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Sangfor NGAF vs Sophos XGS comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

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
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
377
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Sangfor NGAF
Ranking in Firewalls
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Sophos XGS
Ranking in Firewalls
10th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
84
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sangfor NGAF is 1.3%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Sophos XGS is 2.4%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Zaid Farooqui - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced threat detection with integrated security features and good support
We are using application firewalling, WAF, and SD-WAN. The capabilities are mostly within the box. For example, you will get web application firewall WAF as part and parcel of this. SD-WAN is also bundled. It integrates with their SIEM and SOAR solutions very nicely. Lastly, the pricing point is very cost-efficient as well.
Nassif  Kaleny - PeerSpot reviewer
Dynamic web and mail filtering contribute to improved security measures
The reporting system is very poor. I cannot trace any traffic to our site if it feels some threats. It just tells me that there is something during a certain time but does not provide information about the type of threats or how to get rid of them. This needs improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"Fortinet FortiGate has SD-WAN, FortiView, antivirus, sandbox, and IPS, which are generally well-known features."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"It's great for capturing the traffic and troubleshooting it."
"Fortinet FortiGate has a threat detection capacity compared to other vendors."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"Sangfor has the best capabilities for securing connections, securing web browsers, securing servers, and general threat protection."
"It seems to be a durable, stable product."
"The top functionality is the reporting feature."
"The price versus value is good because the solution is less expensive than Sophos, Fortinet, or SonicWall."
"The absolute best part of Sangfor NGAF is their support. It's a 24/7 support channel, and the last time I requested their assistance I got a reply within three minutes. They helped solve the problem immediately."
"Sangfor NGAF works accordingly with our customers. The solution has good performance, easy to use, and integrates well with the endpoints."
"In our hospital, Sangfor NGAF works well for us in terms of ensuring confidentiality and availability, which are crucial in the healthcare industry."
"The built-in features function as intended, providing exceptional value."
"Sophos XGS' best features are simplicity and its built-in reporting tool."
"The product was easy for us to install."
"The solution is cost-effective and easy to manage."
"It increases productivity in our company. Everything is protected."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It's much faster than the previous firewall, so you can do the work faster."
"Sophos XGS is cost effective and provides all necessary security features and throughput."
"Sophos XGS that's a good firewall. If you use the endpoint, then you have what Sophos calls synchronized security. That will mean that if one of the endpoints is affected, it will be automatically set in isolation."
 

Cons

"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"FortiGate should have a better way of detecting and managing the system memory because otherwise if the memory is too low, a system restart is required."
"One drawback of Fortinet FortiGate is that they provide two types of models: one with a hard disk and another without. The model without a hard disk has very low ROM where you can store very few logs, after which you need to upload it to the cloud or purchase a firewall with SSD."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"At the moment, the main concern is the pricing and the type of licensing."
"I believe there is room for improvement in machine learning and AI in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Difficult to add or define, and not that easy to configure and manage."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"The tool is expensive."
"The interface and user experience are horrible."
"Lacks consistency in terms of filtering certain websites and applications."
"The GUI needs to be improved, lacks logic in some areas."
"Our experience with its customer support was quite challenging."
"It does not offer any recommendations on how to mitigate or control attacks."
"They need to improve their research team and they need to study their data to analyze it and build the product."
"Sangfor could improve by providing better real-time reporting, as the current reports don't offer the level of detail we need, especially for runtime insights."
"I feel Sophos should add more telemetry data to its products...Right now, I think there are only less than a dozen vendors or OEMs supported by Sophos."
"One area for improvement would be including automatically generated certificates for HTTPS, which was available in earlier versions but might not be in the latest."
"Some features need remuneration and there are performance improvements required."
"The VPN capability needs some improvement in Sophos XGS."
"Sophos XGS could improve by having a Network Access Control(NAC). This feature is a basic function in other firewalls and should be added, such as Palo Alto."
"Deployment could be easier."
"Sophos XGS's response to zero-day attacks could be improved."
"Sophos XGS changes every two years, so we must update our knowledge. We can only test it with real requirements or problems to find scalability and reliability. We can't find these in normal testing. We can see reviews based on Gartner reports, but sometimes, we really feel problems. It can create many issues, even compatibility problems with fiber modules. Only system integrators or installers find these problems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not the cheapest one, but its price is very competitive."
"If the price of the license in Fortinet FortiGate was less expensive it would be better."
"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."
"Fortinet bundles FortiGate with other products and because of this, the price is a little expensive to some SMB enterprises."
"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"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."
"Its licenses cost the same for different subscription plans."
"Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls."
"Sangfor NGAF is a cheaply priced product, especially if I consider the previous product that was used in my company."
"The solution has a TCO that is 32% to 50% less than Sophos, Fortinet, and SonicWall."
"The product is very cost-effective compared to other brands or vendors."
"I rate the product price as one on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"If one is very cheap and ten is very expensive, I rate the tool's price as three out of ten."
"Price-wise, I would not consider Sangfor NGAF to be a cheap product. It is an expensive firewall solution, though not as expensive as something like Palo Alto, which is costly. However, the higher price point is justifiable given the feature set the tool provides that other firewalls may not offer in a single dedicated appliance."
"It is one of the cheapest tools in the market."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"The cost of Sophos XGS is based on per unit, per appliance, and capacity."
"There are additional costs involved apart from the licenses."
"Sophos XGS is priced lower than some of its competitors, such as Fortinet"
"The licensing cost for Sophos XGS is high. However, they do apply competitive discounts and different layers of discounts."
"The price of the solution is reasonable and their target market is small to medium-sized companies."
"We pay about $150."
"A central firewall on the cloud with a cluster might be 70,000 to 80,000 euros for a three-year license."
"The license for Sophos XGS is for three years, paid on a yearly basis. Everything is included with the license; there are no additional fees."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
University
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

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 ...
What do you like most about Sangfor NGAF?
I think Sangfor NGAF is more valuable than Cisco products because of its simplicity and ease of management. If I comp...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sangfor NGAF?
The licensing cost is quite high compared to other available firewalls in the market.
What needs improvement with Sangfor NGAF?
The cost of licensing is very high compared to other firewalls available here. There should be improvements in hardwa...
What do you like most about Sophos XGS?
The policies are the greatest feature. They allow us to configure granular control over our network traffic.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Sophos XGS?
I am satisfied with the price, rating it a nine. There are no extra expenses required after buying the product.
What needs improvement with Sophos XGS?
There is room for improvement in Sophos XGS, specifically in three areas: slowness, centralized synchronization, and ...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
Sangfor NGAF Firewall Platform
No data available
 

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
The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (Indonesia), Lawson, Inc. (Philippines), Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin (Indonesia), TEK Automotive (Italy), etc.
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Sangfor NGAF vs. Sophos XGS and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.