We install plenty and have very little actual issues with them, combined with then endpoint it makes things very easy to see who is doing what with no issues of making users log in manually, syncronised security and XDR is good The XG series got alot of negativity when it was first launched(rightly so in many cases) but since 18.5 and into v19 it's been as well behaved as any other solutions, alot of people stuck in the SG series because it's "easier" but personally i prefer the XG way of ordering things and lots of people who still claim it's terrible haven't touched it since v15/16 Hardware wise we get very little failures and as as the actual hardware is mostly made by caswell and similar it's not just sophos who use them, the last unit that failed just needed it's bios battery reseated for us and it came back to life Answer from JimtheITguy on reddit.com
SOPHOS
sophos.com › en-us › support › downloads › firewall-installers
Firewall Installers | Sophos
Sophos Firewall OS (SF-OS) is the operating system for the Sophos XG Firewall.
SOPHOS
sophos.com › en-us › free-tools › sophos-xg-firewall-home-edition
Free Home Firewall | Home Edition Firewall Tool
NOTE: The Sophos Free Home Use firewall contains its own operating system and will overwrite all data on the computer during the installation process. Therefore, a separate, dedicated computer is needed, which will change into a fully functional ...
Sophos Firewall: Install Sophos Firewall Home on Sophos XG Hardware [Guide]
hell yeah perfect timing, thank you. More on reddit.com
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May 15, 2025Why use Sophos firewalls?
We install plenty and have very little actual issues with them, combined with then endpoint it makes things very easy to see who is doing what with no issues of making users log in manually, syncronised security and XDR is good The XG series got alot of negativity when it was first launched(rightly so in many cases) but since 18.5 and into v19 it's been as well behaved as any other solutions, alot of people stuck in the SG series because it's "easier" but personally i prefer the XG way of ordering things and lots of people who still claim it's terrible haven't touched it since v15/16 Hardware wise we get very little failures and as as the actual hardware is mostly made by caswell and similar it's not just sophos who use them, the last unit that failed just needed it's bios battery reseated for us and it came back to life More on reddit.com
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March 17, 2023Sophos Firewalls gotten better?
We used to deploy sophos about 6 years ago, and still have a couple units out at client sites. Their firewall OS has gotten immensely better over the years however I still prefer fortigate just because you have way more insight and control over the underlying OS via CLI, scripting, etc. That said, sophos is certainly easier to learn and use. Think of it as in between Meraki and fortigate as far as complexity goes. Meraki is simple nearly anyone can use it. Fortigate can be quite complex. Bonus: sophos has a free for home/lab use version with all licensed features unlocked. I'm using that at home currently with no issues. More on reddit.com
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August 1, 2024Sophos Firewall OS as a VM CPU recommendation
Physical versions of the Sophos firewall used Celeron - the higher-end ones might be beefier Core series processors or a flavor of AMD's mobile chips but I run mine on a Windows 10 Pro box, i5-10400. It's actually running as a Hyper-V VM in Windows 10 - I have 4 cores dedicated to it along with 6GB of RAM since that's the limitations of Sophos XG Home. Also running a 4-port Intel network card dedicated to the VM. CPU usage never really goes above 10% and memory usage is under 4GB. It runs circles around the physical boxes I used to work with (XG230, XGS2100) Been stable since implementation in 2021 - the only gripe I have is using Windows 10 it will force restarts when updates process so I delay them as long as I can then process the updates when I have a window for downtime. Rebooting Windows 10 and the VM takes about a minute in total for me. More on reddit.com
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October 21, 2024Videos
17:20
How to Install Sophos XG Firewall in Vmware Workstation | Complete ...
Sophos Firewall: Basic Setup and Registration - Sophos Techvids ...
40:28
Sophos Firewall Home Edition V20 - A Free NGFW for your Homelab ...
33:30
2. Sophos XG Firewall || Downloading ISO Image | Installation & ...
05:27
Sophos Firewall - How It Works - YouTube
12:36
Protect Your Home for Free : Sophos XG Home Router/Firewall - YouTube
SOPHOS
sophos.com › en-us › legal › sophos-firewall
Sophos Firewall | Sophos
SFOS (Sophos Firewall Operating System) is a purpose-built operating system that is the software foundation of Sophos XG firewall. Sophos Firewall’s Xstream architecture protects your network from the latest threats while accelerating your ...
Sophos
docs.sophos.com › nsg › sophos-firewall › 19.0 › Help › en-us › webhelp › onlinehelp
Sophos Firewall help
Sophos Firewall OS v20.0 is now available · Did you know that we released a new version of our Sophos Firewall OS? Why not upgrade now? Release notes · How to upgrade to our latest version · Help changes · What's new in this help · Startup help · Information about the user interface and best practices, as well as step-by-step configuration examples for common scenarios ·
Sophos
news.sophos.com › en-us › 2025 › 10 › 15 › sophos-firewall-v22-is-now-available-in-early-access
Sophos Firewall v22 is now available in early access
October 15, 2025 - New anti-malware engine – Sophos Firewall OS v22 integrates the latest Sophos anti-malware engine with enhanced zero-day real-time detection of emerging threats using global reputation lookups. It takes full advantage of SophosLabs’ massive cloud database of known malicious files, updated every five minutes or less.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/sophos › sophos firewall: install sophos firewall home on sophos xg hardware [guide]
r/sophos on Reddit: Sophos Firewall: Install Sophos Firewall Home on Sophos XG Hardware [Guide]
May 15, 2025 -
This question raises a lot recently, due the EOL (End of Life) of XG Hardware. You can follow the Guide on the Sophos Community to install Sophos Firewall Home on your XG Hardware to reuse the hardware for Home / Community use cases.
https://community.sophos.com/sophos-xg-firewall/f/recommended-reads/149172/sophos-firewall-install-sophos-firewall-home-on-sophos-xg-hardware
SOPHOS
sophos.com › en-us › free-tools › sophos-xg-firewall-home-edition › software
Free Firewall Download: Sophos Home Edition Firewall
Next-gen firewall (NGFW) NDR - Network detection and response · Zero trust network access (ZTNA) Network switches · Wireless access points · Email security · Email security · Email and phishing protection · Employee awareness training · Cloud security · Cloud security · Cloud workload protection · Cloud security posture management (CSPM) Explore managed detection and response with Sophos MDR.
Avanet
avanet.com › home › kb-artikel › sophos firewall › sophos firewall reinstall os
Sophos Firewall Reinstall OS
October 18, 2024 - With these four steps you have reinstalled your Sophos Firewall or installed it on your SG Firewall with the UTM operating system SFOS. Next, you just need to know how to migrate your UTM license for the SFOS.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/sophos › why use sophos firewalls?
r/sophos on Reddit: Why use Sophos firewalls?
March 17, 2023 -
I'm working for an MSP and we're deploying Sophos firewalls. Reasons are the filtering capabilities customers like to have (although I'm not particularly fond of the configuration interface), central management with additional REDs and the bundling of other Sophos products. The firewall market is large though, so what arguments do you bring up when selling or using a Sophos firewall?
Top answer 1 of 11
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I love sophos and i champion them here constantly. So let's set GUI aside (which is fine once you learn it, like most brands) because honestly, i hate all the major players GUIs. Fortinet is a joke, always has been. watchguard was ok, sonicwall ugh. So let's set that over here and just say if you want something with a great gui, it will likely have crap features anyway. You can buy a firewall through distribution without licensing and it will work. By work i mean PTP VPN, SSL user VPN (with MFA and AD integration), it will route and there's on-box reporting which fortinet was without forever if they even have it now it's crazy feature rich if you want to dig into it, even without endpoint integrating into it cloud management is a big deal. that we can make a rule and deploy it across all firewalls is a big deal once you get passed like 5-10 firewalls. Same with firewall config backups, same with centralized alerting and monitoring, mass firmware updates. All that is free with a sophos. the connect flex program makes sense: you can pay monthly for almost any service including firewall subscriptions at whatever level you want and apply it support has been decent, and we had one die and they RMA'd it anyway because we had a cheap subscription on it, they answer when we have questions, etc They have affordable models that will do good throughput. Like one common one we put in small offices is like $550. If an office can't afford a $550 firewall every 5 or more years, can they even be a customer? Bundling that with connect flex means you can take the licensing if they leave but their firewall functions and they own it, you're not in the hole buying like a 2 year subscription i like the hardware even more with the XGS line, good options like dual power supplies on small units, can do failover on them without buying a big one, etc Not that this is only sophos, but i really like the unified OS where i can keep, say, a 125 in stock if someone dies and restore their config to it, even if it's a 116 or a 2300. when there are critical vulnerabilities, they push hotfixes unless you turned that feature off. I don't mean a firmware update, they hotfix that vulnerability for you without any intervention almost instantly. the couple exploits that hit the wild we avoided with no portals web facing but they patched us anyway. you can micromanage what's facing the web. Like, since we use central to manage, we disable the user and admin portal web and internal facing, or you could do just internal facing, etc. Mfa support for admin local login out of the box and for user vpn/login out of the box, even if you don't integrate it with AD or azure or whatever. There's more that i like about them or i just dislike about forti and others, but i feel they're a great choice to build your stack around for small and medium-large businesses, even if you don't want to turn on the more advanced features. Good for your most security checkbox needs customer and good for your 4 person no security needs customer. Also ZTNA looks promising and while that doesn't matter about the firewall now, i've heard that the firewall will be the ZTNA endpoint vs a VM behind it in the future, so that's exciting. There's some hot things to do with MDR and data lake and stuff to. Out of 1-10, we're probably a 7 on our sophos skills, i'm sure someone is SUPER deep into them and doing a lot more intense things. I just want a solid, reliable router that has features on tap if needed to check boxes or secure things, from a reliable company, that i can deploy to all customers without needing to support like a cheap brand or ultra brand at the same time.
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We install plenty and have very little actual issues with them, combined with then endpoint it makes things very easy to see who is doing what with no issues of making users log in manually, syncronised security and XDR is good The XG series got alot of negativity when it was first launched(rightly so in many cases) but since 18.5 and into v19 it's been as well behaved as any other solutions, alot of people stuck in the SG series because it's "easier" but personally i prefer the XG way of ordering things and lots of people who still claim it's terrible haven't touched it since v15/16 Hardware wise we get very little failures and as as the actual hardware is mostly made by caswell and similar it's not just sophos who use them, the last unit that failed just needed it's bios battery reseated for us and it came back to life
Sophos
community.sophos.com › sophos-xg-firewall › b › blog › posts › sophos-firewall-os-v21-mr1-is-now-available
Sophos Firewall OS v21 MR1 is Now Available
February 18, 2025 - Important note about SSL VPN compatibility for 20.0 MR1 with EoL SFOS versions and UTM9 OS.
Sophos
docs.sophos.com › central › customer › help › en-us › LicensingGuide › FirewallLicenses › SFOSLicensingModel › index.html
Sophos Firewall OS (SFOS) licensing model - Sophos Central Admin
March 31, 2025 - SFOS includes a base license, which is required for all hardware and virtual firewalls. You can also purchase additional features as subscriptions. You can purchase these subscriptions individually or as bundles. Some bundles include hardware or virtual appliances, and other bundles contain subscriptions only. For more information, see Sophos Firewall: Licensing.
SOPHOS
sophos.com › en-us › products › next-gen-firewall
Consolidate Your Security with Sophos Firewall
Sophos Next-Gen Firewall. Integration with Sophos MDR and Sophos XDR, Comprehensive SD-WAN Capabilities, Support for SSE/SASE Portfolio, Cloud Management and Built in ZTNA.
Sophos
community.sophos.com › sophos-xg-firewall › b › blog › posts › sophos-firewall-os-v21-mr2-is-now-available
Sophos Firewall OS v21 MR2 is Now Available
August 13, 2025 - Important note about SSL VPN compatibility for 20.0 MR1 with EoL SFOS versions and UTM9 OS.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/networking › sophos firewalls gotten better?
r/networking on Reddit: Sophos Firewalls gotten better?
August 1, 2024 -
I see a few posts about Sophos vs (any other vendor) in the firewall department. Most of those posts are 3+ years old if not more. Just wondering if people still view Sophos as a "stay far away" or if they've gotten a lot better. We're a Fortigate shop but have been unimpressed by zero days and the cloud portal functionality and a few other things. TIA!
Top answer 1 of 28
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We used to deploy sophos about 6 years ago, and still have a couple units out at client sites. Their firewall OS has gotten immensely better over the years however I still prefer fortigate just because you have way more insight and control over the underlying OS via CLI, scripting, etc. That said, sophos is certainly easier to learn and use. Think of it as in between Meraki and fortigate as far as complexity goes. Meraki is simple nearly anyone can use it. Fortigate can be quite complex. Bonus: sophos has a free for home/lab use version with all licensed features unlocked. I'm using that at home currently with no issues.
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Most of the recent Fortinet zero days have been SSL VPN, if you remove that you're left with a platform that hasn't had any major issues recently. Just disable SSL VPN.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/sophos › sophos firewall os as a vm cpu recommendation
r/sophos on Reddit: Sophos Firewall OS as a VM CPU recommendation
October 21, 2024 -
Hi Everyone,
I need to build a sophos firewall running as a VM on a host like Hyper-V for scalability reasons and I want to know which CPU brand is recommended eg Intel Xeon Gold or AMD Epyc.
We will be using almost all the features from the Xtreme Protection including SSL/TLS decryption except WAF so the firewall will be busy.
There will also be a lot of networks/Zones connected.
I need to find a CPU that will perform the best and it seems the AMD Epyc will he the CPU of choice as it provides higher clock speeds and cache if I compare like for like
So if anyone has recommendations or can point me in the right direction, it will be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Top answer 1 of 2
1
Physical versions of the Sophos firewall used Celeron - the higher-end ones might be beefier Core series processors or a flavor of AMD's mobile chips but I run mine on a Windows 10 Pro box, i5-10400. It's actually running as a Hyper-V VM in Windows 10 - I have 4 cores dedicated to it along with 6GB of RAM since that's the limitations of Sophos XG Home. Also running a 4-port Intel network card dedicated to the VM. CPU usage never really goes above 10% and memory usage is under 4GB. It runs circles around the physical boxes I used to work with (XG230, XGS2100) Been stable since implementation in 2021 - the only gripe I have is using Windows 10 it will force restarts when updates process so I delay them as long as I can then process the updates when I have a window for downtime. Rebooting Windows 10 and the VM takes about a minute in total for me.
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The current generation of firewalls are AMD based, but if your going virtual you are going to miss out on alot of the benefits of the physical device, what size are you expecting to license? Going for clock speed over core count will get the the most benefits and be more cost effective
Sophos
community.sophos.com › sophos-xg-firewall › b › blog
Release Notes & News - Sophos Firewall
Important note about SSL VPN compatibility for 20.0 MR1 with EoL SFOS versions and UTM9 OS.
Reddit
reddit.com › r/sophos › sophos firewall home edition questions
r/sophos on Reddit: Sophos Firewall Home Edition questions
February 6, 2023 -
Hello. I am interested in Sophos for home use and I have some questions.
Can the home edition use more than 2 network interfaces?
Is the home edition limited in what network inteface chips/cards it can use?
Is there a way around the 4 core & 6 gig limitation as I would like to use a more robust system?
What anti-virus engine does it use?
Can one buy a used Sophos appliance and install the Firewall Home edition onto it?
Is the home edition a full blown software solution that would be as powerful as if one were to purchase an appliance that came with the software for business?
Anything else you can tell me would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Top answer 1 of 5
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the 4 core and 6GB ram is enough for home use. Using old box (i5 5500U 2 core) and 6GB ram can handle 1gbps connection without any issues (with all those filtering thing). I use sophos xg home to filter and schedule my kids online activity (it was really useful during lock down period). The DPI is really good.
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Been using the software since 3-4 years now. Earlier, we were not able to take backup and restore, in case of reinstallation. But, now, it works well.
Sophos
docs.sophos.com › nsg › sophos-firewall › 19.5 › Help › en-us › webhelp › onlinehelp › VirtualAndSoftwareAppliancesHelp › SoftwareAppliance › SoftAppWindowsInstall
Install Sophos Firewall on Windows
Sophos Firewall OS 22.0 GA · Read news about the latest features · Release notes · Setting up the firewall for the first time? Startup help · Watch Basic Setup and Registration · Migrate XG to XGS Series appliances · Migration center · ...
eSecurity Planet
esecurityplanet.com › home › products
Sophos XG Review: Overview, Pros, Cons & Features
July 22, 2024 - ... Sophos’ XGS Series has three different categories, with multiple firewall models in each: XGS Desktop, XGS 1U, and XGS 2U. Look at the Desktop models for your smallest business firewalls, the 1U models for your mid-sized needs, and 2U ...
EnterpriseAV
enterpriseav.com › xg-firewall-products.asp
Sophos XG Firewall Products | EnterpriseAV.com
The next thing in next-gen: Ultimate enterprise firewall performance, security, and control. The all-new Sophos Firewall OS integrates all the advanced networking, protection, user, and app controls you need to stay secure and compliant.