We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate 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: Fortinet FortiGate and Sophos XG had similar user ratings regarding ease of deployment, service and support, and ROI. In terms of features, each software has its pros and cons. Fortinet FortiGate offers some great features, but it is a little more complex and needs better reporting. Sophos XG provides a stable, complete firewall solution, but it fails to integrate well with other products, and the SD-WAN needs improvement. Sophos XG was the better option for pricing, as they offer flexible pricing based on region.
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"All of the features of Fortinet FortiGate are useful and the security protection is good."
"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. You don't need to pay some other company for another product to do that for you. The firewall can do that for you. So, it's an easy-to-use product for people to be independent. They don't need to rely on other vendors to do what the firewall can do. They can do everything."
"The performance is good."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Security, SD-WAN, and Streetscape are valuable features."
"Sophos XG's price is right, and it's easy to manage. It's a good fit for our current needs at the moment."
"The scalability of Sophos XG is good."
"I've tried out Sophos XG a little. It has a good interface that's very user-friendly, but I haven't used all of its functions because I'm only configuring and running the 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."
"Using Sophos endpoint and the firewall, synchronized security is easy."
"Over the past two years, during the COVID pandemic, the VPN has helped us a lot."
"The solution comes with a common bundle which comprises all the feature."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"I would like some automated custom reporting."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"Sophos XG could improve by making the remote access and VPN better."
"The interface can bit a bit more user-friendly."
"I would like to next release to be able to support on-premise deployment. The construction of the rules within the firewall could also use some improvement."
"It would be better if they made their own hardware like Palo Alto and Fortinet. They use their own ASICs and claim it is more secure."
"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."
"I would like to have a more efficient login process."
"Some businesses require Dynamic IP. This feature would be useful if it worked."
"Scalability could be improved. It could be better."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 108 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 54 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Secure, duel switch capabilities, and good support". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Check Point NGFW and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Sophos XG report.
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I prefer Fortinet's products, because their security products are more complete, which can better link and facilitate future expansion.
As engineers, we tend often to prepare a comparison based on parameter lists and try to find out what is the best solution. Engineers are very often number driven. But these comparison sheets show most of the time only half of the truth. The whole picture often needs to be seen in the context of demand, usage, IT operation, support, and economy.
I recommend contacting the IT management of Dansk Skoleforening, an educational organization in Denmark and Germany. As YouTube translation works well I recommend checking the following videos:
Dansk Skoleforening for Sydslesvig e. V. – Glasfaser und SD-WAN mit DDoS-Schutz im Schulalltag - YouTube
Glasfaser plus SD-WAN für den Dansk Skoleforening | 1&1 Versatel (1und1.net)
The Fortinet ecosystem can solve various tasks based on well-structured and realized products and services which is more than only SOPHOS XG can deliver. Both solutions are good and we can deliver both.
For different types of educational places (e.g. schools, kindergartens, management) and for solving different tasks we de decided in an RfP to use Fortinet. It is a cost-efficient, customer IT resource-friendly, multi-functional, and economical solution that meets the customers' requirements for function and security best.
Maybe the requirements of your challenge are similar to that of the Dansk Skoleforening. That's why I recommend direct contact with it.
We are a Fortinet partner but independent and able to deliver various SDWAN and security solutions. We decide typically to the one that meets customer requirements best. In a competition, Dansk Skoleforening decided on our recommended Fortinet solution that we delivered to a satisfied customer in the area of education.
FortiGate all day long. Sophos bought Cyberoam several years ago and basically put a prettier GUI on it. So, you really are getting a Cyberoam with the Sophos GUI. There are some other additions; but I don't all our Sophos device a few years ago.