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.
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"There are great templates, so you don't have to customize them if you don't want to. You do have the option to custom create some folders and some reports, however, with what is there, you don't really need to go through extra effort, as they already give you a lot of predefined views of reports and so forth."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"The GUI is good."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"The Layer four features are okay and meet my business needs."
"It's auto-scalable, which is a great feature."
"All its features are good. That's why we recommend it."
"In terms of the reporting, it's beautiful. It integrates with Azure monitoring and with Azure policies. That piece is a big help. You can set governing policies and you can use the application firewall, as well as the Azure Firewall, to enforce those policies."
"I think that one of the best features is definitely the premium version, along with the IDPs in terms of the intrusion detection and prevention system."
"Microsoft's technical support is very good. They're quite knowledgable and responsive."
"Performance and stability are the key features of this product."
"Azure Firewall is a cloud-native solution that removes the pain of load balancers."
"I have found the feature allowing you to manage everything from a centralized location beneficial."
"This is a very stable solution."
"This solution is very user-friendly and even a non-professional can configure the policies."
"The solution has all the security features you would need for any type of environment."
"Sophos is a stable solution, and we haven't had any bugs or limitations."
"The user interface is very good. It's already quite simple and easy to use."
"The most valuable is the synchronized security between Sophos XG and Sophos endpoint because it provides a lot of visibility about unknown applications. The endpoint shares the information of unknown applications, and you can learn about those applications and create policies to allow or block those applications."
"Most of the features Sophos XG has are valuable. However, if I have two different ISP, I'm able to create an automatic switch between the two ISPs. I can do the same thing for the cloud as well. If I have two subnets coming from the cloud, I'm able to create a type of switch between both of them where if there is traffic on one and has the traffic drop, I'm able to switch to the other ISP without any problems. It's a normal feature and I get to enjoy the ability to switch between services with no issues."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having a frequent ask questions(FAQ) area for people to receive quick answers to popular questions. Additionally, it would be beneficial to have an SMS notification feature. For example, if you cannot access your email you could receive an SMS message."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"The development area and QA area could be improved. With those improvements, we can improve projects and take even less time to implement them."
"It needs a lot of improvement, especially on intruder detection. They are working hard on that."
"It would be nice to be able to create groupings for servers and offer groups of IP addresses."
"The solution doesn't offer the same capabilities of Fortinet. It should offer intrusion prevention and advance filtering. These are two very useful features offered on Fortinet that Azure lacks."
"The tool needs to improve the onboarding and transition process for on-prem users."
"Azure Firewall has limited visibility for IDPS, no TLS inspection, no app ID, no user ID, no content ID, no device ID. There is no antivirus or anti-spyware. Azure Firewall doesn't scan traffic for malware unless it triggers an IDPS signature. There is no sandbox or machine learning functionality, meaning we are not protected from Zero-day threats. There is no DNS security and limited web categories."
"The interface could be improved, it's not very user friendly."
"The solution should incorporate features similar to competitors like split tunneling."
"We are facing some problems on this firmware version, version 18, that require improvement. We want to improve the email security because it doesn't give proper security with the data protection. Also, our clients are facing some problems where most of the sites which they're accessing are getting blocked. I want to improve those sites, that email security, and the data protection on the Firmware version 18."
"There could be some room for improvement in its pricing since my clients usually feel like the product is on the expensive side."
"The interface can bit a bit more user-friendly."
"SD-WAN can be improved."
"Let's say I set up a rule to block users from accessing YouTube or Facebook. The rule will only block the HTTP traffic, which is non-secure traffic... The problem comes when you are trying to block, or allow, similar traffic that uses HTTPS. You have to create a certificate and import it into the users' web browsers, whatever they are using... The problem occurs when you're dealing with roaming users who use laptops and have to move between different sites that have different types of policies applied to them. You have to import all sorts of certificates from each site into their browser. Doing so will most probably conflict with something else that is totally irrelevant and cause a problem."
"I'd like to see better reporting. While the logs are great, the reports are not."
"The solution should have the ability to be up to date with the most recent threats."
"The solution could improve by making the graphical interface better and increasing the performance."
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 and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, whereas Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Meraki MX. 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.