Sophos Intercept X vs. Windows Server

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Sophos Intercept X
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Sophos 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
Windows Server
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
N/AN/A
Pricing
Sophos Intercept XWindows Server
Editions & Modules
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
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Sophos Intercept XWindows Server
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing is for a 3-year commitment. Government and Education pricing available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Sophos Intercept XWindows Server
Considered Both Products
Sophos Intercept X
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Bitdefender was garbage, and it did not work well for non-persistent VDI desktops.

Even though we bought it we dumped it after a month and bought Sophos instead. The difference was like night and day.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos Intercept X is one of the industry leaders for a reason. Apart from integration issues, Sophos Intercept X stands above the rest when it comes to protection and usability. I have used at least 30 different antiviruses, antimalware, and antiransomeware programs and none …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
They have almost the same features but we ended up with a better offer for Sophos.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos Intercept X offers a far more comprehensive and stable product when pitted up against Comodo Advanced Endpoint Protection and Watchguard Endpoint Security - both of which we offer as low cost alternatives for customers who are adamant about not paying for Sophos …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
I don't feel it's fair to compare Sophos Intercept X with the versions of Symantec and AVG that I have used in the past - as that was such a long time ago. I'm sure those other companies have released far more features than I used all those years ago.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos Intercept X is easy to manage and deploy under your business. I think it is comparable to BitDefend with the ability to send out deployment via email or directly add it to the computer. I have noticed that Bitdefender seems to eat a lot of resources during its scans …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
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 …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
I personally found Sophos Intercept X GUI to be easy to use. The agent is easy to deploy on client machines and runs in the background silently. It has a very good virus, malware scan engine that picks out a high percentage of malicious software. The price was also very …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos is much more user friendly and scalable for partners who wish to [centralize] all security across the IT industry, from email security, server security, phish threat management and more.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
We have used Avast, AVG, Panda, Sophos' original antivirus product, and Symantec before and it is better than each of them. The cloud console is the star of the show and it dramatically reduces the cost and effort needed to install the product. Other products were only …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
It is one of the only products that will scan all code in memory and arbitrary data for malicious behaviors.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
We have been using this product for a number of years, which shows that it has worked well for us. I don't recall the other products we reviewed.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
It provides more features for the same price. These added features differentiate Sophos from the rest of the pack, making it a better solution. Also, the ability to integrate with your Sophos firewall if you have one adds another level of integration and protection. This …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
We didn’t evaluate any other products. I used Sophos at a previous company and when I started here, they were using the on-prem version. We immediately migrated to central and haven’t looked back. I am aware of the competitors, but once you are comfortable with a quality …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos offered better value for money whilst beating the above products on detection and prevention. The GUI is fantastic and easy to use and works seamlessly on top of other features like DLP, application control and web monitoring. I would recommend getting the XG firewall as …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos Intercept-X gave us a more well-rounded solution.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos Intercept X is a little less expensive than the comparable package from Trend Micro and a little more expensive than a comparable package from Symantec, but in my opinion, it's easier to operate and it's got better centralized controls than both of the others. But the …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Trend Micro offered similar protection, however at the time did not offer EDR as a solution. The big benefit to Trend Micro was the capability to push out the installation of the agent to assets within the Trend Micro console, eliminating the need for a GPO or deployment …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos is by far the simplest of the products to setup and going in a very short period of time at a very similar price point. Trend is overly complex and relied on an appliance for each ESX node meaning you lose one appliance and then you lose protection across multiple …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Besides legacy malware protection, Sophos is doing a good job in protecting against ransomware, thanks to their Intercept X and its behavioral analytics that would stop ransomware that was never seen in wild.
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Best in class... PERIOD... Bit Defender is a good AV product by itself, but it lacks in Next Gen Heuristic detection. It has allowed malware to get past it in our client environments, even with Admin permissions restricted. Sophos is hands down a superior product when paired …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
Sophos I feel is a better product upon installation we had a few systems that reported threats that ESET did not catch. Sophos also has multiple other products that we were able to bundle together and still have one interface to do. Intercept X, Endpoint Protection, and …
Chose Sophos Intercept X
In our analysis we discovered that for the price and feature set, Sophos was able to rise above the rest. Pricing is always a large consideration, however it isn't the only consideration - the feature set that Sophos Endpoint Protection provided over its competitors made the …
Windows Server
Chose Windows Server
I find Microsoft Windows Server is a much easier OS to deploy and administer. It does require more resources to run, requires more security updates and overall has a larger footprint. Rebooting the Windows Server takes a much longer time than RHEL for example. An administration …
Chose Windows Server
Windows Server blows any of the Linux flavors I've used out of the water. Even after gaining experience with Linux, I'm able to achieve the same results in Windows Server from a command line much quicker than in Linux simply because Windows Server, especially with the …
Chose Windows Server
Familiar interface thus easy to adopt. Licensing costs are better than other commercial virtualization vendors at least for our hardware/needs.
Chose Windows Server
Windows Server is much easier to work with and it's widely adopted. It have a lot of features and a nice gui.
In the other hand linux systems are more robust and often more secure , but the learning curve and technician needed for it are much higher. Depend on the usage you got …
Chose Windows Server
They are different experiences, and while the other solutions offer enterprise-grade stability and, in some cases, address Windows server shortcomings (such as patching), they all do the trick, but the other solutions require a deeper technical background/configuration of items …
Chose Windows Server
More user friendly and Graphical user interface is extreme compared to linux
Chose Windows Server
It is really all about application support. The only option we really have is Windows Server, and where we can choose we continue to use it for consistency as well as compatibility with the systems where we are forced to use Windows Server).
Chose Windows Server
We've utilized docker and debian for very specific applications and they have been useful - overall Windows Server provides a better package. I would choose VMware ESXi over Windows Server for virtualization as it's far more reliable in our experience. I can't imagine using a …
Chose Windows Server
There are plenty of other server solutions out there which may be better suited for certain tasks, but Windows Server is the way to get a Windows environment going. For simple setups, there are many alternatives, but often there are key features lacking, or a restriction on …
Chose Windows Server
Windows Server is more cost-effective and skills are easier to find to support the products. The deployment and management of the product can be automated with Microsoft SCCM. In my opinion, Linux seems to be more secured but takes more time and effort to learn than Windows …
Chose Windows Server
These are just very different products. They can all have the same functionality but the specific product knowledge with Linux is much higher. This slows down troubleshooting and can leave you with limited options for high end support. There are absolutely good use cases for …
Chose Windows Server
We have been using Microsoft products for the last 15+ years and following are key point for choosing this solution:
  • Trust & reliability of products.
  • Customer support.
Chose Windows Server
I didn't use any other system which gives the same functionality and I am not aware of any. The full integration between all components and especially the ability to integrate mail via Exchange or even via a hybrid setup with the Ofice365 cloud, including the ability to …
Chose Windows Server
For our more experienced users and for simple web apps we will go the RHEL route but with Windows Server such an industry standard the the ease of use of the GUI it just makes more sense for most applications that use it. It also generally has a lot more interoperability …
Chose Windows Server
Linux is great, but support is harder to come by. You also need to pay linux admins more as it is a much smaller group of people that can support it. Windows is the industry standard with the most support available. Going with another platform just didn't seem to make sense …
Chose Windows Server
I have some basic experience using various builds of Linux and have always found myself coming back to Windows. Perhaps after years of working with Microsoft products they all have a similar feel and configuration options. Microsoft products are my typical first choice where …
Chose Windows Server
We have various servers or appliances that run on various flavors of Linux that do their jobs well, but we configure and manage them very lightly at the OS level. Most of the admin on these devices is sone inside the applications themselves. We don't shy away from new …
Chose Windows Server
All the other products I have used in the past OS2 servers, Novell Netware, Banyan Vines etc don't show up in the search list, which i guess goes to show that the best wins.
Chose Windows Server
I have used/administered several servers using systems like Ubuntu, Debian, and CentOS. While these systems are great in their own rights, you are typically using a command-line interface or shell in order to administrate the system. This requires a lot of commands to be …
Chose Windows Server
For our purposes it came down to picking between Windows and Linux and at the end of the day we picked both. We use Windows for 80% of our server needs to run our Web, File, Print, DHCP, Internal DNS, Active Directory, SQL, Web and other windows based servers. We use linux …
Chose Windows Server
Windows Server has become one of the industry standards for providing file and directory services for the majority of users because of the ease with which it interacts with the common desktop OS, as opposed to needing to provide esoteric support for users to be able to work …
Chose Windows Server
About any linux distro can be setup to handle services that a Windows Server can do, except I have not personally found anything nearly as convenient of a replacement for Active Directory, Group Policy, or an RD Gateway. There are alternatives to those services, they just …
Chose Windows Server
Windows Server is by far the easiest server option to get started with because they offer the same kind of interface with windows that most users are already familiar with. Plus, it's the most graphically friendly option, so it is easy to navigate. Lastly, it is the most …
Features
Sophos Intercept XWindows Server
Endpoint Security
Comparison of Endpoint Security features of Product A and Product B
Sophos Intercept X
8.1
Ratings
5% below category average
Windows Server
-
Ratings
Anti-Exploit Technology8.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Centralized Management8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Hybrid Deployment Support8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Infection Remediation7.90 Ratings00 Ratings
Vulnerability Management8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Malware Detection8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Operating System
Comparison of Operating System features of Product A and Product B
Sophos Intercept X
-
Ratings
Windows Server
7.8
Ratings
9% below category average
File Management00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Software Application Management00 Ratings8.00 Ratings
System Update Frequency00 Ratings6.60 Ratings
Operating System Security00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
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User Ratings
Sophos Intercept XWindows Server
Likelihood to Recommend
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
5.5
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.1
(0 ratings)
6.4
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
7.3
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
8.2
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Sophos Intercept XWindows Server
Likelihood to Recommend
Sophos Intercept-X is well suited for any environment big or small. There is even a home version that is free that I highly recommend for anyone at home. If you are looking for endpoint protection that is centrally managed, catches everything, and has many features this is the product for you.
Read full review
Anytime I need a server for something, whether to test a new platform or app, devote a server to hosting something, etc., Windows Server is my go-to choice. Recently I needed a new server to host a web server and web application, so I spun up a Windows Server 2025 VM and was up and running in no time at all.
Read full review
Pros
  • Sophos is a little too good at DLP. But it is indeed very good at not allowing our data to leave our endpoints without strict adherence to policy.
  • Sophos is very good at protecting endpoints against viruses and other malware.
  • Sopho is really good at informing us of what is happening on our endpoints. OOTB reporting is way better than expected.
Read full review
  • Backup of workstations & itself - reliably, consistently, with Bare-Metal Restore and deduplication
  • File management and Security on a per file/folder/user basis is simple and fully done through an easy GUI
  • DNS, DHCP server functions are easy to configure using the built-in GUI
Read full review
Cons
  • The migration from on-prem sophos to cloud sophos, could have been a little more seamless
  • Would love to get more insight on what was blocked or flagged and what it was trying to do
  • Better and more granular feature management from group policies
Read full review
  • Microsoft needs to minimize the update frequency by making the product more secure. It can become very exhausting trying to keep updated if you don't have a dedicated support team. It can become challenging where the business is unable to allow downtime for reboots as part of the update process.
  • Prone to security and audit vulnerabilities.
  • The operating system needs more CPU and memory resources compared to other options such as Linux.
  • Understanding the licensing model can be abit confusing.
  • Comes with a standard firewall, but not the most secured one available. Would suggest using a more secured firewall as part of your antivirus software.
  • Due to the number of vulnerabilities and the operating system being a target for hackers, anti-virus software is a must.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
I've carefully reviewed the servers and services currently running on Windows Server 2012, and given the opportunity would renew them as is going forward. There are two systems I currently have in place, one is a very large Linux implementation for a large ecommerce site, and one is a very large backup solution front ended by FTP servers running Linux. Neither are well suited for Windows, but the overall network infrastructure is and will be Windows Server for the foreseeable future.
Read full review
Usability
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
There are simply too many different parts of Windows Server to make it a cohesive piece of software. While some of the newer features found in Windows Server 2012 and 2016 have nice UIs that are logically laid out, there are enough parts of the system that is still based on old code with clunky UIs and confusing options to make Windows Server a particularly user-friendly experience.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
No answers on this topic
some times server hungs and user sessions were busy to connect
Read full review
Performance
No answers on this topic
need to improve the performance more
Read full review
Support Rating
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.
Read full review
Microsoft's support is hugely wide-ranging from articles online to having to contact them directly for the more serious issues. In recent years when I have contacted them directly, I have found the support o be excellent as I have found myself connected to very knowledgeable people in the field in which I needed the support. The online support available is vast and I tend to find most of the time that there is always someone out there who has had the same issue as me in the past and knows something about how to resolve it! This is the advantage of using industry standard and long-established systems such as Windows Server.
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In-Person Training
No answers on this topic
it was my senior who trained Windows Server features and i was satisfied
Read full review
Online Training
No answers on this topic
it was recorded session and useful
Read full review
Implementation Rating
Best thing was the help pushing out via group policy and was able to get instructions for that on sophos site
Read full review
Make sure that you have detailed processes in place for every server instance you plan to install/upgrade, if possible get the base OS loaded and Windows Updates applied ahead of time, and if using a VM take a snapshot prior to installing each role, as well as along the way.
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Alternatives Considered
I don't feel it's fair to compare Sophos Intercept X with the versions of Symantec and AVG that I have used in the past - as that was such a long time ago. I'm sure those other companies have released far more features than I used all those years ago
Read full review
I find Microsoft Windows Server is a much easier OS to deploy and administer. It does require more resources to run, requires more security updates and overall has a larger footprint. Rebooting the Windows Server takes a much longer time than RHEL for example. An administration task such as expanding a drive in Windows can be very simple, however in RHEL it is not.
Read full review
Scalability
No answers on this topic
yes i completely agree multi deployment
Read full review
Return on Investment
  • Before we had Intercept X, we had several infections of ransomware. Since that time it has stopped at least 10 attempts, saving us thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  • By decreasing the time needed for malware remediation, it has saved us the cost of .25 FTE in the IT department.
  • Initial setup was cumbersome and cost us .1 FTE in additional costs the first year.
Read full review
  • Support for a wide range of applications (compatibility) This is especially valuable.
  • The cost of licensing is significantly higher than that of many competing solutions, which means the justification has to be more complete.
  • The initial environment setup with full organization management provides a complete solution set to get started.
  • Patching/Frequent updates disruptive nature must be accepted.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Sophos Intercept X Screenshots

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