No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Menlo Secure vs Sophos Firewall comparison

 

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

Menlo Secure
Ranking in Firewalls
52nd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (25th), ZTNA (26th), Cloud Security Remediation (9th)
Sophos Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
4th
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 August 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Firewall is 6.5%, down from 11.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos Firewall6.5%
Menlo Secure0.4%
Other93.1%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701794 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition
There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.
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

"We are not aware of a single compromise from the web since implementing the solution."
"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."
"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."
"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."
"We have definitely seen ROI, as we save a ton of money and time because the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools prior to implementing them had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged."
"Either you have access to something or don't have access to it, and if you do, we can ensure, 100 percent of the time, that there is nothing malicious that is going to impact our system in any way."
"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."
"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."
"It's a complete firewall solution that has everything."
"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 would recommend this solution, it is very good."
"It covers most areas that are needed."
"In this solution, the most valuable feature is that it's a security device."
"The most valuable features in Sophos XGS are identity and VPN. It is a very good solution that is able to detect and prevent a lot of malicious activity."
"The solution is more cost-effective than FortiGate, Cisco and Palo Alto, which have very expensive licenses."
"We switched to Sophos for the easy interface and user-friendliness."
 

Cons

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."
"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."
"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."
"The user monitoring could still be improved."
"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists."
"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."
"Sophos XGS could improve by having better integration with Active Directory."
"They can lower its price. It is very expensive. We are looking for a less expensive solution depending on our budget. They can also improve it in terms of firewall protection."
"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."
"Sophos Firewall can be improved by providing more throughput."
"I have a lot of issues with Sophos technical support."
"The customer support is not that good. We found the support to be extremely slow in response."
"In previous versions, NAT rules were easier to create. After version 18.5, creating a NAT rule has become more complex, requiring the creation of a separate policy and an additional component."
"The solution could improve by having better security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."
"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."
"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."
"The price of the Sophos XG is very good. There are not any licensing costs, it is a one-time purchase price."
"Sophos XG can be considered as an averagely-priced tool in the market."
"It is roughly around $4,000."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and their target market is small to medium-sized companies."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"Because we're in education, Sophos gives us a very competitive price for it."
"The price of Sophos XG is reasonable."
"Sophos XG is a very good solution, and it's cheaper than most of the other vendors. It is really affordable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Retailer
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which mak...
What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic access, and by doing it that way, it has multiple use cases. For example, it man...
What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some of these functions, people typically choose another technology for those specifi...
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 the firewalls change every 5 to 7 years as stated but you really do need to upg...
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 signatures and updates. I also appreciate that I can just import addresses and URL...
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 Factor. The Sophos XG appliance that offers a direct competition to the Fortigate 80...
 

Also Known As

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security
Sophos XG, Sophos XGS
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Menlo Secure vs. Sophos Firewall and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.