Cisco Umbrella vs. Sophos XG Firewall

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Umbrella
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Cisco now offers OpenDNS Umbrella Web Filtering. Cisco acquired OpenDNS in August 2015, and rebranded the product as Cisco Umbrella.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 UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Considered Both Products
Cisco Umbrella

No answer on this topic

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 UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Umbrella
-
Ratings
Sophos XG Firewall
7.3
10 Ratings
15% below category average
Identification Technologies00 Ratings6.310 Ratings
Visualization Tools00 Ratings6.710 Ratings
Content Inspection00 Ratings6.310 Ratings
Policy-based Controls00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP00 Ratings7.39 Ratings
Firewall Management Console00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Reporting and Logging00 Ratings7.010 Ratings
VPN00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
High Availability00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Stateful Inspection00 Ratings6.710 Ratings
Proxy Server00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Small Businesses

No answers on this topic

pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies

No answers on this topic

pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises

No answers on this topic

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 UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(90 ratings)
6.7
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.7
(7 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Availability
9.5
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(62 ratings)
9.1
(2 ratings)
Online Training
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.6
(9 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.4
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco UmbrellaSophos XG Firewall
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
So the well-suited product, it's actually in two areas. One I already touched base on earlier which is the ability to have a federal model where we have the flexibility to set high-level policies from a group perspective while giving the independence of the business unit to operate and model the system to meet their needs. The second one, which is very powerful, especially in the last few years, is the remote workers. I'm able to protect and extend that edge of my security to their endpoint regardless if they are a Cisco Live or if they are at a bar or on a train basically anywhere. So as a chemical company, we have a lot of OT or ICS industrial control systems, which are highly regulated and highly scrutinized and usually require a physical presence while Cisco umbrella is mostly a cloud native type of product. So it doesn't fit well in that environment, which is detached from the internet doing well.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Pros
Cisco
  • Effective prevention of ransomware and malware by blocking CNC traffic. rendering the malware useless.
  • Good reports, which are readable by non technical users
  • Using Talos for its threat database means that it rarely misses anything
  • Very good knowledgebase available which means that it is easy to learn how to use and implement the product
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Cons
Cisco
  • Umbrella Virtual Appliances have been buggy in resolving local domain hosts.
  • Integration between other Cisco and Meraki products is complicated.
  • Reporting is not always accurate; for example, if you configure a Meraki access point to use an Umbrella Virtual Appliance, you lose device reporting. All reporting shows up under the AP's IP.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
First off I never give anything a "10" unless it's perfect. LOL - I grade on the curve. I think OpenDNS/Umbrella is a very good product. I think that fact that Cisco absorbed them is one of the proofs of that. I have used the product back when it was free for companies our size. I have not always appreciated the cost - but in the post pandemic cyber chaos, I believe the cost benefit ratio is still very high. I have honestly not looked at other products because Umbrella continues to work to my satisfaction. I consider Umbrella to be one of the key layers in my cyber security strategy.
Read full review
Sophos
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
Better features and easy to manage system with great customer support and overall usability is great as it works for hybrid environment with ease as it is having features for on prem users as wells as cloud users with great customer support and great team of trained engineers to support our opeartions.
Read full review
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
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Cisco Umbrella's availability was great, they got back to me in less than an hour to get my problem solved.
We needed to get our Meraki AP's hooked up to Cisco Umbrella to monitor that specific traffic and they got back to me promptly, they guided me and explained every question I had.
Read full review
Sophos
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
our experience with cisco products has always been awesome and same is the case with cisco umbrella .Under umbrella cisco provides flexible and scalable software solution to use across different dept and sites . These softwares are very user friendly ,pages load quickly as these applications are designed for minimum latency and reports are also provided quickely
Read full review
Sophos
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
We have not had a chance to use Cisco support frequently, but when we needed to troubleshoot some issues that we were having with the agent installation, the support was very responsive and the solution that they offered worked. The only reason I give it one less point is that the turnaround time for non-critical issues is very long.
Read full review
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.
Read full review
Online Training
Cisco
Quite easy to understand training modules prepared by knowledgeable trainers. Training modules have included all the desired features of these softwares and the content delivery is very good from the respective module trainers and it explains in details the features and apart from that further training material support is also provided if needed.
Read full review
Sophos
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Cisco
At the time we were forced to move from Cloud Web Security to Cisco Umbrella, Cisco Umbrella was far from being a direct replacement. It was frustrating and difficult to migrate due to the lack of functionality. This has since been addressed, however we now have legacy rulesets that were built as bandaids that cannot be removed. Hopefully the migration to Secure Access will address this.
Read full review
Sophos
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Auto SIG Tunnels is a feature that helps in provisioning tunnels automatically using Cisco Umbrella APIs and so this is one win for choosing Cisco Umbrella over others. With Cisco SD-WAN viptela, the Cisco Umbrella stacks up well because its the same vendor so less complexities and interoperability issues.
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.
Read full review
Scalability
Cisco
Cisco umbrella provides fleaxible and scalable software solutions which are easy deploy across multiple departments and sites wherever needed and this softwares are very easy to use and provides the best interface along with cisco support for other devices apart from cisco infrastructure but still there is scope for improvement on the inclusion of latest features
Read full review
Sophos
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Cisco
  • Cisco Umbrella has been an excellent investment for us. The extra protection it provides in a very simple way has been well worth the costs.
  • Cisco Umbrella is very easy to setup and manage and can do most of the things we need with little daily interaction so we are free to work on other systems that need more attention.
  • Utilizing the Cisco Umbrella reporting features, we can determine what systems might need additional attention. If we see systems attempting certain types of access, we quickly know there is likely something on the device that probably needs removed.
  • Specific Cisco Umbrella reports can help us determine if we need to do user education and develop cyber habits.
Read full review
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