We performed a comparison between Azure Firewall and Sophos XG based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: The main difference between these two products is the scalability. While Azure Firewall users say the scalability could be improved, users of Sophos XG are satisfied with the solution’s capability to scale. Azure users also mention that the interface and the reporting, logging, and monitoring features all need improvement.
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"The CLI and GUI do a good job of putting a lot at your fingertips."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"Fortinet offers the latest versions to cater to the needs of enterprises."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"Network filtering is valuable. The scalability capability from the cloud-native service helps us a lot because it simplifies our day-to-day maintenance activity."
"Great security and connectivity."
"It provided ease of maintenance. If a new firewall was needed, we only had to run the pipelines for this. So, the maintenance was very easy."
"The solution has many useful features. For example, the solution allows users to create virtual IP addresses."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"Among the most valuable features are the DDoS protection that protects your virtual machines, the threat intelligence, and traffic filtering."
"We use the solution for application and server deployment."
"The solution can autoscale."
"The most valuable feature I have found to be the reporting function."
"Valuable features include: the ease of setting up the VPN connection; the fact they have the cloud management option, so I can manage the firewall on a cloud platform from anywhere I am; the user interface is very user-friendly, so it's very easy for the administrator to make any policy changes."
"I like the functionality and the user interface."
"It is very easy to use. You can configure and monitor everything from one unique dashboard."
"The security of Sophos XG is very good."
"The solution's technical support is good."
"The most valuable features are the central management, the user VPN, and communications."
"Sophos XG is very useful, it does many things."
"The search tool needs improvement. It's very difficult to search for policies right now."
"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."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"Azure has new versions including a premium firewall. But I would like to see them not put the premium features on Azure Firewall Premium alone because it is quite expensive."
"We find it's different implementing it region-to-region. It might help if it was universal across all regions."
"The threat intelligence aspect of this particular firewall is not at par with other providers."
"It would be much easier if the on-premises, firewall rules, had some kind of export-import possibility in place, which is not the case right now."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"Azure Firewall should have a free trial version for new users so that they can evaluate it before deploying it."
"There are a number of things that need to be simplified, but it's mostly costs. It needs to be simplified because it's pretty expensive."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"Scalability it is a bit limited. We did a sizing exercise before the purchase. But that was just to fit our current needs. There was no room for having an option to upgrade the device. The only option that we have if we are grow in the near future, is to go for another model with higher specs, which is actually more expensive. In other words it doesn't have that modularity ."
"I am using the Azure Active Directory in my company and it was complicated to integrate this solution with Azure."
"Its user interface is a little bit slow."
"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. That's the only downside I've experienced in Sophos."
"We are not very happy with the customer support they provide — it's quite slow."
"The UI needs improvement because it can be a little weird at times."
"Sophos XG's user interface has some room for improvement."
"The first area that needs to be improved is customer support."
Azure Firewall is ranked 21st in Firewalls with 33 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Azure Firewall is rated 7.2, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Azure Firewall writes "Easy to use and configure but could be more robust". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Azure Firewall is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and OPNsense, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Sophos UTM. See our Azure Firewall vs. Sophos XG report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.