Cisco Firepower 1000 Series vs Sophos SG Firewall Appliances

Likelihood to Recommend

The Firepower 1120 appliance together with the next generation firewall license package becomes a complete and robust network protection device to protect both the LAN and WLAN networks. This model 1120 is indicated as intermediate scenarios to be able to handle all the network traffic of employees and servers. The experience is excellent and we feel very safe with this solution.

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André Santi

System Analyst

GerdauMining & Metals, 1001-5000 employees

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Since we have only ever used the SG firewall appliances that is really all I have ever known. So if I was approached by a colleague about network security then I would suggest the Sophos SG Firewall Appliances hands down. We have never had to look for any other type of replacement or upgrade as these are very well built, super easy to deploy and go above and beyond to keep your network secure.

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Matthew James

Junior Systems Administrator | POS Programming Specialist

AIKG LLCEntertainment, 501-1000 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

Sophos SG Firewall Appliances

Identification Technologies

Visualization Tools

Content Inspection

Policy-based Controls

Active Directory and LDAP

Firewall Management Console

Reporting and Logging

VPN

High Availability

Stateful Inspection

Pros

My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Information Technology & Services Company, 501-1000 employees

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Easy to use and understand.
The ability to expand beyond it's base specs is amazing.
The sense of protection you get from looking at the logs just makes you feel more secure.

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Matthew James

Junior Systems Administrator | POS Programming Specialist

AIKG LLCEntertainment, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

These devices don't always take changes without a reboot, which can be hard in a production device.
Cisco is no always clear in how to configure things.
Routing features can be confusing, we even had a consultant a bit confused over setup.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 51-200 employees

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The user interface could use a refresh. It's been a few years.
Not having the ability to use an Open VPN configuration is a little disappointing.
Home license is too restrictive with only 50 IPs.

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Matthew James

Junior Systems Administrator | POS Programming Specialist

AIKG LLCEntertainment, 501-1000 employees

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Usability

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series 8.0

Based on 4 answers

Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.

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Verified User

Team Lead in Information Technology

Financial Services Company, 1001-5000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series 7.8

Based on 16 answers

Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.

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Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology

Government Administration Company, 501-1000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series 7.4

Based on 21 answers

The guarantee is very important and fundamental in technology equipment. And in that, Cisco is one step ahead as it has excellent technical support and a very good SLA level. When we used it, we were served quickly and optimally. For hardware failures, Cisco sends new equipment to the address

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João Mauricio

IT-Support

Grupo BoticárioCosmetics, 5001-10,000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Alternatives Considered

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is a challenger; it still needs improvement to become a leader like Checkpoint or Palo Alto. I installed Palo Alto firewalls, Checkopoint firewalls, and FortiGate, which are much more efficient for now than Cisco Firepower 1000 Series. I also had to work on legacy firewalls like Cisco ASA and SonicWall.Firepower is an improvement of cisco ASA and stills better than meraki but some ASA functions like any-connect are still to improve

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Verified User

Engineer in Engineering

Computer Networking Company, 1001-5000 employees

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No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Hospital & Health Care Company, 51-200 employees

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Positive. We are able to expand our network by using the Flexi Port Modules that are available.
Positive. We are able to boast that our network is more secure than other businesses of the same model.
Negative. The VPN needs to be updated to use OVPN configs and then it would be perfect.
Negative. The home license needs to have the IP restriction removed for folks who work from home and need to access on-site terminals.

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Matthew James

Junior Systems Administrator | POS Programming Specialist

AIKG LLCEntertainment, 501-1000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series Editions & Modules

Edition

Firepower 1000	1,000-5,000¹

per appliance

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Sophos SG Firewall Appliances Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

Sophos SG Firewall Appliances

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

Sophos SG Firewall Appliances

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

Sophos SG Firewall Appliances

Cisco Firepower 1000 Series

Sophos SG Firewall Appliances