We performed a comparison between SonicWall NSA and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG’s single pane of glass makes it easy for users to manage the entire solution from anywhere. The solution is very light, stable, and provides excellent real-time control. Many users have experienced stability issues with SonicWall NSa. They feel it can be a bit buggy, resulting in occasional freeze-ups and downtime. The solution does not scale easily.
"It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"Anti-Spam reduces unwanted mail on corporate exchange services."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"The most valuable features of this solution are intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, and the advanced capture client, which provides live traffic analysis."
"The stability is better than other products."
"The filtering is excellent."
"Compared to Cisco, SonicWall NSa is much easier to configure."
"The antivirus and items of that nature were quite helpful to have."
"They offer good antivirus solutions."
"We created and configured a VPN for connecting our remote sites and also to make it more secure and reliable. We also like its two-factor authentication features."
"The most valuable features of Sophos XG for our use cases are its firewall capabilities, its ability to connect to wide area and local networks, and its VPN functionality."
"The solution is easy to set up and configure."
"The most valuable features are the reporting, dashboards, and graphical user interface. It gives a good overall picture of what is happening over the network."
"We have found that the simplicity of the XG 210 is its most valuable feature."
"I recommend the solution due to its ease of use and pricing."
"It is stable, flexible, and easy to use. It has got a web management portal that can be accessed from anywhere."
"The solution comes with a common bundle which comprises all the feature."
"Technical support is good but the response time could be faster."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"The ease of use could be improved."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."
"You do need some IT knowledge in order to effectively work with the solution."
"We're not particularly fond of the way it generally performs. We are finding ourselves rebooting often. There are freeze-ups and that kind of thing. The stability needs to improve exponentially."
"Customer support is severely lacking with very slow response times."
"The cost could be lower. There could also be more flexibility for smaller companies."
"We have used other solutions such as pfSense and Linux native firewalls. I prefer SonicWall NSa but if you are going to use something for an enterprise you need another solution."
"It is not scalable. If your enterprise is growing hard then you have to buy another, bigger product. Maybe if you use it virtually it is more scalable."
"I'd like to see integration with Microsoft 365 for authentication."
"SonicWall does not support DynDNS, yet this is an important feature for smaller companies that do not have a static IP address."
"I would like to have a built-in vulnerability scanner in the firewall. It would be great to have such functionality. Its price could also be better. It would also be good to have a local warehouse. It doesn't get damaged a lot, but if a customer needs a replacement, currently, it has to come from Miami or Mexico, which can take a few days. It would be better if they have a local warehouse from where we can just pick replacements and quickly solve a client's needs in terms of replacing equipment. It would be great to have it locally instead of waiting for it from Mexico or the USA."
"Our clients use Karios, and while it integrates well with it, the integration could be improved."
"Data traffic analysis could be better. I think Fortinet products like FortiAnalyzer are very effective in analyzing data traffic. I think it's better than Sophos. It could also be more stable."
"Sophos can improve the debugging of the WAPS function."
"For the standard end user, self-based training is necessary. When you get into the Sophos XG firewall and try to start creating NAT rules, it can be a little cumbersome for a novice. It's pretty easy once you know how to do it, but it will be hard for anybody who doesn't have experience."
"Sophos XG does not have the ability to disconnect a user."
"The only issue that Sophos XG now needs to improve is the product's reporting capability."
"Support could be improved."
"It would be better if they made their own hardware like Palo Alto and Fortinet. They use their own ASICs and claim it is more secure."
SonicWall NSa is ranked 20th in Firewalls with 77 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Untangle NG Firewall. See our SonicWall NSa vs. Sophos XG report.
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