Sophos Firewall vs Stormshield Network Security comparison

Sophos and Stormshield are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 93% of Sophos users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of Stormshield users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Sophos Firewall and Stormshield Network Security based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Sophos Firewall vs. Stormshield Network Security Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Sophos Firewall vs. Stormshield Network Security

March 2026

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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

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

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.

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Nassif Kaleny

IT Manager at Bavaria Egypt S.A.E.

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.

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Benjamin

Network Engineer at ACS2I

The intrusion detection system helps our organization by automatically detecting and responding to potential threats

The tool's most valuable feature is its dashboard, which helps you manage different aspects of a single page. The intrusion detection system helps our organization by automatically detecting and responding to potential threats. It operates similarly to Darktrace, which detects and responds automatically based on the security rules you apply. Initially, you configure everything to block, and then you can whitelist specific items as needed.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best features of this tool include threat protection, email filtering, and web filtering, and FortiAnalyzer's integration with the firewall and FortiSASE is beneficial."

"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."

"The solution has improved my organization significantly, with impactful capabilities such as sandboxing and cloud solutions, such as XDR, MDR, and EDR."

"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."

"The features that prevent internet connections, the filtering are the most valuable because we did not have any internet protection before."

"It is easy to use and performs very well."

"The SD-WAN feature is the most valuable. This feature evolved from link load balancing. It has helped us in terms of our uptime and privatizing applications whenever we experience an outage. The SD-WAN feature has been a plus for us. Two-factor authentication has allowed us to add more users in terms of remote working. We have two-factor authentication for remote workers to authenticate them before they get on the network."

"We have found the product to be scalable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The dashboard is customizable as well. It gives you the feature of including what you need to see as soon as you open the dashboard and to remove the non-necessary stuff, which varies from one organization to the next and from one IT manager to the next. And it has a wide variety of reports as well, template and customizable reports."

"Sophos XG provides us with unlimited VPN users, which is very useful."

"My clients gain efficiency in protecting against attacks from malware such as ransomware and hacker attacks. It also provides them efficient internet access control, and full visibility of ports, applications, and websites."

"I give Sophos XG an overall experience rating of nine out of ten."

"The solution has good performance and is easy to use."

"We can configure rules with the user, traffic, etc., making it a very versatile solution for our network."

"Sophos CG is cost-effective, which makes it really suitable for SMB. If you want basic security and more embedded features, go with Sophos XG."

"Sophos XG has excellent scalability features."

More Sophos Firewall pros

"This solution is quick and easy to configure."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its dashboard, which helps you manage different aspects of a single page."

"The scalability of the solution is good."

"I can see what traffic is going on. I can easily block any programs from attacks."

"The tool's most valuable feature is its dashboard, which helps you manage different aspects of a single page. The intrusion detection system helps our organization by automatically detecting and responding to potential threats. It operates similarly to Darktrace, which detects and responds automatically based on the security rules you apply. Initially, you configure everything to block, and then you can whitelist specific items as needed."

"It's an easy, straightforward management platform to use."

"The solution has improved my organization because I can see what traffic is happening and I can use it to block and prevent attacks."

"I like how you can configure the rules. There is the task for the rules and a task for the network configuration. It also provides SMD filtering, and it can be integrated with the active directory for the users, their mission, and the VPN configuration. We are here in Sudan, and Stormshield didn't work in Sudan for more than a decade. Stormshield is a very strong firewall and very easy to configure and maintain. I am just working with the firewall solution, and we don't have any other solutions like endpoint solutions or something like that."

More Stormshield Network Security pros

Cons

"It is quite new for us, and we need to go more in-depth into the monitoring tools. It provides different features that we need to do what we want. So far, it is okay for us. In terms of improvement, in the future, they can provide a faster implementation of features. Some of the features are first available in other solutions. Fortinet sometimes takes a little bit longer than other solutions, such as Check Point, to implement new features."

"I would like to be able to generate reports about the protections that we have. I would like a report feature."

"In an incident, after a restart, Fortinet FortiGate did not connect to FortiGuard servers. Due to that reason, on the customer end, all websites got blocked. I don't know why this happened. The firewall of a bank in Sri Lanka rebooted yesterday, and after that, FortiGuard servers did not connect properly, blocking all customer environment websites."

"They could improve the response time and quality of support."

"The IPS monitoring can be improved."

"One area for improvement for Fortinet FortiGate could be the price, as my clients here are small companies, and they might not have the resources or money to always buy a Fortinet FortiGate solution or FortiGate products."

"There's a limitation wherein you can only have about 30 virtual or secondary IPs on a particular interface."

"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"They should customers who are facing issues with their product reviews; they found bots in it. If they can do their proper research and use the user analysis and testing, that would greatly help the clients."

"Hardware stability needs improvement."

"It would be nice to have features like the network access control (NAC) that Cisco has for Identity Services Engine. In the next release, I would also like to see an increase in the performance of the processing units."

"On reports, they sometimes give a summary, but it lists different users as unknown. There are times that I really want to know which user or which IP is causing a problem."

"The manuals or guides we are given are too simple. When we are implementing the product, it is difficult for us as we don't have more detailed information."

"There is an area that is very specific to our setup, where working tools you cannot easily establish a VPN between two internal networks."

"We are having challenges when using Zoom with Sophos XG deployed."

"Sophos XG does not have the ability to disconnect a user."

More Sophos Firewall cons

"The filtering configuration could be better. We have some difficulties with the filtering configuration and the filter extension. It's not that easy. It's not that straightforward. In the next release, I would like to see a reporting system. Stormshield doesn't have any tutorials on how to do the configuration and things like that. They just have documentation on the website. If you want to configure, for example, Cisco or Fortinet, you can find tutorials on YouTube. They show you how to configure the features, and so on. In Stormshield, there is nothing on social media or the internet on how to configure different things. The lack of documentation or the lack of material makes it difficult for others to adopt this solution."

"Stormshield Network Security is quite expensive."

"Improvement is needed in terms of the technical support of the manufacturer."

"It could be better if it were more user-friendly. It's too complicated for us to use it. The price could be better as well."

"This solution has a big problem with web filtering and it needs to be improved."

"The biggest issue was their support department was not able to help us, then everything stops. This is a no-go area for me."

"The product must improve its pricing."

"Not all the fields are activated yet and we were informed that it will take at least one month."

More Stormshield Network Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution could be better priced."

"We pay for the license of Fortinet FortiGate IPS annually. There are not any extra costs."

"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."

"The price of FortiGate support is too expensive."

"Currently, we are paying about $1,500 a month for three sites."

"The price is okay."

"We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW."

"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The product is well priced."

"In terms of price, it is a mid-range product."

"Over the last two years of the COVID-19 crises, most users required an SSL VPN license, something for which SonicWall charges but which Sophos offers for free."

"A Sophos XG license costs approximately $45,000"

"The licensing is reasonable. Comparing the cost of Sophos XGS with that of Fortinet or Palto Alto firewalls, for instance, it's not that expensive. However, the overall cost depends on the hardware you're using in addition to the licensing cost."

"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."

"There is no license required to use this solution."

"The price of the solution is reasonable when comparing it to other solutions."

More Sophos Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The pricing could be better."

"For mid-sized companies, they sell their appliances for good prices."

"I think the price is good."

"The SN200 series costs between $500 USD and $600 USD per year, whereas the SN700 series costs approximately $1,000 annually."

"We bought a three-year license, and we renew it whenever it expires. The price could be better. It's always very expensive."

"The price of this solution and the price of support are ok."

"We chose Stormshield for its price, as the Azure firewall was too expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

17%

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	360
Midsize Enterprise	135
Large Enterprise	190

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	205
Midsize Enterprise	61
Large Enterprise	53

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	5
Large Enterprise	2

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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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 si...

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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 Fact...

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What do you like most about Sophos XG?

IPS works smoothly.

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Stormshield Network Security?

The tool is like a firewall and works well. I don't have any issue with it. I rate it an eight out of ten.

See all answers

Comparisons

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

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OPNsense vs Sophos Firewall

Compared 8% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Sophos Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Sophos Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Sophos Firewall

Compared 3% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Sophos Firewall

Compared 2% of the time

More Sophos Firewall Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 9% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 7% of the time

OPNsense vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 6% of the time

Sophos UTM vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Stormshield Network Security Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

March 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Sophos Firewall

February 2026

Download Sophos Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Stormshield Network Security

February 2026

Download Stormshield Network Security product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

Sophos XG, Sophos XGS

NETASQ Firewalls

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Sophos Firewall provides comprehensive network security with web filtering, VPN capabilities, and cloud integration. Users highlight its effective threat prevention and flexibility for customizable policies, enhancing network visibility and management.

Renowned for its robust security, Sophos Firewall simplifies network protection through advanced features like intrusion prevention and endpoint protection integration. Its user-friendly interface allows seamless remote management and tailored rule creation, making it ideal for varied environments like healthcare and education. While the system excels in threat detection, areas such as interface navigation, support response times, and VPN integration face challenges. Enhanced reporting and bandwidth management are essential for improved performance.

What are the standout features of Sophos Firewall?

Web and Application Filter: Secure browsing with advanced filtering options.
VPN Capabilities: Facilitates secure remote access and connectivity.
Cloud Integration: Seamless collaboration with cloud platforms.
Intrusion Prevention: Robust threat detection and prevention features.
Comprehensive Reporting: Detailed insights into network activities.

What benefits and ROI should users expect in reviews?

Enhanced Security: Comprehensive protection against diverse cyber threats.
Increased Flexibility: Tailor rules and policies to meet specific organizational criteria.
Improved Network Visibility: Better oversight and threat detection across networks.
Efficient Management: Simplifies remote and centralized firewall administration.

Industries such as healthcare, education, and finance implement Sophos Firewall for secure VPNs, improved threat management, and effective traffic monitoring. Its load balancing and email security features support compliance and governance, ensuring robust protection tailored to sector-specific requirements.

Sophos

NETASQ's integrated intrusion prevention engine uses protocol conformity analysis, application filtering and antivirus analysis to inspect authorized traffic flows and strengthen application security. NETASQ enables you to establish and configure user-based security policies, giving you greater control over which network resources each user is authorized to access.

Stormshield

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

Information Not Available

ACESUR group, Ministry of Education Oman, Anios Laboratories, Zain, DLM Location

Buyer's Guide

Sophos Firewall vs. Stormshield Network Security

March 2026

Free Report: Sophos Firewall vs. Stormshield Network Security

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