We performed a comparison between Sophos XG and WatchGuard Firebox based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: WatchGuard Firebox comes out on top in this comparison. It is easy to use, performs well, and has robust security protocols. In addition, its support is better than that of Sophos XG.
"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."
"Whenever we raise a complaint with FortiGate, their response and resolution times are minimal."
"The secure web gateway module and the application control module are valuable. HA operations are very easy."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."
"Great interface and in-built help is very intuitive."
"I like the dashboard, the interface, the management console, and the remote login."
"Overall, this is a good product and I would recommend it for small to mid-sized customers."
"This is a very stable solution."
"I have found the feature allowing you to manage everything from a centralized location beneficial."
"It is very user friendly and easy to manage from the administrative point of view. It is good, reliable, and easy to implement."
"The most valuable feature is the intrusion prevention system."
"We get good usage out of the features. It has enabled us to gain popularity. It has great features."
"Among the most valuable features is the ease of use — love the interface — of both the web interface and of the WatchGuard System Manager."
"Regarding the reporting, I was in the Dimension server earlier today. It's very powerful. I like it. And the management features are easy to use. I like the fact that I can open up the System Manager client or I can just do it through the web if I'm making a quick change."
"The most valuable features of this solution are live logging, rule setup and maintenance, and VPN creation."
"[A] valuable feature would be the branch office. We have five offices throughout the United States, and it coordinates the connections of those offices."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is the VPN. It's easy to connect to the VPN."
"The most valuable feature of WatchGuard Firebox is its ease of use."
"Their centralized console simplifies management for organizations with multiple Fireboxes."
"We experienced that WatchGuard is easy to setup regarding VPN compared to other firewalls of other brands."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"With the reports, you can see it, and you can get good feelings so upper management can go, "Oh, wow. That looks pretty." However, it's very basic."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having better visibility. Palo Alto has better visibility."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"Some businesses require Dynamic IP. This feature would be useful if it worked."
"Data traffic analysis could be better. I think Fortinet products like FortiAnalyzer are very effective in analyzing data traffic. I think it's better than Sophos. It could also be more stable."
"They need to improve the SD-WAN feature."
"It would be helpful if they had a set of standard templates because it would assist in the beginning, when you are just getting started."
"Integration with Active Directory is not reliable."
"Sophos XG could improve by making the remote access and VPN better."
"The response time could stand improvement."
"Sophos XG's web server protection and log viewer could improve. They should also introduce sandboxing."
"The only downside is that it is missing an API, that you can use to easily collect information from it."
"The solution can improve by adding a feature to tag a MAC address of a computer system in the policy and more IP configuration settings."
"Due to their lack of investment in marketing, channel development, and certifications, WatchGuard faces challenges in gaining visibility and market share, especially in regions like Pakistan."
"We bought Firebox four or five years ago, and with the first version I had to reboot it every two or three months for no apparent reason. We upgraded last year to the M370 and it's been running, but it is rebooting from time to time. I don't know why."
"Some of the configuration options are somewhat confusing."
"I would like to see more simplified management of the firewall... It's a complicated system to use."
"One other shortcoming is that there is no backup for it. We really haven't figured out how we might solve that problem. We may want to put a duplicate in... With WatchGuard, we just have the one box. If that were to fail, we'd probably be really hurting."
"The VPN aspect of the WatchGuard Firebox is an area that could potentially benefit from improvement. We encountered difficulties while attempting to integrate Windows 11 laptops into the system, which resulted in unreliable connections. After some research, we discovered that this was primarily due to compatibility issues with Windows 11 and required a patch. However, it was still a challenge as it seemed that even when we tried to keep the laptops on Windows 10, they still exhibited the same issues as Windows 11 machines. Despite WatchGuard attributing the problem to Microsoft, we were eventually able to find a solution and all the machines are now functioning seamlessly."
Sophos XG is ranked 7th in Firewalls with 192 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. Sophos XG is rated 8.2, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of Sophos XG writes "Easy to use and deploy with an improved pricing structure in place". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". Sophos XG is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, Sophos XGS, SonicWall TZ and Check Point NGFW, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Sophos XG vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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