Sophos XG Firewall beats out Fortinet, Dell SonicWall and others in performance tests

Miercom, a leading, independent test center, recently conducted a comparative test of UTM/Next-Gen Firewall appliances from leading network security vendors including Sophos, Fortinet, Check Point, Dell SonicWALL and WatchGuard.

Miercom ran an extensive set of tests, including raw firewall throughput at a variety of real-world packet sizes. We were pleased with the results, as our XG 135w outperformed similar competing models in all tests by a significant margin. (See comparison chart below)

The Sophos XG 135w set its baseline throughput with firewall enabled at 6560 Mbps, 67.7% more than the competing vendor average.

Miercom also measured performance under real-world conditions, with a variety of important security features enabled such as IPS, application control, antivirus and IPS. The Sophos XG 135w ranked tops in every test, including the most demanding with all security features enabled:

In full UTM mode, the Sophos XG 135w claims the highest performance rate. Its throughput surpasses the competitive performance by 31.3%.

With modern web applications placing increasing demands on firewall connection limits, Miercom also ran a series of demanding connection tests, which are ideal for revealing performance bottlenecks imposed by inadequate RAM and processing speed.

Again, the Sophos XG 135w proves it offers outstanding value – with its high-performance Intel multi-core technology and generous amounts of RAM – providing an order-of-magnitude advantage over competing Firewalls. (See chart below)

The Sophos XG 135w baseline maximum CCPS was 88.5% higher than the competitor average. Its UTM maximum decreased by 10,000 CCPS and was 92% higher than the average. Its concurrent connection rate was extremely high but also had a fairly insignificant decrease when all UTM features were applied.

The bottom line

We couldn’t be more pleased with the results of this comparative testing. But honestly, we’re not that surprised.

We’ve engineered our XG and SG Series appliances to offer the ultimate in state-of-the-art performance, with features other vendors just don’t offer – like high-performance Intel multi-core CPUs, ample RAM, and solid-state storage. Plus we offer the best value and ease-of-use in the industry.

Quite simply, Sophos offers the best price-performance ratio out there, and it’s nice to see Miercom’s testing support that.

Download the Miercom report for full details and results from all their testing.