Sophos vs. Fortinet

 Secure by Design architecture

A firewall shouldn’t just be a security product; it should be secure. Sophos Firewall is secure by design—from the OS (containerized boundaries) and secure admin access to policy health checks and automatic hotfixes (no reboot). Sophos also monitors your appliances, watching for attacks against our customer base.

 Fewer embedded protections

On FortiGate firewalls, critical security updates typically require installing new firmware and rebooting the system. There are fewer built-in tools to help evaluate your configuration. And Fortinet does not monitor the integrity of its appliances across its customer base.

 Includes everything you need

With Xstream Protection for Sophos Firewall, you get a comprehensive set of tools: full-featured cloud management, zero touch deployment, comprehensive reporting (on-box and cloud), and much more.

“With the implementation of Sophos Firewall…we managed to modernize our cybersecurity infrastructure, obtaining a more robust and efficient solution at a significantly lower cost compared to our previous technology.” —Wilbert Pérez Segura, Autonomous, University of Yucatán (UADY)

 Charges extra for many features

Fortinet includes just the basics in its subscriptions and charges extra for everything else. Cloud management? Extra. Advanced reporting? Extra. Zero touch deployment? Extra.

 Single cloud-native console

Sophos Central manages and reports on your Sophos stack —firewalls, switches, APs, endpoint, email, XDR, and more—through one intuitive console.

“The central management and reporting just ran in the background at first, but now I don’t want to — and can’t — do without it.” —Lukas Soltysiak, Jacques’ Wein-Depot

 Multiple consoles, needless complexity

Fortinet requires navigating a maze of different cloud-based tools, virtual appliances, and disparate interfaces.

 Zero-touch deployment included

Sophos Central makes it easy to stage and deploy firewalls remotely. You can drop-ship devices to branch locations and bring them online with cloud-based provisioning and policy management.

 Yet another add-on

Centralized provisioning is supported, but key deployment workflows often depend on additional components and subscriptions—adding cost and complexity.

 HA without extra cost or hassle

Sophos Firewall supports active-passive high availability without a second subscription. You can add a second device when you’re ready and keep operations simple—no separate licensing required.

 HA can add cost and admin overhead

Depending on model and deployment, Fortinet high-availability setups may require additional licensing and planning—making resilience more expensive than expected.

 A tightly integrated system

Sophos Synchronized Security and Active Threat Response seamlessly share data across Sophos endpoint, network, email, and XDR/MDR solutions. The result is faster threat detection, investigation, and response.

“Features like synchronized security, application control, and advanced threat protection work together seamlessly to give complete visibility and protection.” —Technical Engineer at a small information technology and services firm

 Loose threads that require sewing

Fortinet Security Fabric requires additional components and manual configuration to even approximate Sophos’s out-of-the-box functionality.

 Comprehensive managed detection and response

Sophos MDR makes 24x7 security operations accessible to your organization. Our SOC will monitor and respond to your endpoint, network, email, identity, and cloud security threats—even across third-party tools.

 Managed EDR only

Fortinet’s MDR is limited to monitoring only Fortinet’s own endpoint security.