Sophos Firewall Reviews

Sophos XGS is used as a firewall to protect my home network.

Sophos XGS that's a good firewall. If you use the endpoint, then you have what Sophos calls synchronized security. That will mean that if one of the endpoints is affected, it will be automatically set in isolation.

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.

I have been using Sophos XGS within the last 12 months.

Sophos XGS is highly stable.

The hardware is more scalable than the MSPs, you can have a firewall as big as your want. The solution is scalable.

The technical support in Norway is very good. I have had an excellent experience with them. However, I am the technical support for the Sophos XGS in my country of Norway. 

We have very good contact with the Sophos SEs in Scandinavia. I think we're good.

When comparing Sophos XGS to other similar solutions they are 80 to 90 percent similar. But Sophos firewall has a web application firewall that you can license and use in the firewall. Not every firewall has that functionality. Typically you have to buy another client if you want the web application firewall but within Sophos XGS, you can have it within the firewall.

I have used other solutions, such as CheckPoint, SonicWall, and WatchGuard.

The initial setup could be difficult depending on what you are looking to do with it. However, if you only use it as a firewall, it's straightforward. You can make complex SD WANs and other configurations. You can do whatever you want with it. At home, I can just configure it straight as it is by clicking next until it is finished. If you have a complex environment then the setup of Sophos XGS could be difficult.

The price of the solution is reasonable and their target market is small to medium-sized companies.

We do not have any complaints from our customers and have the functionality that our partners and customers need.

I rate Sophos XGS a ten out of ten.

I use Sophos XGS as an alternative gateway and we are using all the new generation firewall functionalities, such as EPS and antivirus.

We are using the WAF functionalities of Sophos XGS which has helped the organization.

Sophos XGS could improve by having a Network Access Control(NAC). This feature is a basic function in other firewalls and should be added, such as Palo Alto.

The SD-WAN functionality should be reviewed because there are some devices that don't work well. For example, in Palo Alto, the SD-WAN functionality is more efficient.

I have been using Sophos XGS for approximately four years.

Sophos XGS is a stable solution.

The technical support from Sophos XGS is good. We reach out to them if there is a serious problem. We have opened approximately four tickets with them.

I rate the support for Sophos XGS a two out of five.

I have used many other solutions, such as Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco. Sophos XGS rates are at the bottom of the list compared to many solutions.

The initial setup is straightforward.

I would rate the initial setup of Sophos XGS three out of five.

We have a team of three or four people who administer Sophos XGS.

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.

I rate Sophos XGS a six out of ten.

We use it for network protection. We use Sophos XG as a firewall in our own company, and we have also implemented it for customers. I have been using Sophos XG for a small office for my own family. 

We have also implemented Sophos Email Gateway for government mailing servers. It is not so elaborate, but for basic usage, it works very well.

We have implemented version 17 to the latest version of Sophos XG.

I like it for its simplicity. It is very simple to configure and implement. It is a very good product for medium-sized organizations.

There should be web caching to improve bandwidth utilization. It should have a very good caching feature. That's because we are in a very poor continent, and the connectivity cost is very high. We have low bandwidth, and the intensive usage of bandwidth is not easy here in Africa. If they improve services for web caching, it would be better.

It should also support a feature for Virtual Domains. Similar to FortiGate, we should be able to use a single device to create two or more virtual units. Such a feature is useful for separating the traffic between departments in a large enterprise.

When I try to use Sophos for Email Gateway, it's not easy to check a user in the LDAP directory. It's not as good as other products, such as HCL Domino. Sophos is good, but it is not so good. When we use the LDAP filter to select some users, we have small problems, but overall, Sophos is very good for me.

Their support in Africa is not so good, which is a problem. Their support can be improved.

I have been using Sophos technology for four years.

It is very stable.

Generally, when we implement a Sophos product, we do the sizing and plan the resources based on the expected traffic. We anticipate the resource usage for one or two years, which helps with scalability, but it is a product for medium enterprises. In my company, we have around 20 employees.

Their account manager and support in Africa are not so good. Their community support is very good, and a lot of times, I use their community when I need any kind of support, and I get a response for my issue. 

I use Sophos and Fortinet. I sometimes also use Cisco Firepower. We are an integrator in West Africa, and my choice also depends on a customer's choice. Sometimes, they are telecom operators, and sometimes, they are small companies, such as non-governmental organizations.

It is very easy to implement.

Its price is good. All features are grouped in the same license. It is an all-in-one license, and the license price is acceptable.

I would rate it a nine out of 10.

Network Security

Performance has been as per expectations and productivity has greatly improved as there are no downtimes experienced.

All of Sophos XG's features are valuable.

Sometimes when you roll out a new firmware, you find that the rules you already have in place are broken, so it's difficult to migrate to a new firmware without going through release notes and user reviews. That's the only downside I've experienced in Sophos.

I've been using Sophos XG for about four years now.

So far, so good. Sophos XG has been stable, and we have not had any challenges.

I find Sophos XG to be scalable. I only have one site, so I still see room for that kind of deployment. I don't see a challenge when it comes to the scale. I have around 150 users.

I rate Sophos support 10 out of 10. When my device was freezing, I contacted them, and they sent me a replacement. I didn't have a redundant device, so it was urgent. It only took a couple of days for Sophos to ship the device to Kenya. 

Positive

I rate Sophos UTM eight out of 10 for ease of deployment. We didn't have any serious issues. The only challenge we had was migrating from Sophos UTM to XG. There was no direct migration, so we had to do a manual configuration. 

After deployment, the solution doesn't require much maintenance. So as long as my connections are up and running, I don't need to do any maintenance. All the updates are automatic.

Both teams were involved. The in-house team was more familiar with the network environment and requirements. I would rate the vendor team's expertise 8 out of 10.

Sophos XG's price is affordable for most organizations, so I rate it six out of 10 for affordability.

We looked at FortiGate to see how it performs compared to Sophos. I wouldn't speak for the other vendors because I'm mainly using XG, so I will praise Sophos.

I rate Sophos XG eight out of 10. I recommend Sophos XG. If you subscribe to the enhanced support, you get 24/7 customer service, so you can get help any time you need it. I wouldn't hesitate to advise people to implement Sophos.

I use this product for my VPN. It links site-to-site between us and my client's VPN.

All of the users have a unique ID that they use to connect to the VPN.

The product also does site blocking based on the category of the website that the users are trying to access.

I can also use it to monitor all of the users' activities.

We use this in our physical environment.

During the pandemic, this product helped our employees connect with the office network. Security-wise, it provides IPS filtering, which is also quite benefiticial.

The most valuable feature is the VPN. Over the past two years, during the COVID pandemic, the VPN has helped us a lot. All of the users are able to connect with our office network using their own devices.

The interface can bit a bit more user-friendly. For me, it's still user-friendly and I don't find it difficult to use. However, the configuration should be more user-based. As an example, IPSec is complex and a little bit difficult to configure. If it were more like Microsoft Azure and the way their online configuration works, it would be an improvement. As it is now, I have all of the settings inside the device, so I can clone them and use them for customers. But, on the customer's side, it is difficult for people to understand.

Our Wi-Fi network is not working as well as expected.

I have been working with Sophos XG since December 2019.

This is a product that we use every day. Without it, it is very difficult for us to work. I really like the reliability and the performance of the Sophos device, but I'm facing a few issues with my Wi-Fi networks. This device supports the Wi-Fi network, but it's not quite as good as we expected. I'm not sure why it is not working so well for me.

This is quite a reliable device, even as we scale it. We have fewer than 35 people in the company that uses it.

It has been a very long time since I have contacted Sophos technical support. It was very difficult to get connected with customer service. Finally, after reaching customer care, which was handled by Cyberoam, they helped me out and fixed whatever issue I was facing.

My customer care team is not in India, and this is something that we expected to have.

Prior to Sophos XG, I was using the Cyberoam product. Cyberoam was acquired by Sophos. Aside from this, I don't have much experience with other providers.

It is not complex to set up. Initially, it is a simple configuration but they should have default profiles available. For example, many companies only need a generic configuration. Even if it's just a static IP to get them started and then they can assign a default profile for all of the users inside the company.

Our initial deployment took between two and three days to complete. This included deploying a new server. In advance of beginning deployment, we spent one day gathering requirements. The Sophos part of the deployment only took between three and four hours.

The initial deployment was done by the vendor and me together. We had an integrator to set up the rack, and they supplied us with Sophos. Most of the configuration was done by me because the integrator did not have enough time.

I also take care of the maintenance including the patching and updating. One person is enough for this. I used to have an assistant but now, I'm the only person that takes care of it.

The price of this product is fine for me. For example, there are open-source solutions available on the market, but I trust Sophos. I know the vendors in India and I trust the product.

I paid approximately 57,000 Rupees ($750 USD) for three years.

Personally, I like this product and I like the vendor. The platform is very good and apart from the wireless interface issue that I am having, working with this product has been a very good experience.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Sophos XG is used to handle my network and traffic.

It can control our employees' network behavior and prevent many attacks and other threats from outside of our company.

Sophos XG is very useful, it does many things.

It is secure.

While it is a secure solution, I believe it could be improved.

I have been using Sophos XG for almost one year.

We received the latest update one or two months back and it was great.

The stability is good.

Sophos XG is scalable.

We have 1,000 internal employees and nearly 4,000 external employees. However, Sophos Firewall only operates within an internal network or within a single company, so is used for nearly 1,000.

We plan to increase the usage in the future.

We communicate with support frequently. Many times, we encountered hardware technical issues in the previous version, and they replaced the device for us. We have contacted them numerous times for this purpose. They resolved this issue for us.

The initial setup is straightforward.

We have IT teams and managers, to help maintain this solution.

Licensing fees are paid monthly.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Sophos XG a seven out of ten.

We are using Sophos XG, but not the latest version. The solution works as the main gateway. We are a small company of 250 employees so we also use the solution as a router.

The hardware and VPN connections are slow so we are planning on upgrading the solution. Next month we will be replacing the Sophos XG we have as it is reaching the end of life next year. We will be purchasing the XG 3000 to gain more options in the VPN tunnels.

The two most valuable feature of Sophos XG is, one the option to filter according to different applications and two, the integration with the Active Directory.

Over the last six months, we have noticed that the hardware is slow, especially the VPN connections.

Sophos would benefit if they could improve the integration with Active Directory. It does not function consistently and we have to reconfigure it to make it function again. 

Integration with IPA, which is like Active Directory for Linux servers, would be a nice feature to include.

I have been using Sophos XG for three years.

This solution is very stable. We have not had any problems in the three years we have been using Sophos XG. We did have one infection that gained access to one server in the DMZ but it was because the rules were not well configured and not because of the product.

We haven't had to scale the solution. 

Support from Sophos XG has been fine for what we have required.

We had been using Astaro. We selected Sophos XG because we knew it would be easy to set up and configure as the two solutions are similar.

Previously we were working with Astaro, so the setup and configuration of Sophos XG was easy. The implementation took less than a month.

The company that sold the firewall solution provided support hours while we were migrating the rules of our old firewall. They provided us with advice on some of the rules, especially on the routing to connect to a branch office.

We purchase an annual standard license.

I recommend Sophos XG if you are coming from pfSense or Astaro as the migration will be really easy. The learning path will also be easy. If you are coming from Barracuda or Cisco it will be more difficult especially the web interface of the firewall is not intuitive.

I would rate Sophos XG an 8 out of 10.

We're using Sophos XG within one business unit for security. We use it for the firewall and mapping some services.

Sophos XG's price is right, and it's easy to manage. It's a good fit for our current needs at the moment. 

Sophos XG's user interface has some room for improvement. 

We started using Sophos XG in June of this year, so it has only been a few months. 

I think Sophos XG is stable.

Sophos XG is scalable. We have about 600 users here in Mexico, and everyone is behind this solution. I think it's possible we might increase usage, and we've discussed this with our corporate office in Germany. We could decide to go with another product, but we might expand Sophos if it performs well.

Support is one area where I have some issues. Sophos support isn't that good. 

In some companies where I've worked, I used Fortinet and ASA with FirePOWER from Cisco. In some places, I used Meraki with the MX and the Advance Security licensing. I have some issues with other technologies. Last year, they had Sophos UTM on the devices, but there was an opportunity was to switch our clients to Sophos XG and try out the solution.

Setting up Sophos XG is too easy. It took about two hours. The only part of the solution that I deployed was the firewalls. It's something I do all the time in my business unit, so it was quick. We have two people responsible for deployment and maintenance, including me. 

I had some support from a partner.

A Sophos XG license costs approximately $45,000 

I rate Sophos XG nine out of 10. Our experience so far has been good, but maybe we'll come across another solution that's at the same or a higher level.

The majority of our customers use Sophos XG as a traditional firewall. Some use it for endpoint protection, which is similar to anti-virus.

We also have customers that have SD-WAN as part of their use case. For the most part, it is a firewall, it depends on what the customer environment looks like that would determine how you're going to configure the appliance to work for the customer.

Technology can deliver what you want based on your environment, what you do may differ from what others do.

We have customers from insurance, some oil, and gas, as well as some from the banking sector. Based on the technicality and the peculiarities of the environment, we must explain the technology, of how Fortinet delivers its own firewall, and also others such as Check Point, and Palo Alto deliver their own firewall.

With the explanation given the customer can choose the solution, they want in their environment.

Sophos XG is easy to use.

The only area that requires improvement is scalability.

I understand why scalability is difficult in all firewalls. I understand why it is difficult in our firewalls. If you want to scale, you can scale vertically or horizontally. That is the world of scalability. However, you cannot do so for the firewall. It's a forklift, you have to buy a new appliance.

We have been deploying Sophos XG for our customers for many years.

The stability is based on the environment.

Every firewall solution has a different level of scalability. The majority of firewalls are based on the user. Scalability, in Sophos XG, requires a forklift.

The scalability could be improved.

We have between 12 and 16 customers.

I have never contacted technical support.

We have deployed more Sophos this year than in any previous year.

I have six engineers dedicated to deploying and maintaining the solution.

It is a price-based solution, not based on technology.

Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.

I would recommend this solution to others who are interested in using it.

I would rate Sophos XG an eight out of ten.

I implemented this firewall for my clients. They're small offices. One has got half a dozen computers, and the other one has about 30 computers on the network. Both utilize VPN to remotely access their workstations in the office.

It is sized based on the client. So, there are actually two different versions that I've utilized.

VPN setup is great and easy to implement for outside users to access data or workstations in the network.  Easy to manage and set up.  No major glitches.  Runs reliably.   Setting up iPhones and Macs is a bit more involved since you have to use VPN apps that are compatible with Apple for VPN and remote desktop.

Compared to other firewalls that I had looked at, I thought Sophos was the better solution. It just seems to be easier to manage versus Cisco, Fortinet, or one of the other options I was looking at.

I'm not going to say that it's easy to configure, but I can understand how to configure it. There is a certain amount of support available to do the configurations. 

I'm just a sole proprietor for IT support, and from my perspective, there could be better ways to educate a proprietor, such as myself, on how to set it up, program it, and manage it. They do tend to have support, but a lot of times, it is for larger networks. I need something simpler and more rudimentary to set up and configure the firewall, set up the rules, and that type of thing. So, if there is a missing component there, that would be it. 

Any firewall will need rules for how it protects the network against a variety of threats or various degrees of protection.  My comments are not aimed at Sophos specifically.  As a new person just learning about firewall protection, it would be helpful for any vendor to have an education area that runs through various scenarios and implements them in the firewall.  Videos would be helpful.  From my initial research on which firewall to choose,  Sophos appeared to have the most straightforward interface. 

I purchased the units from www.firewalls.com, and they worked with me to do the initial setup.  That was very helpful to get started

I have been using Sophos XG for 4 years.

It is very stable.

It is scalable. There are different models, and you really need to choose a model that is appropriate for your current situation. You can buy something with a certain degree of scalability. Because I purchased it through firewalls.com, I was able to have that discussion, describe the application, and then choose a model that would suit that particular client with a degree of scalability. Now, for instance, if they went from 20 employees to 500 employees, then it is not scalable to that degree, but if they went from 20 employees to 50 employees, then it would be scalable. So, you've got to define the criteria in terms of what you're trying to protect, the number of users, the bandwidth that is going through it, the speed, etc. When I purchased them through firewalls.com, they explained and helped me choose the most appropriate appliance for what I'm doing.

I did have a circumstance where the firewall had been damaged during a lightning storm or something like that, and I called them to help me diagnose what the issue was. They were good about the diagnostic. They were good about spending the time with me to figure out what was wrong. In the particular case that I was researching, it turned out that one of the ports was bad for some reason. It was either because of the lightning storm or some other reason. It was under warranty, and they replaced it with a new unit. So, I'm satisfied with Sophos' support.

Previously used a small $100 cisco unit.  Not easy to implement VPN.  They may have an app, now, but at the time it was problematic and way too  complicated. 

I purchased it through firewalls.com. They're an online vendor, and they did the initial setup and configuration on both firewalls. My experience with them was good.

I used firewalls.com and they were excellent

Fewer management headaches

The pricing was reasonable.  VPN licensing is included.

I looked at Cisco, Fortinet, and one of the others, and compared to them, I thought Sophos was the better solution. It seemed to be easier to manage. After the implementation, I could figure out what to do with a Sophos interface. If it was something like Cisco or other vendors, it would be far more complicated to deal with. So, that's one of the reasons why I chose Sophos.

For someone who is not acquainted with firewalls, whether it is Sophos or anything else, dealing with a third party for the implementation is kind of a must. 

I am satisfied with this solution. I don't really have any hands-on experience with other firewalls that I can compare it against, but I'm satisfied with it. I like it, and I'd buy it again.

I would rate Sophos XG a 10 out of 10.