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Microsoft Sentinel vs Sophos Central comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Microsoft Sentinel
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
5th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
98
Ranking in other categories
Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (3rd), Security Orchestration Automation and Response (SOAR) (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (6th)
Sophos Central
Ranking in AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
40
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms category, the mindshare of Microsoft Sentinel is 10.9%, up from 5.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos Central is 0.0%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Sentinel10.9%
Sophos Central0.0%
Other89.1%
AI-Powered Cybersecurity Platforms
 

Featured Reviews

Ivan Angelov - PeerSpot reviewer
Threat detection and response capabilities enhance investigation processes
My security team has been using Microsoft Sentinel for around two years. We also have Bastion and SolarWinds as part of our monitoring tools. We use a three-way tool, alongside Microsoft Sentinel, in our environment The most valuable features for us include threat collection, threat detection,…
Sandeepraj Gatla - PeerSpot reviewer
Cost-effective security management with a user-friendly interface, efficient resource utilization, and rapid response capabilities
While Sophos Central has demonstrated commendable functionality, there is room for improvement in the realm of automation. Specifically, addressing ransomware attacks often requires leveraging external tools, deploying virtual machines, and utilizing supplementary tools like Caliper Analytics for operations and security communication. The integration of these essential functionalities directly into the software would represent a significant enhancement, streamlining the incident response process and bolstering the platform's comprehensive threat mitigation capabilities. Furthermore, a valuable addition to future releases could involve augmenting the new screen component with advanced capabilities such as XML utilization and rule integration. This enhancement, especially pertinent to tools involved in sandboxing and virtual machines within the investigation process, would greatly streamline the analysis of logs and reports. This would prove particularly beneficial in the context of email analysis, spam attack detection, and other critical security aspects. By incorporating these features, Sophos Central could further elevate its utility in facilitating in-depth security analyses and response strategies.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The analytics has a lot of advantages because there are 300 default use cases for rules and we can modify them per our environment. We can create other rules as well. Analytics is a useful feature."
"What is most useful, is that it has a good connection to the Microsoft ecosystem, and I think that's the key part."
"We have seen at least a 60% increase in efficiency with Microsoft Sentinel and the ability to reduce the MTTD down to under five minutes and MTTR down to under fifteen."
"The most valuable feature is the onboarding of the workloads. You can see all that has been onboarded in your account on the dashboards."
"The best feature is that onboarding to the SIM solution is quite easy. If you are using cloud-based solutions, it's just a few clicks to migrate it."
"Microsoft Sentinel has helped by streamlining our security. We have a nine-member network team, with three members managing security for the city, and Sentinel allows us to operate an unofficial SOC."
"Sentinel has reduced the work involved in the event investigation by quite a lot."
"Mainly, this is a cloud-native product. So, there are zero concerns about managing the whole infrastructure on-premises."
"It helps manage all the components from one centralized portal."
"The most valuable feature of Sophos Central is its visibility."
"The most important feature is definitely the Root Cause Analysis (RCA) tool. It allows us to track malware and other incidents in our environment."
"The primary benefits include complete control over hardware devices and the valuable assistance provided in log shipment."
"The product is easy to use."
"The standout feature is its focus on indexing, primarily designed for managing reports and logs from 500 to 1,000 endpoints, including Windows 10 hosts within the network."
"The best features of Sophos Central are that it is very friendly and manageable."
"The tool enables me to see the security of my customers’ PCs at a glance."
 

Cons

"The pricing could be improved."
"The product can be improved by reducing the cost to use AI machine learning."
"The solution could improve the playbooks."
"There is some relatively advanced knowledge that you have to have to properly leverage Sentinel's full capabilities. I'm thinking about things like the creation of workbooks, how you do threat-hunting, and the kinds of notifications you're getting... It takes time for people to ramp up on that and develop a familiarity or expertise with it."
"If we want to use more features, we have to pay more. There are multiple solutions on the cloud itself, but the pricing model package isn't consistent, which is confusing to clients."
"Currently, the watchlist feature is being utilized, and although there have been improvements, it is still not fully optimized."
"Microsoft should improve Sentinel, considering that from the legacy systems, it cannot collect logs."
"If their UI was a bit more streamlined and easy to find when I need it, then that would be a great improvement."
"Whenever a customer installs a Sophos Central agent on the end-user system, their system becomes slow."
"The initial setup was moderately straightforward, around six or seven out of ten on the complexity scale. While it wasn't overly complicated, the multifactor authentication posed a challenge initially."
"Compared to GFI KerioControl, Sophos Firewall can be made much faster at setting up VPN clients and site-to-site VPNs."
"The product must be made a little bit quicker."
"Maybe the license pricing could be improved."
"SSID authentication has to be improved."
"The firewall capabilities of Sophos Central need improvement."
"The current service level is not as efficient as desired, but we acknowledge that it presents an area for improvement, particularly in terms of support concentration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Sentinel is pretty competitive. The pricing is at the level of other SIEM solutions."
"It is priced fairly given the value that you get from the use of the product. The biggest mistake people make with Microsoft Sentinel is not understanding the pricing model and the amount of data that they are going to be running through the tool because you are paying based on the flow. You are paying based on the amount of data that is moving through the tool. People do not plan, and therefore, they get surprised by the cost associated with using the tool. They connect everything because they want to know everything, but connecting everything is very expensive."
"Microsoft Sentinel is expensive."
"From a cost point of view, it is not a cheap product. It's, like, an enterprise-level application. So if you compare it with a low-level application, it's expensive, but if you compare it with the same-level application, it's pretty much cost-effective, I think."
"It is a consumption-based license model. bands at 100, 200, 400 GB per day etc. Azure Sentinel Pricing | Microsoft Azure"
"The product is costly compared to Splunk."
"Microsoft Sentinel can be costly, particularly for data management."
"Microsoft Sentinel is included in our E5 license."
"It is an expensive tool."
"Sophos is more cost-effective than other vendors."
"The product's pricing was somewhat high. We paid Rs. 1500 INR per license, approximately equivalent to 20 USD."
"The pricing of Sophos is quite reasonable and generally cheaper compared to competitors like Fortinet and Check Point."
"The product is not expensive."
"Sophos Central is moderately priced."
"There is a one-time fee for the hardware and an annual subscription fee, which is pretty good because we can get free updates."
"The pricing is very competitive. When compared to other vendors like Fortinet, Sophos stands out, especially in terms of firewall and endpoint pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business37
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise41
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise6
 

Questions from the Community

Is there a common threat intelligence tool that aggregates multiple threat intelligence sources?
Yes, Azure Sentinel is a SIEM on the Cloud. Multiple data sources can be uploaded and analyzed with Azure Sentinel and its Threat Hunting functionality with AI available as templates or customized ...
What is a better choice, Splunk or Azure Sentinel?
It would really depend on (1) which logs you need to ingest and (2) what are your use cases Splunk is easy for ingestion of anything, but the charge per GB/Day Indexed and it gets expensive as log ...
Which is better - Azure Sentinel or AWS Security Hub?
We like that Azure Sentinel does not require as much maintenance as legacy SIEMs that are on-premises. Azure Sentinel is auto-scaling - you will not have to worry about performance impact, you will...
What do you like most about Sophos Central?
One of the significant advantages of Sophos is its affordability compared to other technologies like Check Point and Fortinet.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos Central?
My thoughts on the pricing or licensing with Sophos Central are that it is very good.
What needs improvement with Sophos Central?
I have read some information a few months ago about the machine learning features in Sophos Central, and I saw that they added an AI tool, AI feature in the Sophos Central console. However, I haven...
 

Also Known As

Azure Sentinel
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Microsoft Sentinel is trusted by companies of all sizes including ABM, ASOS, Uniper, First West Credit Union, Avanade, and more.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Sentinel vs. Sophos Central and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
869,202 professionals have used our research since 2012.