Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services vs. Sophos XG Firewall

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Cisco offers a threat-focused next-generation firewall (NGFW), the ASA 5500-X Series. The ASA 5500 Series platforms can run either the Cisco ASA Firewall or Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD). The series features appliances in a variety of form factors, including standalone options for small and midsize businesses, ruggedized appliances for extreme environments, midsize appliances for security at the Internet edge, and high-performance appliances for enterprise data centers.N/A
Sophos XG Firewall
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
Sophos XG Firewall provides comprehensive next-generation firewall protection powered by deep learning and Synchronized Security. The vendor states XG Firewall supplies unmatched insights and exposes hidden user, application, and threat risks on the network, and say the product is differentiated by its ability to respond automatically to security incidents by isolating compromised systems, with Security Heartbeat™.N/A
Pricing
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsCisco ASA 5500-X pricing starts at ~$400 and scales up to $20,000 for higher capacity appliances.—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Considered Both Products
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services
Chose Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services
Cisco ASA FirePOWER provides us lots of features like sandboxing and advanced malware protection which provides us more security. But lots of options are missing and more complicated in Sophos XG Firewall. You will face lots of issues during implementation in existing …
Chose Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services
Cisco has been industry for a long time and it's a trustworthy name. Cisco ASA 5500-X FirePOWER has the best Customer Support and robust hardware, user friendly configurations, [and] configuration documentations [are] available openly on internet. Cisco has also [been] named a …
Sophos XG Firewall
Chose Sophos XG Firewall
We selected the Sophos Firewall because of its comprehensive security, ease of use, Scalability and increase the productivity.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services
9.1
30 Ratings
7% above category average
Sophos XG Firewall
7.3
10 Ratings
15% below category average
Identification Technologies9.228 Ratings6.310 Ratings
Visualization Tools9.124 Ratings6.710 Ratings
Content Inspection9.129 Ratings6.310 Ratings
Policy-based Controls9.828 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP9.829 Ratings7.39 Ratings
Firewall Management Console9.230 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.829 Ratings7.010 Ratings
VPN9.830 Ratings8.010 Ratings
High Availability9.828 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.14 Ratings6.710 Ratings
Proxy Server7.23 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Likelihood to Recommend
9.4
(30 ratings)
6.7
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.7
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.4
(26 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.6
(29 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER ServicesSophos XG Firewall
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
This firewall is best suited for the network edge/perimeter deployment. The next gen features works very well and the remote access VPN is also very much suitable for the organizations which have a huge user base working remotely. The Remote Access VPN is very much customizable and the authentication integration option like LDAP and RADIUS provides and addon.
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Sophos
This is the best product for small-size organizations with a low budget that want advanced and deep-level security features. Sandboxing and advanced malware protection are the most valuable features available on Sophos devices. Other features like applications and web content make your organization more secure, and you can put more restrictions on users.
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Pros
Cisco
  • The Cisco ASA with FirePOWER Services model works perfectly for network edge protection scenarios.
  • It allows for the creation and connection of sites through site-to-site VPN configuration.
  • It enables remote connection and home office with remote SSL or IPSEC VPN.
  • It has layer 7 traffic protection and visibility.
  • It has anti-malware protection from start to finish.
  • The configuration is easy to perform.
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Sophos
  • You can scan every packet deeply through sandboxing.
  • Control the user traffic through content filtering.
  • Put the restrictions on user web traffic through web filtering.
  • Control any type of malware through anti virus.
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Cons
Cisco
  • URL Filtering feature could be easier to utilize for beginners
  • I'd like to see a visual of VPN networks setup and show the functioning or malfunctioning status to assist in making troubleshooting easier
  • Recommendations on ACLs for beginners based on their account creation date
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Sophos
  • If using Endpoint security and the Firewall it would be nice to have an easier back and forth between the portals rather than have two separate tabs open. Especially if using more than one in multiple locations.
  • If dealing with different revisions options are moved around and sometimes in places that doesn't normally seem like they should be there.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
Ever since we installed Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services we have never had to deal with an attack. We can see in the logs almost every day hackers attempting to break into our networks and failing. We also have the ability to blacklist every IP address that attempts to break into our firewalls
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Sophos
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
Cisco firepower provides automatation for an organisations security operations to detect and stop the most advanced threats fast. It also assists in preventing attacks in using intelligence and innovative solutions.
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Sophos
It is a good and pleasant experience to use Sophos XG firewall and it offers more then what we expect and the price is ok in the current market level
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Reliability and Availability
Cisco
We have never had an outage caused by firewall failure. We have had a few outages caused by the internet failing or cloud applications going offline but never a firewall breaking down. When making changes we have a very strong change control, major software updates are always carried out out of working hours. At places where we have two firewalls in HA, we are able to do upgrades in working ours and the users will never know that an upgrade is taking place, that how great these firewalls are
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Sophos
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
The Cisco ASA 5500X with Firepower performance needs consideration before deploying. Although the solution is Pay as you grow, adding additional features to the system has a negative impact on overall throughput. I would more like now only to deploy the Cisco FPR units as they have better performance and will last the test of time.
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Sophos
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
I would recommend the purchase of the Smartnet 24x7 service in the case of a unit and the Smartnet 8x5NBD in the case of only one appliance installed on site. This service is important to always have the latest firmware updates, corrective updates and especially the hardware warranty and maintenance service in case of problems. The service is done by phone or on the official Cisco website and I can say that it is very good and efficient.
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Sophos
Honestly we didn't get the premium support from them, but our partner has been supportive. Online forums are also a good place to learn things from.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
We implemented a centralized management of all our Cisco ASA 5500-x with FirePOWER Services so that we can have a holistic view of all our sites in London and other European countries. This also helps when making changes, instead of login on to each firewall we can use Firepower Management Center (FMC) to central deploy changes across all devices
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Sophos
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Previous],] I was using the [pfSense] in my organization but when i switched to [Cisco ASA 5500-X with FirePOWER Services] I realized there are lots of issue and missing security features in [pfSense]. The deployment and configuration is very easy as compare to [pfSense]. I highly recommend this product to everyone.
Read full review
Sophos
We have been a Sophos customer for the most part but i have seen some other offerings from SonicWall, Barracuda, and Cisco. While they all offer nice products, we've always been content with our Sophos XG firewalls, especially as they release more and more features/etc.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Working of remote workforce made easy
  • Security was enhanced on the data traffic shared with the vendors due to the use of VPNs
  • Inbound attacks were mostly blocked on the edge and saved a lot of resources (which could had been used in case of attacks getting successful on the application servers)
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Sophos
  • Easy to integrate with Active Directory & LDAP
  • We don't need to purchase any additional 2FA & VPN Tools so the cost is saved for us
  • High Availability
Read full review
ScreenShots

Sophos XG Firewall Screenshots

Screenshot of Sophos XG Firewall v17.5 Control Center