We performed a comparison between Check Point NGFW 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: Check Point NGFW is praised for its extensive security features, centralized management, and virtualization capabilities. It is highly regarded in terms of comprehensive protection and adaptability. Sophos XG is known for its usability, user-friendly interface, and straightforward installation process. Both options provide robust threat defense and the ability to expand as needed.
Check Point NGFW, needs to improve various aspects, including integration with other infrastructures, hardware upgrades, cost and pricing, stability and security, UI, complexity issues, redundancy options, and memory management. Sophos XG needs improvements in antivirus features, graphical interface and performance, bandwidth management and VPN capabilities, reporting and user management, support and response time, and specific issues and feature requests.
Service and Support: Some customers have found Check Point NGFW's customer service to be helpful and responsive, while others believe there is room for improvement. Sophos XG's support has received both positive and negative feedback. Some customers have found it to be good and helpful, while others have been dissatisfied with unhelpful and unresponsive support.
Ease of Deployment: The initial setup for Check Point NGFW can range in difficulty, with some users finding it simple while others find it more challenging. Knowledge and experience may be required for certain configurations and migrations. The initial setup for Sophos XG is generally seen as uncomplicated and straightforward, although some users may struggle if they are unfamiliar with the product.
Pricing: Check Point NGFW is known for its high setup cost, particularly when compared to other products. Users find it challenging to add new licensing to existing devices, especially for larger enterprise-level devices. Sophos XG provides flexible pricing options based on the required functionality, offering reasonable and competitive pricing, particularly for educational institutions.
ROI: Check Point NGFW stands out for its cost savings, simplicity, and effective security enforcement. Sophos XG offers a high ROI by reducing support expenses and enhancing security practices.
Comparison Results: Sophos XG is the favored product when compared to Check Point NGFW. Users find the initial setup of Sophos XG to be simple. They appreciate the functionality and user interface of Sophos XG, as well as its extensive protection against threats. The pricing for Sophos XG is considered fair and the technical support is satisfactory.
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"The technical support is great."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"One of the benefits that we have realized from using this product is that the user interface makes it easier to operate, compared to using the CLI."
"One of the solution's best features include a packet-filtering firewall that examines packets in isolation."
"They utilize various gateway features, including Identity as a Service (IDaaS), anti-spam, antivirus, and other security measures, effectively creating a robust defense against a wide range of potential risks."
"While not being cheap, their pricing models are competitive."
"Check Point has a centralized console that makes it possible to manage all the deployed equipment. It also has a built-in VPN service that lets users connect through VPN to our organization, which facilitates teleworking while cutting off unauthorized access to the organization's internal network."
"mart Console simplifies the management of current policies and objects, making it effortless to track an object's usage or identify unused objects, thus ensuring a tidy configuration."
"Objects search and tracker logs are useful."
"It is easy to administrate and maintain."
"This solution does everything and anything a firewall can do."
"Sophos Control Center is a good feature. We can monitor everything from the control panel."
"Sophos XG deployment is easy and rapid."
"The solution seems to be very easy to use."
"Content blocking for websites is the most valuable aspect of the solution."
"The solution has all the security features you would need for any type of environment."
"The solution is very easy to use and straightforward."
"The simplicity of the setup is the most valuable feature."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"The sniffing packets or packet captures, can be simplified and improved because it's a little confusing."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"The cloud features can be improved."
"The solution is very expensive."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"The pricing for the Check Point products should be reconsidered - we found it to be quite expensive to purchase, and to maintain (the licenses and the support services need to be prolonged regularly)."
"Currently, upgrades are quite cumbersome."
"We would like to see constant improvement in anti-malware functionality and anti-threat protection."
"The area it needs improvement is the SandBlast Agent. It receives a file, or if it detects a Zero-day attack, it takes the file and analyzes it, either on-premise or in the Check Point Cloud, and then it reports back whether the file is secure or non-secure, or is unknown. That particular area definitely needs a bit more improvement, because there is a delay... where it needs improvement is where [SandBlast is] an appliance-based solution rather than a software or cloud-based solution."
"It would be best if the security management server console access is simpler for ease of management."
"The user interface should be user-friendly"
"One area which is still lacking is the site-to-site VPN solution."
"Although they have it now, we don't have a license for it, and I think mobile device security should be a standard feature. I cannot control someone bringing their device to my network and what they do."
"In the next release, I would like to see improvements to simplify the interface and more policy deployments."
"The initial setup, specifically when activating the license, is a nightmare and is quite difficult."
"They made some changes to the firmware update sometime last year, which moved some of the policies from where they were before. Some of the policies, such as NAS policies, were separated, which made it a bit hard for people to trace the policies they had configured."
"Sophos XG could improve by coming out with more innovative feature developments."
"Technical support could be improved. They aren't as responsive as they could be."
"The support from the vendor needs to be improved."
"It is complicated to get the reports if you are not experienced with Sophos."
"I would like the update process to be easier, to update the firmware of the boxes. I think it's much better automatically than having to do it manually: Download the file, do network discovery. I they can make the update process much more automatic that would help."
Check Point NGFW is ranked 5th in Firewalls with 279 reviews while Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews. Check Point NGFW is rated 8.8, while Sophos XG is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Check Point NGFW writes "Good antivirus protection and URL filtering with very good user identification capabilities". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". Check Point NGFW is most compared with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Azure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Check Point NGFW vs. Sophos XG report.
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