We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Sophos XGS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature is the ease of use."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The customization potential is quite impressive."
"Some of the key features of the solution is that it has good reporting, you can receive many details from the connection, for example, clients and website information."
"The most valuable feature is the bundled subscription, which is IPS, TV and web filtering."
"The first time I came across these firewalls, what surprised me the most was their web user interface. It is complete and gives you a lot of information. You can do 80% of the things related to your network and firewall through the web UI. In some of the other devices, the UI is not as complete. App-ID is also very valuable in customer networks. When you're seeing a lot of traffic in your network, you can see in your web UI which users have the applications that are consuming the most bandwidth. You have a broad context, which is very good."
"You can easily integrate it with Active Directory, and you can use the GlobalProtect VPN for internal and external purposes. The URL Filtering is also clear and the application filtering is a plus. The application filtering is much better when you compare it to FortiGate or other firewall vendors."
"The most valuable feature is the security provided by the ATP."
"The most valuable features are web filtering and application filtering."
"The solution is scalable"
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have a Single Pass Parallel Processing (SP3) Architecture, which has a different kind of code doing the work. It increases the packet processing rate. Whereas, without the SP3 Architecture, you are waiting for each job to complete, even if you have 100 jobs assigned."
"The most important feature is the firewall. We can make rules to filter the application layer of traffic. It's a very helpful feature."
"The initial setup is very user-friendly because they have graphical user interface options and command line interface options. I would give the initial setup a rating of five out of five."
"It's easy to deploy and connect."
"One of the main advantages of Sophos XGS is the processor. You don't have to wait a long time for when you are managing the firewall and the traffic is faster now."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Sophos XGS's most valuable feature is content filtering."
"Sophos XGS is profound as a firewall and security product."
"Sophos XGS' best features are simplicity and its built-in reporting tool."
"The threat management system and VPN are most valuable."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"There is room for improvement related to the logging and reporting aspect."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"There has been a recent change in the graphical interface. For the monitoring part, they could have a better UI."
"In my opinion, the training provided is satisfactory, but there is certainly room for improvement. It would be great to have more comprehensive training at a lower cost, or even for free."
"We're working with the entry-level appliances, so I don't know what the higher-end ones are like, however, on the entry-level models I would say commit speeds need to be improved."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls don't provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. It's missing some features for geofencing and understanding locations."
"The whole performance takes a long time. It takes a long time to configure."
"I'm thinking about a new feature. They have decryption. It's a good idea to use decryption on Palo Alto. It would be good if they had offloading of the traffic, and if they could decrypt the traffic and offload it. Like, for example, ASM on our site. We have an SSL decryption to offload the traffic. We could use that on Palo Alto."
"The price of the solution is very high."
"In terms of what could be improved, comparatively the price is very high. That would be the one thing."
"There are a lot of false-positive cases."
"It has recently started to suddenly block and crash."
"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."
"The speed of report generation could be improved."
"Sophos XGS could improve the automation system. It could be better if there was some level of automation, attacks automation, meaning if this happens, then it automatically executes a particular process."
"There are some issues with conversion and user roles when upgrading to Cyberoam."
"I would like to see a history of the monthly bandwidth utilization, the bandwidth consumption for a period of time."
"The first time a person sets it up, they will need training."
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Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 164 reviews while Sophos XGS is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 62 reviews. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6, while Sophos XGS is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XGS writes "Easy to use, simple to learn, and offers great reporting". Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Sangfor NGAF, whereas Sophos XGS is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, Netgate pfSense, WatchGuard Firebox and Meraki MX. See our Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Sophos XGS report.
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