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Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software vs. Sophos Intercept X

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) software is the core OS for the ASA suite. It provides firewall functionality, as well as integration with context-specific Cisco security modules. It is scaled for enterprise-level traffic and connections.N/A

    Sophos Intercept X

    Score8.9 out of 10
    N/ASophos Endpoint Protection (Sophos EPP) with Intercept X is an endpoint security product providing an antivirus / antimalware solution that when upgraded with Intercept X or Intercept X Advanced provides advanced threat detection and EDR capabilities.

    $28

    per year per user

    Pricing
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Intercept X Advanced
    $28
    per year per user
    Intercept X Advanced with XDR
    $48
    per year per user
    Sophos Managed Threat Response
    $79
    per year per user
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details—Pricing is for a 3-year commitment. Government and Education pricing available.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
    Considered Both Products
    Cisco
    No answer on this topic
    Sophos
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    87%
    Would buy again
    40 Answers
    91%
    Would buy again
    20 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    95%
    Delivers good value for the price
    42 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    22 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    91%
    Happy with the feature set
    42 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    22 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    36 Answers
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    20 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    98%
    Implementation went as expected
    41 Answers
    90%
    Implementation went as expected
    19 Answers
    Features
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
    Firewall
    Comparison of Firewall features of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Sophos Intercept X
    Feature
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    8.9
    50 Ratings
    4% above category average
    Sophos Intercept X
    -
    Ratings
    Identification Technologies8.032 Ratings00 Ratings
    Visualization Tools8.031 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content Inspection8.433 Ratings00 Ratings
    Policy-based Controls8.446 Ratings00 Ratings
    Active Directory and LDAP8.448 Ratings00 Ratings
    Firewall Management Console9.049 Ratings00 Ratings
    Reporting and Logging8.949 Ratings00 Ratings
    VPN10.049 Ratings00 Ratings
    High Availability9.649 Ratings00 Ratings
    Stateful Inspection10.046 Ratings00 Ratings
    Proxy Server9.032 Ratings00 Ratings
    Endpoint Security
    Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software and Sophos Intercept X
    Feature
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) Software
    -
    Ratings
    Sophos Intercept X
    8.2
    24 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Anti-Exploit Technology00 Ratings8.623 Ratings
    Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Centralized Management00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
    Hybrid Deployment Support00 Ratings8.03 Ratings
    Infection Remediation00 Ratings7.924 Ratings
    Vulnerability Management00 Ratings8.44 Ratings
    Malware Detection00 Ratings8.024 Ratings
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    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
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    Score9.6 out of 10
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    Score9.1 out of 10
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    Score8.7 out of 10
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    User Ratings
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
    Likelihood to Recommend
    9.0
    (88 ratings)
    8.2
    (41 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.1
    (4 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Usability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.1
    (8 ratings)
    Availability
    7.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    8.7
    (8 ratings)
    8.1
    (12 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Ease of integration
    6.5
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) SoftwareSophos Intercept X
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cisco
    Cisco ASA's are great for internal network connected access between a firewall and the central management server. And, for complex networks where high security requirements with overly strict compliance are necessary. For networks with limited connectivity to the core or for poor network connectivity these are not the best solution. There are other more stand-alone firewall's that do this better. These firewall's are a little more complex to set up to start with so significant knowledge of these devices is required to set them up and ensure they are best practice installed.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    To be frank, this product is fairly expensive. So I would recommend this to companies that are mid-sized or larger to condone the cost of the purchase. It does save me a significant amount of time in my day - being able to glance at the dashboard and see if there are any outstanding issues that require my attention, as not much digging must be done to accomplish this. So for our company, with a short-staffed IT department, it's incredibly helpful to us. We also qualify for Educational pricing which brings the cost down - which helps tremendously
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Cisco
    • ASA is our VPN concentrator. The client and server are very stable and very easy to use
    • ASA also offers Intrusion Prevention, to an extent. This is also very useful for an improved security posture for a small company
    • ASA allowed us to scale very quickly. We could onboard clients, partners, and consultants and give them a great onboarding experience as well
    • Administrative costs with ASA are low. It's very easy to administer.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    • Sophos Intercept X is great at preventing malware infections and rolling back their effects. I have seen this happen hundreds of times since we installed it
    • When combined with Sophos Central, you have an easy to use dashboard where you can manage all installations from a single pane of glass.
    • It's easy to deploy on machines and stays updated.
    • Good reporting features including alerts sent to the admin if there's ever something wrong with it.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Cisco
    • The ASDM software is at times a nightmare to install because of different java versions[.]
    • [The firewall] could do with a power button, just to be able to do a hard reboot when needed[.]
    • It would be nice to manage the firewall via the web on port 443[.]
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    • Sophos OOTB policies are very strict and they don't offer anything less strict without you creating new custom policies. I'm sure this is deliberate because the product starts you out in the safest way possible but it means that you will have lots of calls to your tech support desk when you first deploy it unless you do somewhat extensive testing beforehand.
    • Sophos Intercept X is currently broken (at least the DLP component) by having secure boot turned on in the UEFI/BIOS. If any user wants to be able to write data to a USB drive or floppy from their PC (yes we still have a couple users who need to use floppies) we have to turn off secure boot on their PC, even if the DLP policy for that user/PC combination specifies that the user and PC are allowed to write to USB/floppy. This would be a very serious problem if it weren't for the fact that we have very few users who need to write files to USB. For us it's OK but I bet it would be a deal-breaker for others.
    • I don't see a whole lot of evidence that Intercept X is any different than any other anti-virus, so maybe their admin alerts just don't clearly identify when they have identified a zero-day threat or maybe we just haven't had any zero-day threats.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Cisco
    To be honest there has been now great products out in the market compared to Cisco ASA. I beleieve Cisco has to do a lot of improvement in this area. The other defeiniete factors is the cost when it comes to renewals which is always a premium on Cisco products
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    We have gotten a great product for the price. Easy to maintain and set up on new devices. Support is great and easy to work with and understand.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cisco
    No answers on this topic
    Sophos
    The usability has never been a problem. Sophos Intercept X is a program you can install and let protect your company without much intervention. Apart from a few policies, Sophos will keep you protected better than most any product on the market. Sophos Intercept X works quite well when you are looking to "tighten your grip" on user's access to websites, programs, and add-ons.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Cisco
    I generally have not noticed the outages, however since it's a machine it can malfunction, we need to implement the firewall infrastructure in such a way that it is highly available with device failure, region failure etc. Else any solution will be having the issues if they are not build with resiliency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Cisco
    The support is usually very good and gets back to you very quickly. However I had some instances of when two engineers will give me wildly different answers to what I thought was a simple question. Overall however I do rate the support highly and they are generally always very good.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    Most of the support reps are fantastic. There have been a few though that have had to be escalated via Account Manager when they haven't followed up but this is a rare instance, and often followed up by the Support Manager for APAC.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Cisco
    It was quite a good one, how ever requires an expertise to deploy hence the SMB segment would be finding it difficult to implement this product. The one good reason is that there are lot of ASA certified engineers in compared to the other certified engineers. Hence this resembles positively on the deployment as you have quite a lot of experienced engineer on your deployment
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cisco
    We were using [pfSense] before in our environment but we regularly facing difficulties over it due to software bugs & downtime. After implementing Cisco ASA, it resolved our availability issue & provides us a reliable solution with the best security features & easy to understand GUI.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Sophos
    Webroot Endpoint Protection is not even in the same league as Sophos Intercept-X. I have tested and compared both sides by side, run simulations and it's not even close. Plus the Sophos central management is so much better. Easier to view user activities and apply policies and remediate threats. Sophos is the clear winner between these two products.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Cisco
    • Most network engineers have worked with ASA, so there is no need for re-training when adding or turning over staff
    • Current configs from older devices plug in easily, and are operational on larger devices if an upgrade is required
    • Many support options available
    Incentivized
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    Sophos
    • Once our technical and commercial areas got certified, the ROI over the time spent, is great. Actual customers, and/or new ones with other tools, feel safe and advised, once they get in touch with us.
    • When Sophos EndPoint is being compared against Web Management Tools (competitors), we have failed to deliver, nevertheless, there is a version of Sophos Central (Cloud) which achieves this requirement at 100% and more, since is Cloud Based (on AWS).
    • We are grateful to be on Sophos "Radar" as a Platinum Partner, and "The Americas" valued partner, we have seen our business grow, thanks to this kind of technology, throughout the years.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots

    Sophos Intercept X Screenshots

    Product screenshotProduct screenshotProduct screenshot