We use the product for traffic and security control.
Sophos Cloud Firewall (PAYG)
SophosExternal reviews
External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.
Identifies the threat and publishes the information across all endpoints and firewalls
What is our primary use case?
What is most valuable?
We currently have multiple clients, and many users are working remotely. We need antivirus protection to guard against malware introduced from public networks. One of the most beneficial features of Sophos XG is its integration with Sophos Central. If any file is detected as malicious on any endpoint or firewall, Sophos Central immediately identifies the threat and publishes the information across all endpoints and firewalls. If a single system gets infected, the threat is communicated and addressed across the entire network, including all sites and remote users.
What needs improvement?
One drawback I've noticed with Sophos XG is that sometimes, the platform can become unresponsive. I've observed that it occasionally hangs, causing traffic to get stuck. During these times, users cannot access the internet or any services routed through the Sophos Firewall. This issue happens randomly and isn't something we've encountered with other firewalls like FortiGate, which we used in the past.
Dealing with licensing has been a big challenge for us. Despite our efforts to resolve issues through our sales contact, we've faced limitations. After confirming our purchase orders, we had to escalate the issue. We were ready to extend our licenses for two or three months.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with the product for a year.
How are customer service and support?
We haven't seen any major issues with customer support from Sophos. We have faced some problems, but we understand that the support team can sometimes be unresponsive.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
When comparing FortiGate to Sophos XG, I would say that if I'm working on large-scale asset monitoring and security purposes, especially if I have a data center that requires firewall security, then FortiGate would be my choice. It's faster and more responsive than Sophos XG support.
How was the initial setup?
The tool's deployment takes two to three hours to complete. It doesn't require any maintenance. You would need one engineer to handle one application.
What was our ROI?
I can say there has been some return on investment. It's good, but I would still say it's higher by about 10-15 percent compared to other market products with similar configurations.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The tool's pricing and licensing are very complex. As a developing company, we need approvals from management to make a purchase, which can take time. We asked Sophos XG to renew our current firewall license for one or two months while we plan to accommodate our increasing IT assets.
What other advice do I have?
I rate the overall product an eight out of ten.
Sophos Firewall
Has a good user interface and an initial setup phase that is straightforward
What is most valuable?
It has been a while since I have worked with the product in our company, and so I can't remember its most effective features.
What needs improvement?
The support service offered by Sophos is an area of concern where certain improvements are required. My company did not get enough support when, in our enterprise, we faced some issues with the product and needed support. For support, one has to go with the online community, and even then, it cannot be guaranteed that one will get the right support.
The support team's response time should be minimized. The support should be more available. I think that one has to wait for four or five days to get support. Business cannot stop just because of issues with support. The tool's renewal service was really good and straightforward.
Some of the working features of the product, like sandboxing functionalities, are complex for me to handle, especially since one has to buy them separately. You have to buy sandboxing features separately, but I believe that it needs to be given to a user along with the product. In my company, we couldn't find the detection features of the product. Though I did a remote code execution, and it stopped abruptly, it never showed where it actually stopped. In the area of reporting, there needs to be a lot of improvement in the tool.
Partner engagement is an area in which I feel there should be some improvements. Getting support or being able to deal with certain stuff when it comes to Sophos because of the OEM should be made possible. When an OEM is with you, you'll feel more comfortable doing business. My company started doing Fortinet a few days ago, but before that, we had Sophos. My company is moving away from Sophos because it is no longer needed. When it comes to the price or during some disconnection, my company doesn't get any support from Sophos.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Sophos XG since 2021.
How are customer service and support?
I rate the technical support a six out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Our company uses Microsoft Defender, Kaspersky, and Trend Micro.
As my company has partnerships with Microsoft and Sophos, the best part we get is in the areas of support services and distributors as we are involved in the reselling business. My company also has to operate with some local resellers, so we get support from them at a good price from them, and even during deployment, we get some support from them. I worked with Microsoft in 2019 and stopped working with it in 2020 during COVID-19. I got familiar with many tools during COVID-19, so I can get the business prices of the solutions. If I keep Microsoft Defender aside, then my company does business with Trend Micro as well. Trend Micro provides whatever help my company needs, and the tool's team greatly engages with us and supports us. With Sophos, my company doesn't get any support. I think Sophos does not do direct business anymore. Sophos doesn't have any OEM office. If there is no OEM office for a product, the company can face a lot of trouble.
How was the initial setup?
I did business with Sophos in 2021. I think that last year, we got a Sophos Firewall deployed in our organization. The product's initial setup phase was straightforward.
The solution can be deployed in two days.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Nowadays, my company recommends Palo Alto and Fortinet. With Fortinet, my company is comfortable because it looks after our needs, and it is really helpful.
What other advice do I have?
The user interface of the product is good, especially since its customers are satisfied.
Sophos XG supports our customers' remote workflows well. As a customer-centric tool, they use it as part of their company.
The product can be recommended to SMBs. My company's people requested Sophos products for 450 people or endpoints, but we didn't get any response from Sophos. My company emailed an agent from Sophos, but we didn't get any response for 44 servers and 400 endpoints we wanted. I work at a hospital, so we didn't get any price quotation associated with the product.
The features of the product are good. It is not like Sophos told me something and its products were working in a different manner.
I rate the solution a ten out of ten.
Smooth Experience
Support, as well as migration team are very friendly and informative. MDR team responds quick to any anomalies in our network. and follows up until case is closed and we are satisfied.
Used for website blocking, application blocking, and site-to-site VPN
What is our primary use case?
We use Sophos XGS mostly for website blocking, application blocking, and site-to-site VPN.
What is most valuable?
Compared to other products, Sophos XGS is a user-friendly solution.
What needs improvement?
It would be useful if Sophos XGS included DDNS-based features.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Sophos XGS for four years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I rate the solution an eight out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Sophos XGS is a scalable solution. We have more than 50 users in our organization.
How are customer service and support?
Sophos XGS provides good technical support. The support team has good knowledge of troubleshooting and fixing our issues.
How was the initial setup?
The solution’s initial setup is complex.
What about the implementation team?
We implemented the solution through an in-house team. The solution’s deployment takes half an hour to one hour.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Sophos XGS is a cost-effective solution.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Sophos XGS to other users because it is more cost-effective than other products.
Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.
Stable and affordable
What is our primary use case?
We typically use Sophos XGS for things like (UTM, acting as a proxy, managing routing, and for point-to-point connections.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable features of Sophos XGS for me are XGS IPS, SD-WAN, VPN setup, email protection, and integration with endpoint security.
What needs improvement?
Areas for improvement in Sophos XGS include better balance when handling high availability configurations, smoother firmware upgrades without the need for turning off devices, and simplified configuration after firmware updates.
In the next release of Sophos XGS, I would like to see improvements in log searching within the interface and more functionality available without needing to go to the command line, especially for troubleshooting purposes.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been working with Sophos XGS for five years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Sophos XGS is stable and resilient, even in environments with power fluctuations and instability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability with Sophos XGS is generally good, but there can be frustrations with switches when setting up VPNs. I would rate the scalability as a four out of ten.
I believe the scalability of Sophos XGS can be improved, especially when compared to competitors like Palo Alto and Check Point. While it is a good product, there is room for enhancement to compete better in scalability challenges.
How are customer service and support?
I would rate the technical support as a seven out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before Sophos XGS, I used Check Point, Palo Alto, and Cisco data solutions. I switched to Sophos because it is more affordable.
How was the initial setup?
The initial setup of Sophos XGS is generally simple, especially for basic internet access with default features, but more complex configurations may have some difficulties. Overall, it is quick and stable.
It took less than an hour and a half to deploy Sophos XGS initially, including setting up internet access and basic firewall rules. However, migrating from older versions to the new setup took longer due to compatibility issues with the old settings.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Sophos XGS is quite affordable.
What other advice do I have?
Overall, I would rate Sophos XGS as a seven out of ten. I would recommend it to others.
Contributes to the reduction of the overall security costs of businesses
What is most valuable?
The major support that my company gets from Sophos is in the areas of web and content filtering. Users are able to filter out the web traffic, so they can consume whatever they need, and they can stop at the gateway level whatever they don't need. If social networking websites are not required for my company's developers, I can stop them right away. The categorization of the websites is pretty good, and people are very happy when they can do the customization. If users need to have some kind of exceptions, they can go for the exceptions very easily without any disturbance to the other end users. The best part of the product is associated with its web and content filtering features.
What needs improvement?
As my company does not cater to the needs of customers with very large networks, I haven't faced any challenges with Sophos XGS and my company is happy with the solution till date.
When it comes to the telemetry data, which comes under what you call the tool's service part, better known as MDR, I feel Sophos should add more telemetry data to its products. The tool should support multiple vendors and multiple OEMs. Right now, I think there are only less than a dozen vendors or OEMs supported by Sophos. I feel Sophos should support tools from more vendors.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Sophos XGS for four years.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
When it comes to the process of scaling up, it is okay upto 5,000 users that I manage. Sophos has the appliances to cater to the requirements of 5,000 user networks and I know it because it is the customer range in which I deal. I don't go to a customer or a client that has more than 5,000 user networks.
How are customer service and support?
The solution's technical support is excellent. I rate the technical support a ten out of ten.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
My company does deal with other vendors in the market, but we feel that Sophos XGS is much more customizable and a readily available solution. A good thing about my company is that we have very good hands-on expertise, especially in areas like pre-sales and post-sales, where we have tech teams that are well-versed in areas like technologies, training, and modules while also ensuring that they stay up-to-date so that the team has all the sufficient knowledge to support themselves and also our customers' networks.
How was the initial setup?
The product's initial setup phase is very straightforward. The GUI and everything else associated with the product are very straightforward.
The solution can be implemented in a couple of hours.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Only very large enterprise customers will have an edge with a tool similar to Sophos XGS because they have that kind of device and hardware, which can cater to around 10,000 or 20,000 user networks. My company does not deal with any large enterprise-sized customers, and so we are happy with Sophos.
What other advice do I have?
Speaking about how the tool is deployed in our company's customers' network environment, I would say that it is done at the gateway level. With the gateway-level firewall, my company protects the network of our customers by applying the firewall, as well as the endpoint security, both provided by Sophos.
Speaking about the tool's threat intelligence capabilities on security posture, I would say that after content filtering, it obviously comes to threat monitoring. Sophos has SophosLabs, and it always gets updated. Users need not worry about the new threats or new landscapes coming in, as Sophos will take care of the aforementioned areas by default. Users need not depend on any third party for threat intelligence as the tool is sufficient to manage any kind of threat.
Sophos XGS has contributed to the reduction of the overall security costs of our company's customers. The biggest good point about the tool is related to the area of sizing. Sophos offers firewall tools for each and every size of the network. Irrespective of whether I have a small network in a branch office or a large network, I can get the appliances from Sophos to fit any size. I need not worry even if I am a company with just 25 users, as I need not spend lakhs of rupees. If I have a large network, even then, my hardware will be sufficient enough, and the cost offered by Sophos is obviously very competitive compared to the solutions offered by competitors in the markets.
Considering the sales, support, and post-sales services, I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Enhances network security and has good threat intelligence capabilities, but doesn't notify users about downtime or errors
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution as an antivirus gateway and internet gateway.
What is most valuable?
All the features are effective in enhancing our network security. I am satisfied with the product. The threat intelligence capabilities of the tool are good. It has contributed to reducing our overall security costs by approximately 90%.
What needs improvement?
I do not get notifications regarding ISP downtime. It would be better if I could get notifications related to the critical errors occurring in Sophos. The product is difficult to use. The administrators must be notified of the errors occurring in the firewall through emails or messages. It will help organizations take proactive measures instead of taking action after the incident happens.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using the solution for one and a half years.
How are customer service and support?
The customer support is weak. The support team is not responsive. The support people do not follow up or call us back.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Negative
How was the initial setup?
The implementation is not difficult. The service providers help install and implement the firewall in our network.
What other advice do I have?
I will recommend the product to others. However, I would not recommend it to organizations that do not have technical people who deal with networks. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.
Sophos is the Best NGFW in the market.
Sophos NGFW"s number of features makes sophos NGFW best UTM in the market,
Its ease of integration makes sophos NGFW leader in cybersecurity.
After that we never recieved any cyber attacks in our organization
Truly Exceptional
There is another feature of sophos firewall ZERO day Protection.its keep ransomware attacks away from my network .
Ease to integration firewall , End point , to SOPHOS central..
we Frequency to use any were to acces my office netwok .
So we shifted from gajshield to SOPHOS Since then we have never recived any ransomware attacks.