Azure Firewall vs Sophos XG comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary
Updated on Dec 11, 2022

We performed a comparison between Azure 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.

  • Ease of Deployment: Users of both solutions agree that the initial setup is easy and straightforward.
  • Features: Users of both products are happy with their stability.

    Users of Azure Firewall like its intrusion detection and prevention system, network filtering, integration, and security. Reviewers mention that the solution could benefit from better scalability and a more user-friendly interface. Users also mention that the reporting, logging, and monitoring features need improvement.

    Sophos XG users like the solution’s scalability and find the VPN to be very valuable for remote workers. However, reviewers say it doesn’t integrate well with other products and that the solution’s reporting and SD-WAN need improvement.
  • Pricing: Users of both solutions agree that the pricing is fair and reasonable.
  • Service and Support: Users of Azure Firewall mention that service and support is usually very good. However, there are some users who indicate that the response time can take a bit longer than desired. Sophos XG users give mixed reviews on technical support.
  • ROI: Users of both solutions are happy with their ROI. 

Comparison Results: The main difference between these two products is the scalability. While Azure Firewall users say the scalability could be improved, users of Sophos XG are satisfied with the solution’s capability to scale. Azure users also mention that the interface and the reporting, logging, and monitoring features all need improvement.

To learn more, read our detailed Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG Report (Updated: November 2023).
745,775 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"It can expand easily.""The interface is very good.""Initial setup is straightforward. There weren't too many issues with setting it up. It takes one hour or so.""Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features.""The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature.""It's an easy solution to set up.""It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation.""Initial setup is easy to configure."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy.""It is easy for me to protect certain ports or even the IP addresses, as well as do whitelisting, blacklisting, and the FQDN when we want virtual machines connected and to protect certain websites.""It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature.""Azure's cost-effectiveness is its major advantage.""We use the solution for application and server deployment.""The solution is stable.""All its features are good. That's why we recommend it.""The initial setup is straightforward; Azure Firewall does not have a complex implementation process. It is very simple; you just need to enable the service within Azure. It does not require any maintenance because it is managed by Microsoft, that is, it is a fully managed service."

More Azure Firewall Pros →

"The SD-WAN feature stands out as the most valuable aspect.""Sophos XG is very useful, it does many things.""The two most valuable feature of Sophos XG is, one the option to filter according to different applications and two, the integration with the Active Directory.""The VPN is easy and has good logging, monitoring and notifications.""The features that I have found most valuable are first the Web Filter and the Web Application Firewall SD-Wan on Version 18. Additionally, RED Tunnels allows a Sophos vital to speak to another Sophos vital in headquarters.""The product’s most valuable feature is the user management system.""Content blocking for websites is the most valuable aspect of the solution.""The most valuable features of Sophos XG are user-friendliness and it is highly secure."

More Sophos XG Pros →

Cons
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement.""Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution.""Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful.""I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules.""There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision.""I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation.""Scalability for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be improved. SD-WAN security for this solution also needs some improvement.""My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling. I haven't found this feature in any Fortinet product. You can do this on all Cisco routers, including the smaller models. However, QinQ isn't available on the biggest, most expensive Fortinet units. They still don't have that. I think now we're on software version 6.0, and they still haven't found a solution for QinQ. It isn't a dealbreaker, but that's my main complaint."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"Azure Firewall definitely needs a broader feature base. It should be able to go all the way up to layer 7 when looking at applications and things like that.""Azure Firewall should have a free trial version for new users so that they can evaluate it before deploying it.""There should be better monitoring and logging. Currently, it is put in Sentinel. It should be more seamless and from the interface.""The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling.""For large organizations, a third-party firewall would be an added advantage, because it would have more advanced features, things that are not in Azure Firewall.""An Azure firewall is not a real firewall.""It has fewer features than you can get from other firewalls, like anti-spam and anti-phishing. Those kinds of things are not included. It only includes IDS and IDB.""It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now."

More Azure Firewall Cons →

"Sophos XG could improve the connectivity with Microsoft 365 or Azure Active Directory(AD). It doesn't work directly as other solutions do, such as Fortinet FortiGate. The client needs a separate AD server which is a problem.""Sophos XG's user interface has some room for improvement.""We recently did an upgrade on the Sophos XG firmware and we were surprised that after the upgrade, the automatic switch actually we were using did not work anymore.""In the Sophos XG, the SD-WAN has all the rules done separately, such as net policy routing. In the previous version, they were all in a single rule and everything was done that way. The way it is now is difficult for us because we are not used to this newer version. The firewall rules should be easier to configure and create. Everything should be done with a single click.""All of the options should be available when I renew my subscription for the year. As it is now, there are some limitations.""Sophos XG could improve by coming out with more innovative feature developments.""The interface of Sophos XG could be improved. I would prefer the Sophos XG to have an interface for the technician who is setting it up similar to the Sophos SG. I felt the Sophos SG user interface was superior. however, in terms of the functionality of the product, Sophos XG is in many ways more powerful than the Sophos SG. I have no complaints about the quality of the product or the end result. For someone who has used both, I preferred the old interface to the new one.""The interface can bit a bit more user-friendly."

More Sophos XG Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It is more expensive than Sophos. Fortinet is overall more expensive than Sophos. The small range of Fortinet, such as 60F and 80F, is more expensive than the small range of Sophos. Sophos is cheaper. In addition, if you jump from 80F Series to 100F Series, the price doubles."
  • "The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."
  • "Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."
  • "Licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is on a yearly basis. Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper."
  • "The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."
  • "The solution requires a license annually, it is not a user license, you can have as many users as your want. I must renew the license regularly per device."
  • "It was probably about $2,500 per firewall. It was all included. It included support, services, threat management software, and 24/7 FortiCare on it. Cisco products are more expensive."
  • "There is a license to use Fortinet FortiGate."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Azure Firewalls operate on a pay-as-you-go model, similar to cloud services."
  • "The solution is cheaper than other brands. My company has an enterprise contract and we finally got a good price with Azure."
  • "Azure Firewall comes with Azure native services. We did not buy any kind of license for it. Whether you have a free subscription or a pay-as-you-go model, you can deploy the Azure Firewall service... The amount that you use will determine how much you pay."
  • "It is expensive, especially with the premium functions. For one of the clients, it was very expensive. You have to use it more at an enterprise level, and there, it was not at an enterprise level. So, it was very costly, but security-wise, it was a very wise decision to use it that way."
  • "The pricing should be competitive. If you compare Azure's pricing to that of security solutions from AWS or GCP, theirs is much more competitive. Azure Firewall should also have similar competitive prices so that it is accessible to small- and medium-sized organizations."
  • More Azure Firewall Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price is less expensive compared to others."
  • "For every firewall, you will need to pay the license for the following year. If they don't pay for the license renewal, they basically won't get the support from Sophos."
  • "There is no need to get one edition, just the licensing, as we are talking about a common bundle which encompasses all the features."
  • "The licensing for Sophos XG is based on the number of users, so I get the module from the sizing of the customer."
  • "A Sophos XG license costs approximately $45,000"
  • "We pay licensing fees of approximately $2,000. We have a contract for three years."
  • "Sophos XG is a very good solution, and it's cheaper than most of the other vendors. It is really affordable."
  • "Annual standard licensing fee."
  • More Sophos XG Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
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    Top Answer:Hi Arvind P ,  The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form… more »
    Top Answer:The Sophos UTM is a UTM and Sophos XG is the NGFW. First, you must know about the difference between a UTM and NGFW… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate is an innovative line of firewalls that aim to protect organizations from all types of web-based network threats. They come in a wide variety of product types. Fortinet FortiGate’s solutions are available in a large range of sizes and form factors and are key components of the Fortinet Security Fabric, which enables immediate, intelligent defense against known and new threats throughout the entire network.

    Fortinet FortiGate provides users with next-generation firewall solutions that provide proven protection with unmatched performance across the network, from internal segments to data centers to cloud environments. You can protect every part of your network without exception. Additionally, your protections can be managed from a single central location. This ensures that the task of protecting your network is infinitely easier to accomplish.

    Benefits of Fortinet FortiGate

    Some of the benefits of using Fortinet FortiGate include:

    • The ability to manage your firewalls from a centralized automated control console. Fortinet FortiGate’s FortiManager enables administrators to exercise control of their firewalls in a streamlined manner. Administrators have full visibility and control over their system from a single location. It utilizes automation that collects information in real time, which greatly simplifies and reduces the cost of running various types of workflows. Administrators can free up resources by automating the most basic tasks.
    • The ability to produce uniform, appropriate, and coordinated responses to threats across networks. Fortinet FortiGate’s FortiGuard feature generates system protections in near real time. This allows administrators to address threats to the system with custom-made solutions that can be uniformly enforced.
    • The ability to scale up your security to fit your changing security needs. Fortinet FortiGate’s design allows users to accelerate the transfer of data between users and escalate the number of users that are covered without compromising security of performance. This means that users can grow their networks and continue to collaborate without worrying about the system slowing down or coming under attack.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Fortinet FortiGate’s firewall solutions are cutting edge. They stand out from competitors for a number of reasons. Two major ones are the robustness and power of their firewalls. Fortinet FortiGate’s firewall provides users with many valuable features that allow them to maximize what they can do with the solution. These firewalls enable users to use a single piece of software to accomplish tasks that often require the use of multiple pieces of software.

    PeerSpot user Eric S., a Solutions Engineer and Consultant at a tech-services company, notes the robustness of this solution when he writes, "One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface.”

    PeerSpot user Jim M., a network admin at Penobscot Valley Hospital, notes the power of Fortinet FortiGate’s security software when he writes, "It does a lot for you for intrusion protection and as an antivirus. The threat management bundle is worth the money. You don't need another company to monitor your web traffic for you. You can do everything yourself on the firewall. You restrict your own black list for people on the firewall.”

    Azure Firewall is a user-friendly, intuitive, cloud-native firewall security solution that provides top-of-the-industry threat protection for all your Azure Virtual Network resources. Azure Firewall is constantly and thoroughly analyzing all traffic and data packets, making it a very valuable and secure fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability. Azure Firewall allows users to create virtual IP addresses and provides for secure DDoS protection for the virtual machines on your network. It also provides fast and efficient east-west and north-south traffic security.

    Azure Firewall is a managed, cloud-based network security service built to protect your Azure Virtual Network resources. It is a fully stateful firewall as a service with built-in high availability and unrestricted cloud scalability.

    Azure Firewall has two significant offerings, Standard and Premium.

    Azure Firewall Standard works directly with Microsoft Cyber Security and supplies excellent L3-L7 filtering and threat awareness. The proactive real-time threat awareness will quickly alert you and immediately deny all traffic to and from any known problematic or suspicious domains or IP addresses. Microsoft Cyber Security is updated continually to protect against all new and known potential threats at all times. To learn more about Azure Firewall Standard, click here.

    Azure Firewall Premium provides everything the standard version does, and additionally adds extra levels of data encryption, network intrusion detection, extended URL filtering, and Web category filters. To learn more about the added features of Azure Firewall Premium, click here.

    Key Benefits and Features of Azure Firewall:

    • High availability - You do not need load balancers with Azure Firewall; it's already built in and ready to go.
    • Self-scalability - Azure Firewall is intuitive and will auto-scale as needed based on traffic flow to be ready for peak traffic times.
    • Threat awareness - Using Microsoft Cyber Security to filter traffic, Azure Firewall will deny any known problematic threats to keep your network safe.
    • Additional IP addresses - You can securely add up to 250 public IP addresses with Azure Firewall
    • Improved web category filtering - You can set up specific protocols to allow or deny categories within websites that are deemed inappropriate for use within your network. You have the ability to organize categories based on a defined set of descriptions.

    What our real users have to say:

    Many PeerSpot users found Azure Firewall to be very user-friendly and easy to use. They liked that it offers seamless integration to the cloud and were especially pleased with the threat filtering options.

    Regarding integration and threat intelligence, our users wrote:

    “The most valuable feature is the integration into the overall cloud platform.”

    The most valuable feature is threat intelligence. It is based on filtering and can identify multiple threats.”

    I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system.”



    Sophos XG Firewall is a complete firewall solution that provides all the real-time security and insights you need to protect your network from ransomware and advanced threats. Sophos XG Firewall provides visibility into suspicious users, unknown and unwanted apps, encrypted traffic, and other threats. With its advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, Sophos XG Firewall immediately identifies potential risks and intrusions on web servers and networks.

    Sophos XG Firewall Features

    Sophos XG Firewall offers a wide range of security features, including:

    • Application control: Prevent widespread infections with XG’s Security Heartbeat. XG Firewall automatically identifies the source of an infection on a network and automatically prevents it from accessing other network resources.

    • Synchronized user ID: Eliminate the need for client or server authentication agents by sharing user identification between the endpoint and the firewall through Security Heartbeat.

    • Centralized management: Easily manage all activities with Sophos Central. The XG cloud management platform allows users to easily set up, manage, and monitor XG firewalls along with other Sophos products. Some of Sophos Central’s features include alerting, backup management, one-click firmware updates, and rapid deployments of new firewalls.

    • Lateral movement protection: Automatically isolate compromised systems at every point in the network to stop attacks dead in their tracks.

    • Network protection: Protect networks from attacks and threats while providing secure network access.

    • Web protection: Gain clear visibility and control over all users’ web and application activity.

    • Web server protection: Solidify web servers and applications against hacking attacks while providing secure web access.

    • Email protection: Consolidate email protection with anti-spam, DLP, and encryption. XG’s Live Anti-Spam provides protection from the most recent spam campaigns, phishing attacks, and malicious attachments. Data Loss Prevention automatically triggers encryption on sensitive data in outgoing emails.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Sophos XG Firewall stands out among its competitors, among other reasons, for its intrusion detection capabilities, its user-friendly management platform, and in general, for being a complete and robust firewall solution.

    Niranjan P., a network & system support engineer, writes, “Sophos is a comprehensive solution which allows me to configure all the attendant products, such as Sophos's firewall, endpoint, and encryption features. A nice feature of Sophos is that it offers in sync and heartbeat security. When my clients have a perimeter involving Sophos firewall and endpoints with Sophos Endpoint, they can communicate with each other.”

    Antonio D., sales manager at INFOSEC, notes, “The product has a console that is based in the cloud for all their products. In this console, they have email security, firewall security, endpoint security, et cetera. All of the products on offer in the console are very useful for us. The solution is stable. The solution works well for enterprises and large-scale organizations.”

    Antony M., ICT/HMIS supervisor at a healthcare company, writes, “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”

    Offer
    Learn more about Fortinet FortiGate
    Learn more about Azure Firewall
    Learn more about Sophos XG
    Sample Customers
    Pittsburgh Steelers, LUSH Cosmetics, NASDAQ, Verizon, Arizona State University, Levi Strauss & Co. Whitepaper and case studies here
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    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization21%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company5%
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    Computer Software Company24%
    Financial Services Firm24%
    Government12%
    Manufacturing Company12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Government8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company12%
    Financial Services Firm11%
    Healthcare Company8%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider12%
    Government6%
    Manufacturing Company5%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
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    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise26%
    Large Enterprise51%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business24%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise60%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business62%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise15%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise43%
    Buyer's Guide
    Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG
    November 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG and other solutions. Updated: November 2023.
    745,775 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Azure Firewall is ranked 23rd in Firewalls with 9 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 38 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.0, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Meets industry-level standards and compliance requirements, supports native load balances, and is comparably priced". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Secure, duel switch capabilities, and good support". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Check Point NGFW and OPNsense, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. See our Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG 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.