one up for 150 users, and obviously, there is much more work involved in doing the remote VPN setups.

I use the local support in South Africa. If they can't help me, then I log a case with their international support. They're 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. They spoke so fast, and I could not hear what they were saying, but it is generally not an issue. It is not a showstopper, and we manage to work. If I don't understand, I say to them, "Can we rather chat by email?", which makes it a lot easier.

There some other firewalls that my company is using, but they're way below in terms of specs and what they can do. Sophos XG is a layer 7 firewall, and most of the others are only layer 2 firewalls. Sophos is far superior. 

I do not have any knowledge about Cisco, Juniper, or other firewalls. I don't really use them. I use some open-source firewalls, but they're also a lot lighter. I've got one or two very small clients or non-profits where we run an open-source firewall, but the feature set is way limited compared to Sophos.

Sophos XG comes in at a fair price as compared to some of the other products out there. Its learning curve wasn't that steep. It makes sense, and it is a sensible product. It is not like some of the other products.

It is simple for me. I've done so many setups. I can probably do these things in my sleep. In fact, I have got one in front of me now that I need to configure and install. I'm fairly proficient in the use of these devices. I'm happy with it.

The deployment duration depends on the setup. Some simple setups can be up and running within two hours. Complex ones most probably will take four to six hours. It also depends on the client's needs. Some of them have simple requirements, and they just want firewalling and one or two remote-access VPNs. Others have got a complex setup where we need to set up cameras and VoIP telephone systems. It all depends on a client's requirements.

It doesn't require any maintenance because the definitions are auto-updated. I've got a dashboard where I can manage all of the firewall devices from one dashboard. If I want to upgrade the software on 20 of them, I'll log onto the dashboard and upgrade the software just by selecting it and saying upgrade the software, and it is done. It requires very minimal handling on a day-to-day basis. Antivirus definitions, scanning definitions, and all those things are auto-updated anyway.

It comes at a fair price as compared to some of the other products out there. Its price is in the middle. It is not the cheapest, and it is also not as expensive as Juniper, Check Point, and definitely Cisco. Nowadays, everybody is very cost-sensitive, and people don't want to spend unnecessary money, but even before that, it was a fairly priced product.

You've got your choice of what license you want. There are basically two types of licenses, and it depends on what you need to do, and everything is included in that license. There is no cost for VPN and DMZ. You purchase the license, and you know upfront what you're getting or what you're not getting, and that's it. It is one license fee and done and dusted.

I would definitely recommend this solution to others. I recommend it to all my clients. I'm using it at home as well, and it works great. I'm fairly proficient in it, so I'm very confident. I can recommend it to anybody and everybody. It is a great product, and I've got no issue with it.

I would rate Sophos XG a ten out of ten. It is a rock-solid product that works. We've so many deployments of this solution. I'm just happy with it. 

We essentially use Sophos XG to protect our customers. Most of our customers use remote VPN connections. They also use the WAF protection for exposed internet WEB servers.

The web application firewall or WAF is very useful. Web application firewalls help keep your servers safe from hackers by scanning activity and identifying probes and attacks.
Using the Web Application Firewall (WAF), also known as reverse proxy, Sophos
UTM lets you protect your webservers from attacks and malicious
behavior like cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injection, directory
traversal, and other potent attacks against your servers.
You can define external addresses (virtual webservers) which should be
translated into the "real" machines in place of using the DNAT rule(s).
From there, servers can be protected using a variety of patterns and
detection methods.

This function has been completely re-developed in XG, relatively of the UTM-9 version, and it works fine. I protect many internet web servers (IIS) for my customers with this function, due to of a lot of attempted attacks. It's a very useful and relatively simple to implement in Sophos XG.

Obviously, like all security systems, it is not a "fire and forget" configuration. It is necessary to properly analyze the system to be protected, create an appropriate policy and monitor its behavior once activated.

https://support.sophos.com/sup...

I think Sophos XG can improve some annex features. Like in DHCP, we can't make IP reservations in the range. We must reserve out of the range, which is not good. It will not be the same as the DHCP function in a Windows Server. We can't make an IP reservation in the range of the DHCP in the Sophos.

Better in the next release? I hope...

Sophos can also improve the debugging of the WAF function and provide a better resolution in the log, in the attached WEB log. The initial error doesn't appear. You must tail the console log to find the source pattern, cause of the error.

I have been using Sophos XG for about tree years.

Sophos XG is stable. I don't encounter problems that are typical with broken systems. But bugs in the system exists. Last example, I discovered a bug is in the asymmetric routing implementation. In a specific network configuration, asymmetric routing, with sub-net 25 doesn't work, but mask 24 and mask 26 works!!

But this is just a bug, and Sophos' support is very good to correct quickly, ASAP.

I only had a break function once because of the appliance BIOS. The Sophos support send me a new BIOS very quickly, and the problem was resolved.

I have a lot of issues with Sophos technical support. I still have some pending issues that need to be resolved. It's very odd in the beginning because your first contact is with the sub-part of another sub-part of Sophos based in India or Pakistan. It's very odd to have a quick connection with the second level or third level engineer at Sophos in UK.

I have personal contact with some security managers and the sub-part manager of Sophos support. When they don't resolve a problem quickly, I send an email, or I call my contacts Sophos UK, and it happens! They have good reactivity.

We start with Sophos UTM-9, the old version of Sophos firewalls, and then we switched to the XG.

The initial setup of the last version of Sophos XG is good. The initialization is very simple, but you must prepare it. You need an Sophos customer account , on the web cell, to declare easy a firewall.

It'll ask for an account, and you can create it in the interface, but it's better to prepare it before in the Sophos site, to have the account ready, for the first initialization of the firewall.

The deployment time depends on the system's complexity, the number of ISPs, the number of sub-nets, WAF functions and VPNs. 

It's normally very easy for a little company. A retail company with 20-30 computer-users, and a simple connection to the internet, it'll take about four to six-hours to deploy. If you need to fine-tune it, maybe two hours more. So like eight hours or a day to deploy.

Sophos XG isn't expensive compared to Check Point. Sure, Check Point is the Rolls-Royce of firewalls: It's great, it's fun, technically good tunned, but it's very expensive. 

But the specs and technical side of Sophos XG are close to Check Point, and the price is lower. It's better for our customers. I can do the same complex configurations with Sophos XG that I used to do on Check Point firewalls.

The main difference between Sophos XG and Check Point is keylogging and working with clouds. Both FortiGate and Watchguard doesn't have  in log packet analyzer to do so deeply. 

For me personally, Check Point firewall is the best firewall, because the log console is the power key of the firewalls. But Sophos XG is the main challenger of Check Point, I think. You can open the debugging packet analyzer, like a Wireshark, directly in the WEB log console. This function is a powerful tool and must be discovered, because it's very useful for quick debugging.

If I had to rank them, it's Check Point first, second, Sophos XG, and in third with FortiGate and Watchguard. We chose Sophos XG because it's much cheaper than Check Point.

I think it's very important to choose the right appliance first. Implementing a lot of things like VPN, IPS strong protection and WAF functions will stress more the appliance CPU. It depend also with the number of connections and number of users too.

Sophos XG is a lot of fun because you can change the appliance model without changing the configuration. You can back-up the configuration of the old appliance and import into the new appliance without spending hour for migration. It's powerful, and the new system is quickly operational.

Another key is VPN LAN to LAN in SSL, allowing connections to be set up much faster. Is this the end of the old IPSEC protocol? No, but it is a function which increases the versatility of the Sophos XG firewall.

Last, but not least, the virtual appliance works perfectly, in private or public clouds. Very simple to implement, work perfectly.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Sophos XG a nine. 

My clients are mostly based in the government. They are my core clients. I install the solution for my clients.

The solution is very easy to use. 

Of course, we have the skills, however, it's very easy for us to deploy the solution. That's one of the valuable features. 

They have a communication between the endpoint and the firewall which is very, very useful for security purposes.

Pricing is now pretty good. They changed the pricing structure a few months ago.

The initial setup is pretty easy.

The integration could be a bit better. They need to allow their solution to integrate with other products and not just other Sophos solutions.

Sophos has a feature that in my opinion is very limited. They don't have enough VPNs on their models. They have the XG 750, which is a sizeable appliance. On those models, they used to have not enough VPNs. They always were short on that area. 

Pricing used to be very bad, however, they've adjusted their strategy recently. 

The product needs to improve its marketing in Mexico. It's not a well-recognized product in our country.

The solution's technical support is very bad.

There is an overall lack of documentation in relation to features and capabilities. We need these to help explain aspects of the solution to our clients. 

I've used the solution since around 2014. I have about six years of experience at this point. It's been a while. I've definitely worked with the product in the last 12 months.

The solution is quite stable. There are no bugs and glitches. It doesn't crash and freeze. It's quite reliable. We don't have problems with it.

The solution is very scalable. It is not a problem. Sometimes we have issues when we are trying to do something with a different traditional version of hardware as sometimes the new hardware has more ports. However, if we are talking about scalability in a huge customer, we can do it very easily. 

Mexico is very different than other countries and continents as here, when we say it's a big customer, we are talking about 2,000 to maybe 3,000 users. There aren't too many large-scale operations in the country. However, in general, for our area, we tend to deal with large-scale companies.

For a company that has maybe 1,000 users, Sophos seems to work very well. We have one operation with 10,000 endpoints and it is working quite well.

Technical support from Sophos is very bad.

Sometimes we lose a project due to the fact that we need to solve some issues or answer questions. Things that may be technical but also involve the administrative side. I'm talking about licensing and the capabilities of the feature. We need some documentation, something we can show clients. They can better in those cases. They can either help us or supply us with what we need. 

In response time, they are terrible. In the area of technical knowledge, they are getting better, however, they aren't where they need to be. Right now, we are not satisfied with the level of support provided.

The initial setup is not complex. However, here in Mexico, it's very complex to sell the product. The brand is not as well known.

That said, the process is pretty straightforward. 

The deployment times vary. It depends on the end-user and what they need. Sometimes, it's easy as they don't have too many policies. The more policies they have, the longer it takes.

In other cases, clients may have a lot of VPNs. We have to work on those VPNs, and we have to do a lot of routing. However, that depends on the customer. Not all are like that.

For one appliance, you just need one person for deployment and maintenance. If we are working a lot of VPNs, we would have to use more people. We need to involve maybe two or three individuals and re-apply the configuration in that case. 

We handle the installation process ourselves. We do not need the assistance of consultants.

The pricing has recently changed on Sophos. Their licensing and cost structures are much more clear now. It's much better than it was.

Clients, in many cases, evaluate for Check Point, Forcepoint, and sometimes Fortinet. Occasionally, they may look at SonicWall, or Palo Alto however, the others are the main big competitors. 

Palo Alto is very expensive as are Check Point and Forcepoint. That's why we sometimes win the projects. We find Fortinet, is very, very hard to beat as they have a lot of market share, have a lot of marketing. Sophos doesn't have that presence, that marketing. Also, when you have to think about prices, Fortinet gives customers everything and it's hard to beat.

The biggest issue I've found with Sophos is the small number of VPNs that we can do compared to a similar appliance with Fortinet or in the same level center. In fact, many other brands offer more VPNs than Sophos.

I'm a Sophos reseller.

We use multiple versions. We have worked with XG 460 and XG 135 and some others -such as XG 230. In those cases, sometimes it has been Rev 1 and in other cases Rev 2 in terms of the hardware versions.

I mostly work with on-premise deployments. The only item I have installed in the cloud is an email solution by Sophos.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. Overall, I would rate it at a nine out of ten.

I am a system integrator. We integrate SG, XG, and XGS.

We are also deploying it on Azure on-premises for our clients.

Sophos XG is a firewall. It can protect your internal users if it is on-premises. It can publish applications such as websites, it can also protect your internal networks like IPS, and IDS. It provides you with VPN Access, and it gives you reports on the consumption of the internet.

If you have deployed the endpoint between the antivirus in Sophos, it can also communicate with your endpoint and protect your users if infected.

It's a complete firewall solution that has everything.

It is very useful.

It competes with the majority of the market's products, including Palo Alto and Fortinet.

We always strive for more features.

We could see the bandwidth use right away with the prior version, which was the SG version. The current bandwidth consumption is no longer shown in the XG and XGS.

They are nearly a complete solution. However, they are missing this feature with the ability to view the current bandwidth usage. We have requested this, but have not had a reply yet. It was in SG before but it was removed in XG.

We have been working with Sophos XG for six years. 

We started with SG, then XG, and now XGS nine years ago.

It can be deployed both on the cloud and on-premises. 

Sophos XG is very stable. We haven't had a single issue with stability in the nine years we have been using Sophos.

All electric appliances rely on a stable electric current, which requires the use of a UPS, and a backup power supply. The main issue is the stability of the power.

All Sophos appliances are SSD-based, which means the hard drive in the appliance is solid-state.

we have deployed more than 50, 60 for our customers in Kuwait and we haven't had an issue or, any RMA.

When purchasing a firewall, as a customer, you must first plan, consult with your partner(s), and decide on the sizing. If you buy an XGS 230, for example, it can support up to 200 users and 50 VPNs. If you buy the wrong product, you won't be able to scale it up.

You should always size upfront. If you have a hundred users, you buy an appliance that can support 150. The license is the license.

It's all about the hardware. If you purchase small hardware and you know that after one year you're going to have more employees then it is wrong.

It's not a server, where you can just add more drives, It only has expansion units for the network. If you need to add fiber, for example, you can. There are expansion units, but you can't expand the architecture of the firewall.

We have more than 50 customers.

We haven't required any technical support. I have however heard from my peers that they have not had any issues with the customer support.

They have offices in India, Dubai, and even in the United Kingdom. As we are certified Gold partners in Kuwait, we haven't had any issues with the Sophos team. They are quite responsive when you have a tender to submit. I have no complaints at all.

in the past, we also integrated Palo Alto.

The initial setup is easy and straightforward. As certified partners, this is something that we do every week. If the customers provide you with the network details, you can have it up and running in 30 minutes with no issues.

It's a problem if you don't know your firewall, or how to deploy it, or know how to put the proper rule in place. It is very important that in any firewall if the customer doesn't know what rule should be in place, it is possible they will create the wrong rule and expose the network.

You have to have a certified person to maintain the solution. How many you will need depends on the number of customers. If you have a lot of customers, you will need two technical people. It also depends on the size of your business. One is fine but as you grow with more customers, you will need at least two to deploy and maintain the solution.

I don't have any issues with the price. The price varies depending on the market. The price of Sophos in Europe differs from that in our region, GCG, and from that in the United States. You will notice that each region has a different pricing structure. 

Customers will always try to minimize the cost. When compared to other products, Sophos licensing is very affordable.

They have already released the XGS. If you are referring to the previous version, XG. It is still in production and available for purchase. They have already released the XGS, which is the next generation of the XG. It has a more advanced architecture. Now that we have passed XG, there's XGS on the market.

Remember to size your customers. You'll need to know how many web applications you will be publishing, how many end customers the company has, and how many of them will need to connect to the VPN. It's a formula that, based on the data, that will determine which appliance you require. You can start with a little one, but it's best to understand the requirements first.

We are very happy with Sophos products.

I would rate Sophos XG a ten out of ten.

We use Sophos Firewall for our environment.

The Sophos Firewall, from our interaction and the way we are using it, is a very effective network security solution that basically protects our infrastructure, identifies any infections or any network security threats that actually may happen within our environment. We also are able to manage our users in terms of bandwidth usage and the allocation of bandwidth, whereby we give our users restricted access for use during working hours and they are supposed to utilize the bandwidth and make sure that we optimize and prioritize the applications able to get the necessary bandwidth. We do use it to manage our bandwidth. We do use it as well to make sure that our environment is secure against any possible threats.

In terms of the Sophos XG Firewall, what really excites us is basically the issue of intrusion detection and the intrusion prevention features. Those are both very, very good. 

The issue of sandboxing as well is something that is very useful. It's able to protect our environment quite well. 

Email protection is something that we are basically using all the time and it protects our environment which has more than 2000 users. 

All of the protection features are great in terms of securing our environment.

Sophos is way ahead of a number of other products in terms of the enhancements and upgrades they offer.

Sophos offers a great centralized dashboard that makes it easy to see what's happening on your network. 

The initial setup is very straightforward and the solution is extremely user-friendly.

The documentation is very, very good.

In terms of the product, from the way that we have been utilizing it, we have noticed that the vendor has been able to continuously upgrade and upgrade and update the product with new features. You'd find that all the time a new release has come out, and we're actually happy with that. We don't find it inconvenient that we are constantly upgrading. 

I can't think of any downsides in terms of the features on offer.

I'd like the dashboard to be improved. It could be a bit more customizable. 

I have about five years of experience with the product.

We are very satisfied with the functionality. We are very satisfied with the way that it is securing our environment. The stability has been excellent.

We have 2,000 users on the solution currently.

The solution is very scalable. We basically started with about 900 users. We went up to about 1,300. As we went up, as our users increased, we also scaled it up in terms of protection. Sophos was able to scale up easily and protect all our end users as well as our environment. It's been great overall.

We do plan to increase usage. Our employee base is about 10,000. We have 2,000 networked employees and we are planning to add another 1,000 users by the end of the year.

The technical support has been great. All of our technical staff have been certified as Sophos administrators. They were able to offer us the training to make sure that all of the support staff are familiar with the functionality of the product. Then, in terms of technical support that we may need, when we call the Sophos team, they are usually very available and they are even able to support us remotely if there is a need to do that. We are extremely satisfied overall.

I also often work with Cisco's ASA Firewall as well as Nagios. We bought Sophos to complement the ASA firewall.

The initial setup was very, very straightforward. You find that we did not even require a lot of external help from the vendor. It's so straightforward. The documentation is quite comprehensive and it takes the user through a step-by-step process, It's very user-friendly.

For the firewall as well as deployment of the end-user, the email protection as well as the sandbox, and the like, it took us approximately three days to finalize everything for our entire environment. We had over a hundred network sites, which are dotted through the city of Harare, therefore, we knew that we had to make sure that deployment was done fully throughout the entire environment.

There was very minimal, minimal assistance from the vendor. The vendor, here and there, would assist if we requested their help. However, you'd find that in most of the installations we did in-house, we didn't need the vendor to do anything. We knew that the installation process was very user-friendly.

The cost of procuring this product is very reasonable and it's very affordable for most organizations.

We're a customer and an end-user.

We use the latest version of the product.

I'd advise those considering the solution that Sophos' security solution is highly synchronized, very secure, and provides comprehensive security. I'd like them to know that it has enhanced and very detailed and sophisticated functionality, which is really easy to use, easy to deploy, and very user-friendly. It is a product that I would highly recommend for any organization that needs to comprehensively secure its infrastructure.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

I implemented this firewall for my clients. They're small offices. One has got half a dozen computers, and the other one has about 30 computers on the network. Both utilize VPN to remotely access their workstations in the office.

It is sized based on the client. So, there are actually two different versions that I've utilized.

VPN setup is great and easy to implement for outside users to access data or workstations in the network.  Easy to manage and set up.  No major glitches.  Runs reliably.   Setting up iPhones and Macs is a bit more involved since you have to use VPN apps that are compatible with Apple for VPN and remote desktop.

Compared to other firewalls that I had looked at, I thought Sophos was the better solution. It just seems to be easier to manage versus Cisco, Fortinet, or one of the other options I was looking at.

I'm not going to say that it's easy to configure, but I can understand how to configure it. There is a certain amount of support available to do the configurations. 

I'm just a sole proprietor for IT support, and from my perspective, there could be better ways to educate a proprietor, such as myself, on how to set it up, program it, and manage it. They do tend to have support, but a lot of times, it is for larger networks. I need something simpler and more rudimentary to set up and configure the firewall, set up the rules, and that type of thing. So, if there is a missing component there, that would be it. 

Any firewall will need rules for how it protects the network against a variety of threats or various degrees of protection.  My comments are not aimed at Sophos specifically.  As a new person just learning about firewall protection, it would be helpful for any vendor to have an education area that runs through various scenarios and implements them in the firewall.  Videos would be helpful.  From my initial research on which firewall to choose,  Sophos appeared to have the most straightforward interface. 

I purchased the units from www.firewalls.com, and they worked with me to do the initial setup.  That was very helpful to get started

I have been using Sophos XG for 4 years.

It is very stable.

It is scalable. There are different models, and you really need to choose a model that is appropriate for your current situation. You can buy something with a certain degree of scalability. Because I purchased it through firewalls.com, I was able to have that discussion, describe the application, and then choose a model that would suit that particular client with a degree of scalability. Now, for instance, if they went from 20 employees to 500 employees, then it is not scalable to that degree, but if they went from 20 employees to 50 employees, then it would be scalable. So, you've got to define the criteria in terms of what you're trying to protect, the number of users, the bandwidth that is going through it, the speed, etc. When I purchased them through firewalls.com, they explained and helped me choose the most appropriate appliance for what I'm doing.

I did have a circumstance where the firewall had been damaged during a lightning storm or something like that, and I called them to help me diagnose what the issue was. They were good about the diagnostic. They were good about spending the time with me to figure out what was wrong. In the particular case that I was researching, it turned out that one of the ports was bad for some reason. It was either because of the lightning storm or some other reason. It was under warranty, and they replaced it with a new unit. So, I'm satisfied with Sophos' support.

Previously used a small $100 cisco unit.  Not easy to implement VPN.  They may have an app, now, but at the time it was problematic and way too  complicated. 

I purchased it through firewalls.com. They're an online vendor, and they did the initial setup and configuration on both firewalls. My experience with them was good.

I used firewalls.com and they were excellent

Fewer management headaches

The pricing was reasonable.  VPN licensing is included.

I looked at Cisco, Fortinet, and one of the others, and compared to them, I thought Sophos was the better solution. It seemed to be easier to manage. After the implementation, I could figure out what to do with a Sophos interface. If it was something like Cisco or other vendors, it would be far more complicated to deal with. So, that's one of the reasons why I chose Sophos.

For someone who is not acquainted with firewalls, whether it is Sophos or anything else, dealing with a third party for the implementation is kind of a must. 

I am satisfied with this solution. I don't really have any hands-on experience with other firewalls that I can compare it against, but I'm satisfied with it. I like it, and I'd buy it again.

I would rate Sophos XG a 10 out of 10.

We primarily use the solution as our firewall.

I'm able to have very granular control over my organization's input and output data that goes in and out of our networks.

The firewall portion of the solution is the best part The rest is really just fluff. 

The initial setup is straightforward.

We have found the stability to be quite good.

User management is the area that, by far, needs the most work. The way that they try to transparently utilize user groups from the active directory to the Sophos firewall is outdated.

I'd like to see them do a little bit better of a job with the content filtering. It has content filtering, however, it rarely works. Sometimes it just fails altogether. I'd like to see a better job done. 

I'd like to see better reporting. While the logs are great, the reports are not.

I've been using the solution for six years at this point. 

The stability is great. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It's a reliable firewall. 

The product is super scalable. If I had a giant organization, I'd have no problem putting the Sophos firewall in.

Right now, we have 155 on the solution. That's everyone from support to upper-level management. 

We use it every day.

We just recently upgraded. I have no reason or need to upgrade for years to come and therefore don't plan on scaling anytime soon.

Technical support is fairly good. It's a pain to get ahold of them, however, once you get them, they're very thorough.

The only thing that s not so great is that sometimes they try to force me down to my reseller, whoever their partner is. I always have to make up a lie and say I already tried and only then will they help me. Besides that, it's not bad.

I previously used Cyberoam. We really switched as Cyberoam was bought out by Sophos.

The implementation process was pretty straightforward. Learning the ins and outs was a little complex. How, in terms of just getting it set up, I was able to get it set up in a couple of days.

Overall, the deployment took about three days. My strategy was, basically, going from my old Cyberoam to my new Sophos. I just copied each rule individually and tested them. Then I ran them in sync with each other for a couple of weeks. When I realized there were no problems, I pulled the Cyberoam out.

We have three people on staff that can handle deployment and maintenance responsibilities. I've got a system admin, myself, and a help desk/content specialist.

I did not use an integrator, reseller, or consultant for deployment. I handled the process myself. 

From an ROI standpoint, the product I had before, even though they were basically the same thing, I found I was spending a lot of man-hours with it and calling support a lot and actually having to pay for support on the previous model. 

With this firewall, I rarely have to call support. When I do, it's free of charge. The ROI is 100% there. It might be a little more expensive up front, however, the quality is there for a medium-sized business.

The licensing is based on a multi-year contract. It's a bit higher, in terms of price than other options. The billing process is pretty simple and straightforward. they don't have a complex licensing setup. 

I evaluated all the big players out there before choosing Sophos. I likely evaluated seven different options.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I'd advise those considering this product to stick with it and stay away from the fluff. For example, the Sophos Anti-Virus is not worth it. 

The firewall is fantastic. Definitely take their firewall courses, as there are going to be a lot of tasks that you feel should be easy and they're not. There's going to be a lot of troubleshooting. I've been working on it for five years and I still catch myself sometimes trying to figure out why a certain rule doesn't work doing this or that. Definitely take the training. I would highly recommend staying away from the other products.

I'd give the product an eight out of ten for a score. It does everything I need it to do. The user interface is very modern. It works. I was able to figure out some very advanced things. Even though it has a modern interface, I like the fact that I can always go into the console and it's a Linux box behind the scene - which is very nice for when you're trying to do very advanced tasks. For the most part, it was plug-and-play. The setup was really easy. The support is fantastic.