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Smoothwall Firewall 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

Smoothwall Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
43rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 Smoothwall Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% 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%
Smoothwall Firewall0.4%
Other93.1%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Himanshu-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Qualic
Offers good scalability and monitoring features
There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages. For example, if we're creating a rule, we should be able to do everything on the same page. Just a drop-down thing or something. This would improve productivity.
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

"It was easy to initially deploy it."
"The policies are the greatest feature. They allow us to configure granular control over our network traffic."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The features that are most valuable are synchronized security, the security hard build, the application synchronization, and the events synchronization; it's user-friendly, not complex."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XGS for me are XGS IPS, SD-WAN, VPN setup, email protection, and integration with endpoint security."
"The solution is stable."
"It's very easy to manage this solution."
"Sophos XG has allowed us to implement all kinds of firewall rules and manage bandwidth efficiently."
"It's a complete firewall solution that has everything."
 

Cons

"There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages."
"In the new release 19, there should be the implementation of a cloud service that you can use to set up the IPSec tunnels, and the SD-WAN from the WAN dashboard, and then you can push that configuration out to every firewall that you have."
"We are worried if someone manages to hack the firewall, that they will be able to get past other protections and perhaps onto devices."
"I think Sophos has to concentrate on the latest firmware's stability because we have version 18, and we have many problems with our customers who have this version."
"The support from the vendor needs to be improved."
"The solution is tied to the US dollar. You need to pay whatever the equivalent is in your own currency, and, if the exchange is bad, it can really add to the cost."
"Areas for improvement would be the access points and the on-premise version, which is very bad."
"The customer support is not great, it takes them too long to respond."
"Sophos XG could improve by coming out with more innovative feature developments."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"I paid approximately 57,000 Rupees ($750 USD) for three years."
"Sophos XGS costs around $6,000 for a basic license."
"I pay close to $10,000 per year, which I find to be expensive compared to the other similar solution or equivalent solutions."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The solution is not expensive since one pays as he goes."
"Sophos XG is not expensive for a firewall, especially when you compare it with Check Point."
"The Sophos pricing, in general, is better than SonicWall, Fortinet, WatchGuard, or anybody else."
"The price of Sophos XGS is less than competitors worldwide. However, in Turkey the solution is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
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

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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

No data available
Sophos XG, Sophos XGS
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.