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Hillstone T-Series vs Sophos Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
592
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Hillstone T-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
41st
Average Rating
7.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
304
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 15.1%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone T-Series is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Firewall is 7.1%, down from 12.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate15.1%
Sophos Firewall7.1%
Hillstone T-Series0.5%
Other77.3%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

PD
IT Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Cloud features enhance security measures and simplify network management
I've dealt with many firewalls, such as SonicWalls, UniFi, pfSense, and Cisco. We found SonicWall very confusing for the average network engineer or network administrator. I don't recommend SonicWall due to its hard-to-find auditing process for exploits. Although they have fewer exploits, when they do occur, they're significant. With Fortinet FortiGate, you can access the whole firewall, with no hidden spots. pfSense is great, however, it requires a lot of manual work and has no Cloud Connect or easy management from an MSP's perspective. Palo Alto is another option that's great, but their price point isn't for everyone, especially for medium and small businesses; a $10,000 investment doesn't necessarily fit into most budgets. UniFi is another product we've started to use more alongside Fortinet FortiGate, as they have almost all features without a license, with advanced rules that are relatively inexpensive compared to Fortinet FortiGate's $1,500 a year. Fortinet FortiGate and UniFi are the two firewalls we primarily deal with. My opinion is that UniFi has better integration and oversight of the environments compared to Fortinet FortiGate.
TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Is stable and has a user-friendly dashboard and a good interface
We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good We cannot secure a specific IP class with this firewall. Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the…
Ashutosh Jha - PeerSpot reviewer
Project Engineer at IT Solution
Robust protection has blocked external threats and provides clear visibility into user activity
Sophos Firewall offers multiple features, including IPS, IDS, ATP, NDR, XOps, web protection, application protection, web server protection, and many more. Out of all those features, I find web protection and application protection to be very helpful and valuable in my daily work. Sophos Firewall has positively impacted my organization by preventing outside threats, allowing me to easily monitor my users, and configuring any rule for any user regarding what they need to use and what I am restricting for the particular user. I can share that it has improved productivity because if anyone could ransom my network, they could demand money to decrypt the files, thus saving us money, time, and providing reliability.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"For application filtration, I really appreciate many features of Fortinet FortiGate because it is more reliable, easy to use, and the reports are easy to read and understand."
"Has a very user-friendly interface and doesn't require any prior knowledge."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"It is a good product. It does what we want it to do so. I didn't find many false-positives or things like that. We mainly use the IPS and URL filtering features, and they are pretty good."
"The initial setup is very easy."
"We installed Hillstone T-Series after a ransomware attack. The dashboard and user interface are very good."
"It has been stable so far."
"Hillstone supports IOT setup and detecting intrusions from IOT or CCTV connectivity, and with this solution, we can also detect unauthorized devices plugged into the CCTV network and sound the alarm to the administrator."
"The only firewall able to monitor traffic from a CCTV network. Can detect unauthorized devices plugged into the network, which standard firewalls can't do."
"We found some limitations with Fortinet FortiGate, and we are satisfied with Hillstone T-Series right now."
"I like the tunneling part which we are using for the VOIP. We have various other sites where we connect via tunneling. The tunneling part is very fast and easy to implement."
"I would recommend Sophos XG because it is easy to deploy at customer locations and it is priced well."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos XG is its routing and network routing capabilities."
"Because this is a cloud portal, scalability isn't an issue. It's fully managed by the vendor, we just login to the portal and check the logs and check the updates."
"We currently have multiple clients, and many users are working remotely. We need antivirus protection to guard against malware introduced from public networks. One of the most beneficial features of Sophos XG is its integration with Sophos Central. If any file is detected as malicious on any endpoint or firewall, Sophos Central immediately identifies the threat and publishes the information across all endpoints and firewalls. If a single system gets infected, the threat is communicated and addressed across the entire network, including all sites and remote users."
"I think Sophos XG is very stable because the users who have installed it never mention any issues."
"Definitely, its usability is very good, and it's a very robust firewall."
"I recommend the solution due to its ease of use and pricing."
 

Cons

"The main area needing improvement is the user-friendliness of FortiGate's integration with other Fortinet tools like FortiAuthenticator and VPN services."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"The only problem that we have here in China is that the whole subscription process on Fortinet is a little bit difficult if you are doing it from China."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Areas that have room for improvement in Fortinet FortiGate include support and GUI enhancement."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"Another loophole with Hillstone T-Series is that when we connect through WiFi and turn our hot spot on, all who connect through the hotspot get all the functions, and the security does not work."
"They have a very good technical support team, but I think there are some communication issues due to language differences."
"Licensing is not cheap, but there are customers who will buy because they understand that this has a cost involved and they will cater their budget for that."
"Licensing is not cheap."
"They made some changes to the firmware update sometime last year, which moved some of the policies from where they were before. Some of the policies, such as NAS policies, were separated, which made it a bit hard for people to trace the policies they had configured."
"Sophos XG's user interface has some room for improvement."
"The solution’s reporting could be improved."
"I have a lot of issues with Sophos technical support."
"The installation could be faster and is longer than that of other solutions, lasting more than a month instead of five minutes."
"The pricing has gotten much higher."
"There could be improvements for IPsec VPN setup."
"There have been some issues when upgrading. For some reason, parts of the configuration become unconfigured, I then have to reconfigure it. I should not need to keep reconfiguring it after upgrades."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is normal. If I compare it with other vendors, such as Palo Alto, it's normal. Palo Alto is expensive."
"Fortinet has more device options that are affordable for small businesses than Palo Alto, and its enterprise-level models are also cheaper. Palo Alto also has a separate license for VPN connections and SD-WAN, but FortiGate offers these features standard."
"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."
"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."
"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"Pricing and licensing is a little bit complicated in FortiGate. They are always on the higher side. This is one issue that we always raise with the company that they should reduce the price according to Indian market requirements. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"If you purchase a one-year subscription with the hardware and then you want to renew for the second year, it is very costly."
"Fortinet FortiGate is cost-efficient. Palo Alto is expensive, but Fortinet FortiGate is not."
"On a scale from one to ten, with one being low and ten being high price, I would rate the price of Hillstone T-Series at three. There are no additional costs other than renewal costs."
"We got a much cheaper price than that provided by Fortinet right now."
"It's approximately $6,000 for each device."
"The pricing for Sophos is much better compared to that of Fortinet and Check Point. On a scale from one to five with one being expensive and five being competitive, I would rate Sophos' pricing at four. The pricing can be for the hardware appliance and the license, or it can be subscription-based. It can be around 3000 USD up to 25,000 USD per year depending on the model or series of the hardware you choose to buy."
"A central firewall on the cloud with a cluster might be 70,000 to 80,000 euros for a three-year license."
"The price of Sophos is reasonable. It's not too expensive — I think it's worth it."
"A Sophos XG license costs approximately $45,000"
"Its price should be better. Initially, the clients have to pay for the appliance. Then, they have to pay for the software that is installed on the appliance. Depending on whether they have a one-year, two-year, or three-year license, they just have to renew the license of the software after it expires. They don't have to renew the appliance license. So, they have to pay for the appliance only once, and after that, they just renew the software license. That's all."
"Once you pay for the Sophos XGS hardware there is no license required. There are additional costs if you want the support. We have purchased support for three years."
"The product is well priced."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Real Estate/Law Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business369
Midsize Enterprise139
Large Enterprise195
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business209
Midsize Enterprise61
Large Enterprise53
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Ask a question
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Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...
What are the main differences in features between Sophos XG and FortiGate 80F?
Hi Arvind P , The Sophos XG firewall has a number of models right from XG86 to XG135w under the 1U Desktop Form Fact...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos XG?
The pricing is a little higher compared to Chinese products like Huawei. For those on a limited budget, I sometimes p...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
Hillstone T-Series Intelligent Next-Generation Firewalls, Hillstone iNGFW
Sophos XG, Sophos XGS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
University of Córdoba
Information Not Available
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