Sophos Firewall Reviews

We use Sophos XG for the firewall.

I like the tunneling part which we are using for the VOIP. We have various other sites where we connect via tunneling. The tunneling part is very fast and easy to implement.

The deployment is very easy for my network team, and it is very easy to implement policies. The support that Sophos provides for the upgrade of new features and their interaction with the customer is very good.

Customer engagement is what I like about the product. We are very well informed about what is going on and new best practices. If anything new has gone wrong or anything in the world of cybersecurity we should know about, they will let us know.

Any firewall is dependent on how you use it. It's also on the user, how you configure it, what you allow, and what you don't allow, and so on. The ease of defining policies and the customer connect is what I appreciate about Sophos.

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. 

The SD-WAN can be improved. The traffic optimization somehow needs to be improved, or there is a scope for improvement in Sophos XG.

It would be better if they moved towards the cloud side of things. Now a lot of things are moving on to the cloud.

I have been using Sophos XG for a couple of years.

Sophos XG is a stable product.

Sophos XG is scalable.

The Sophos forum and Sophos direct support are excellent. 

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Sophos support a ten.

We had Cyberoam, which Sophos took over.

The initial setup is straightforward and took us about a week to deploy.

An internal team made up of two people implemented Sophos XG.

We generally buy it for a three-year license.

I would recommend Sophos XG to potential users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Sophos XG an eight.

we are using Sophos XGS for full control over our network.

Sophos XGS has improved our organization.

The most valuable feature of Sophos XGS is its ease of use.

The price of Sophos XGS could improve, it is high.

I have been using Sophos XGS for approximately two years.

Sophos XGS is stable.

The scalability of Sophos XGS is good.

We have approximately 10 technicians that know how to use the solution.

The support from Sophos XGS was responsive. They solved the issues we had.

Positive

We have not used another solution prior to Sophos XGS.

The initial setup of Sophos XGS was easy. The time it took for us to implement the solution was approximately one month.

We use a third party with our in-house team to do the implementation. We have 10 workers that maintain the solution.

I rate the return on investment for Sophos XGS a three out of five.

There is an annual licensing fee to use Sophos XGS. It is an expensive solution.

I rate the price of Sophos XGS a four out of five.

We did not evaluate another solution before choosing Sophos XGS.

I rate Sophos XGS seven out of ten.

XGS' most valuable feature is ransomware protection. 

In the next release, XGS should include mobile features like two-factor authorization.

I've been using XGS for seven years.

XGS is stable.

XGS is scalable.

Sophos' technical support has degraded in the last couple of years. They seem to need to ask a lot of questions, even with simple problems, and take a long time to provide solutions.

Neutral

The initial setup is simple.

XGS' price could be lower, though it's moderately priced in the market.

I also evaluated SonicWall and FortiGate.

XGS is a perfect product for small and medium businesses. I would rate it as eight out of ten.

Primarily, I use XGS for security and authentication.

Sophos XGS' most valuable features are protection and intrusion prevention detection.

Sophos XGS's response to zero-day attacks could be improved. In the next release, Sophos XGS should include signature filtering, hybrid cloud support, and the ability to scale without replacing the hardware.

I've been using Sophos XGS for four to five years.

Sophos XGS is a stable product.

Sophos XGS can scale up and down to 1,200 users, but if you want more users, you have to change the appliances too.

Sophos' technical support is good.

Positive

Sophos XGS is easy to set up if you have knowledge of the system.

Sophos XGS costs around $6,000 for a basic license.

I would give Sophos XGS a rating of seven out of ten.

I am a cyber professional. I support customers with this solution. Sophos XGS is primarily a firewall. The product allows my customers to manage their internet access for their employees while protecting their environment from things like malware.

The solution requires one administrator as it does not require much maintenance. It depends on the usage and the environment. For example, in some account configurations, the environment has only four or five rules, other times there are over 100 rules. More rules will require more maintenance. 

The most valuable feature of Sophos XGS is the application control. I also enjoy the dashboard and reporting that it provides to my customers. 

Sophos helps my customers manage applications from accessing the internet, not only websites. We can ensure there is limited access to applications like Facebook. For example, Facebook is not accessible, but Facebook Messenger for chatting is. This prevents posting and sharing. We make restrictions without prevention.

Sophos XGS would benefit from further development in the SD-WAN area. It would be great if they could give technical people access to all the WAN links that we are connecting to, including inside the SD-WAN. 

They should make available or round robin inside the SD-WAN. This would allow us to move to another link if one goes down.

I have been using Sophos XGS for six years.

There have been issues with the stability of this product. Sometimes it requires restarting. We have looked into the client environment and this is not causing the instability. The problem is common.

Sophos XGS is not scalable. It is a hardware appliance and we should migrate the settings if we need to. In order for it to scale, you require additional hardware.

Sophos' technical support is responsive. There are times we need to push them to accelerate the process because there is a delay in replying. Sometimes, the first stage of first-line support does not have enough knowledge.

Overall, I would rate their technical support a three out of five.

Neutral

The initial setup of Sophos XGS is straightforward. I would rate it five out of five for ease of setup.

The cost of Sophos XGS is based on per unit, per appliance, and capacity. The capacity depends on the environment. Based on the size, we choose the model. The model selected dictates the pricing.

When comparing the pricing of Sophos to the competition, I give them a five out of five. It is competitively priced.

I have worked with Fortinet and WatchGuard. Other solutions have better performance and security value than Sophos XGS. 

Sophos has most of the features. If they don't have the features one year, they are added the next. At one point they did not have SGON, but now they do. It is not performing like Fortinet or Watch Guard, they need to do some enhancements. 

Sophos has the upper hand on reporting on the firewall itself. For small to medium-sized businesses Sophos is better than the competition.

If the organization is small or medium-sized I would recommend this solution. I would give it a nine out of 10 in this case. If the company is enterprise level, I would rate the solution a five out of 10.

Overall, I rate the Sophos XGS a seven out of 10.

We are happy and satisfied with all the features. There is nothing special there.

The main thing that we would like to see improved is ransom. They could provide something better. We are not using a public IP. 

I have been using Sophos XGS for the past year.

It is stable for our intended purposes.

Sophos XGS is scalable.

Technical support is very good.

It depends upon the requirement you may have. If we see that it is a straightforward requirement, it will be easy to implement.

Compared to Fortinet, the cost is high. Even compared to the U.S. market the market price is high.

We work with SonicWall and Fortinet. This depends upon the requirements you have. Sometimes the client wants a particular price, sometimes they are considering a solution, and sometimes it is pricing. It's based on the distributors, support, and installers.

I would rate Sophos XGS a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution as a firewall.

Sophos XGS is okay. It’s excellent for firewall purposes.

For me, the platform is stable. It's very stable. It works when it's configured. Also, when you're checking, the logs, the graph, and the graphs are easy to read.

I can also use it for other purposes. For example, it's got a DSCP from there. It can be a distribution. I can have other functions work there, so I can do a lot more than just the firewall components.

It gets easier and easier to set up.

It works. However, Sophos configurations are a bit complex. It's not very user-friendly. I don't find it user-friendly when it comes to setting up the firewalls.

The user interface for the technical admin can be better. It should be set forward to configure a firewall. if a firewall has complexities. I don't know why they did that. However, you should be able to quickly set up a rule to minimize the mistakes that a security administrator or a firewall administrator can make and configure. If not, that becomes an issue. One mistake on a firewall could result in a bridge.

It should be more straightforward. If you compare it with GFI Carrier Control Firewall, which is very straightforward, you can see why it’s helpful when it's easier.

I’ve used the solution for about three years now.

The solution is stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze. It’s reliable and the performance is good.

The solution is scalable. However, it depends on the model of the physical appliance. There are virtual and physical appliances, so it depends on which one you use. Obviously, there could be a limitation on the number of interfaces you need to use since you may want to have additional services plugged in. Then, the number of ports available may only be two, and yet you actually need to have 10. Maybe you need to buy a module that plugs in; however, there could be a challenge there.

In our organization, we have three to four security administrators.

I've never spoken to technical support directly the way I've been talking to the Fortinet team. I was working with a local partner to get it set up.

In our case, since we were doing it for the first time, we took about a week to complete everything. We were doing a lot of other things and learning as we went. If I had to redo it now, it wouldn't take me a week as I know exactly what I need to do after learning over a period of time. Also, I have backups that allow me to back up and restore, so I just restore the configuration. It’s much more manageable. The first time there’s a learning curve.

We work with a partner and distributor. We are working with the sales party since it was the first time we used them. They offer us professional services.

I found the solution to be expensive. I pay close to $10,000 per year, which I find to be expensive compared to the other similar solution or equivalent solutions.

It's just that one cost, and it's an annual license. As long as my appliance is working okay, I don't need to replace it. However, it's just that. Of course, within that, there are also support services. You might have technical support costs depending on which one of the tiers you pick.

I'm a customer of Sophos.

We’re using the most up-to-date version of the solution. It’s around version 18.

A new user needs to get trained on the appliance to understand how to implement rules and fully appreciate how to work with it. It's not that straightforward. You need to understand what the different areas are. It's complex in the way the rules are set up. My colleagues in the industry have similar comments about Sophos. It’s more complicated than it looks.

I’d rate the solution a seven out of ten, mainly due to the complexity. If I make a mistake, then that firewall is of no use. It needs to be easier to set up so that it provides me or guarantees me that what I want to set up is what I've set up to secure my environment.

We primarily use the solution as a firewall.

The most valuable features are the Sophos management or the central management, including the reporting and managing of multiple firewalls using Sophos Central.

The synchronized security, which also integrates with the Sophos endpoint, is great. That's one of a few of the main features which is beneficial with Sophos XGS.

The solution is stable.

The setup is simple.

There were certain lacking capabilities, for example, the searching of its settings et cetera, previously in Sophos XG. There have been some features that were not visible or unavailable compared to the one here on Sophos XGS. Right now, Sophos XGS is stable with its current firmware and hardware versions. It’s gotten better.

I can’t speak to which features could be added.

As long as they just maintain the stability of the firmware version, we will remain happy.

Support is great, however, it can always be improved.

I’ve been working with the solution for one year. We’ve used it since 2021.

We’ve found the product to be stable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn’t crash or freeze. It’s reliable and the performance is good.

In general, the solution is scalable.

Its features and configuration can expand. As long as the engineer or the implementer knows which policies are needed, the Sophos firewall integrator can also help with that. If he or she does not know any complicated solution, Sophos support is also there to help.

I’ve had interactions with Sophos support.

They are actually quite responsive with their cases, as long as the open cases is properly informed or properly included with the right information.

They could always improve support a little bit.

Positive

The initial setup is just a simple set of options. Sophos also provides a lot of data sheets and tutorials online. During the initial setup, there is a guide, which the user can just follow as long as he or she knows their internal network. It’s pretty straightforward.

The maintenance isn’t too intense. However, it is on a case-by-case basis and depends on the complexity of the environment and size.

I really don't have visibility with the pricing. However, the price depends on the size of the box, which indicates that the more users you have, the bigger the box, the higher the price you have to pay.

I haven't had the opportunity to work with other solutions. There are a lot, like Palo Alto, which, in terms of security, are much better than Sophos, as people say. However, Sophos can also work well. It just depends on the company's complexity or preference in the firewall.

I'm currently an agent and a Sophos engineer here in the Philippines. We’re partners.

While we work primarily with on-premises deployments, it is also available on the cloud.

I’d rate the solution eight out of ten.

I mostly use Sophos XGS for URL and web filtering and application control.

Sophos XGS' best features are simplicity and its built-in reporting tool.

Sophos XGS could be improved by adding a built-in hyper-converged solution.

I've been using Sophos XGS for three years.

Sophos XGS is very stable.

Sophos XGS is scalable.

Sophos XGS' technical support is very responsive.

Positive

The initial setup was quite simple, and the configuration took around an hour and a half.

Licensing for Sophos XGS is around $150 per unit, split into $100 for the hardware and $50 for the license. Sophos XGS is competitively priced.

I would rate Sophos XGS eight out of ten.

Mainly, we use it as our internet gateway firewall for scanning internet traffic that comes to our network from WAN and for internet distribution such as thin client. We have a thin client environment. It also works as a distribution layer for internet users, especially in thin client environments. It scans the traffic that passes from this device.

In this solution, the most valuable feature is that it's a security device. Maintaining security is very valuable for us.

The other feature that we did not find in other products is that it works well with thin client environments.

Sometimes, we haven't received proper support. They couldn't find the solutions that we required.

One thing that we need is an NTP server facility. The Sophos XGS device does not have this capacity or this feature.

We've been using Sophos XGS for almost one year.

It's stable. We haven't had any issues with it.

I don't think it's scalable. It's a product that we bought with a specification, and we cannot improve that. We cannot upgrade; we can only upgrade its OS; nothing more.

Only the network administrator uses it, but we might set it up in another business unit next year.

I would rate technical support at six out of ten because we haven't received proper support sometimes.

Neutral

We worked with Cyberoam, and when it reached the end of life, we replaced it with Sophos.

The initial setup is easy, and I'd give it a two out of five.

Because this is a security appliance, we cannot calculate the ROI exactly. However, every time security devices work well and guard us from attacks, it is a good ROI. This device has a good ROI.

The licensing cost is in the normal range and is not very costly.

Overall, we have had a good experience with Sophos XGS and would rate it at six on a scale from one to ten.