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Smoothwall Firewall vs Sophos Firewall comparison

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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
45th
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 October 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 5.9%, down from 11.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Sophos Firewall5.9%
Smoothwall Firewall0.4%
Other93.7%
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 india private limited
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."
"I like the fact that it can self remove malware and do updates on the cloud via Sophos Central."
"The initial setup and configuration was very easy for us, and I think it's easier than the other options in the marketplace."
"Once we started using Sophos XG, the number of threats dropped dramatically."
"The ROI has been satisfactory."
"The solution is scalable."
"The synchronization and the integration with all the products in the central office, such as Office 365 or AWS, make it a valuable solution."
"Good security and a good interface."
"The stability and performance are quite good, and we haven't seen any problems."
 

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."
"Its price should be improved. It should be cheaper."
"Sophos XGS could improve by having better integration with Active Directory."
"While it is possible to configure between two of the solution's devices in the same model, the high available usually fails."
"However, the response time could stand improvement, as I do not benefit from immediate support."
"Since Sophos took over Cyberoam, the online technical library and support library have become super messy. To get a piece of information is becoming a nightmare. They need to reorganize the online technical support and technical library."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"Level one technical support is not good at all and needs to be improved."
"Sophos XGS could improve the automation system. It could be better if there was some level of automation, attacks automation, meaning if this happens, then it automatically executes a particular process."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"There is a license required for this solution that is priced well and all the features are included."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"I don't believe we have a license for this product."
"At first, I thought the price was very high. But when I read about the machine's features, we decided to go with it."
"We are paying about $1,500 yearly for the Enterprise Plus. As far as I know, there aren't costs above this standard fee."
"Its price should be better. Initially, the clients have to pay for the appliance. Then, they have to pay for the software that is installed on the appliance. Depending on whether they have a one-year, two-year, or three-year license, they just have to renew the license of the software after it expires. They don't have to renew the appliance license. So, they have to pay for the appliance only once, and after that, they just renew the software license. That's all."
"Once you pay for the Sophos XGS hardware there is no license required. There are additional costs if you want the support. We have purchased support for three years."
"The price is fair."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
17%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business210
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, Cisco, Netgate and others in Firewalls. Updated: October 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.