We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is praised for its robust security features, including geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and an easy-to-use interface. Sophos XG is highly regarded for its functionality, user-friendly interface, web filtering capabilities, detailed reporting, and seamless integration with other Sophos products.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM could use improvements in key activation, log management, cloud management, MFA offerings, web filter options, application inspection, GUI features, bandwidth issues, VPN connectivity, pricing concerns, performance, and quality control. Sophos XG requires improvements in antivirus features, graphical interface, logging, technical support, initial setup, configuration, functionality, sales policies, firewall upgrades, network control, data protection, bugs, user interface, integration, support, high-availability clusters, scalability, education and training resources, security features, Dynamic IP support, and specific user requests.
Service and Support: The feedback for customer service for Fortinet FortiGate-VM varies, with positive comments regarding the promptness and expertise of the support team with some negative remarks about delayed responses and challenges in accessing information efficiently. The customer service for Sophos XG receives a range of opinions, including compliments for helpful and responsive assistance, as well as complaints about unhelpful and unresponsive support and slow response times.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is generally uncomplicated and simple, whereas for Sophos XG, it can be considered either effortless or difficult depending on the user's familiarity and technical expertise.
Pricing: The setup cost for Fortinet FortiGate-VM is affordable and less expensive compared to Palo Alto and Check Point. The pricing options for yearly or monthly licenses are flexible. Sophos XG provides a customizable pricing structure based on the needed functionality. The cost varies depending on the model, edition, and activated security modules. In general, both products are reasonably priced and provide good value for their features.
ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is known for its enhanced security and stability features, whereas the Sophos XG is renowned for simplifying management processes and enhancing workflow efficiency.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is the preferred choice when compared to Sophos XG. Users appreciate Fortinet's strong security capabilities, ease of use, simple deployment, intuitive interface, and scalability. They also find features like geofencing, firewalling, IPS, antivirus, and intrusion prevention systems valuable.
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"We can use our devices to check all of the perimeters. It secures email websites."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"It is highly scalable because it has a mesh architecture that allows consistent policies."
"The ROI is good since I get free support."
"The solution is stable."
"I like the visibility and monitoring features because they're easy to use to monitor traffic. Features like geo-blocking and more have AI, and we're currently using all of it. But for now, we're only using geo-blocking, and we're able to block traffic from different countries. I also like that it's highly responsive. VM04 is also very powerful."
"Its technical support is excellent."
"Regarding specific features, I appreciate the option for external selection, where you can choose either to use a default or create a self-description. This simplifies the process compared to other vendors that require creating a test extension profile and then applying it to the installation. With FortiGate, there is a streamlined approach. From the benefits perspective, clients mainly see cost reduction, especially with FortiGate VM Firewall, as it eliminates the need for additional hardware."
"Great reporting feature and great customer support."
"The feature that we find most valuable is the VPN, which ensures that people working remotely have a secure connection."
"The product offers many great features."
"Dashboard is easy to use and the reporting offers a lot of detail."
"The solution was able to be integrated well with exciting hardware and software and in multiple business sectors."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The solution is scalable."
"We recommend Sophos XG as a priority as it is much more reliable and has efficient technical assistance."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"The renewal price and the availability could be improved."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"Price-wise, it could be slightly better, however, if you compared it to other makes and models of equal category, it is generally cheaper."
"The product is satisfactory. I haven't identified any features to improve, and based on the number of deployments I've handled with FortiGate-VM, there haven't been any complaints from the customer's side."
"The key activation is very complicated at times."
"Support could be improved a little."
"The solution's web-filtering configuration could be better."
"In the first two releases of FortiOS 5.6, we had some trouble with the SSL VPN service. Sometimes it stopped working, and the IPS daemon too."
"The tool does not have a good name in the market, consisting of enterprise-class businesses, making it an area where the product lacks and needs to improve."
"With FortiGate, we sometimes encounter bugs in various operating systems."
"Content filtering could be more effective and efficient."
"The weakest point is the technical support because they are difficult to get into contact with."
"The logging side of it could definitely be better. Some of the logging lacks, and the information that they provide you, especially in the spam filtering section, could be better."
"The price should be cheaper."
"It is a very basic and entry-level firewall. It doesn't give very granular control over the traffic. It should have more granular control over the traffic. This feature should be there similar to Palo Alto and Cisco. It should have such advanced features."
"The initial setup, specifically when activating the license, is a nightmare and is quite difficult."
"There needs to be a way that we can distinguish between educational institutions on Youtube and other Youtube videos. You can do this on Fortinet. Basically, they can block all other Youtube videos besides those that are from educational institutions. With Sophos, you either allow for all Youtube videos or none at all. They need to allow for more specification on different websites."
"The time taken by Sophos XG's support team to respond to and resolve an issue is an area of concern where improvements are required."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Sophos UTM, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Sophos XG report.
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