We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and SonicWall NSv based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."
"The most valuable features are that it is very simple to configure and to manage."
"The solution is very, very easy to use."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"The features I've found most valuable are the packet captures and packet traces because they help me debug connections. I like the logs because they help me see what's going on."
"For business purposes, it's a very detailed solution, which is it's greatest benefit, as you can get almost any piece of information you need from the solution. It allows for admins to be able to troubleshoot pretty easily."
"We get the Security Intelligence Feeds refreshed every hour from Talos, which from my understanding is that they're the largest intelligence Security Intelligence Group outside of the government."
"I like that Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is reliable. Support is also good."
"It is a very user-friendly product."
"Ease of configuration: It has gotten a lot easier to configure compared to the original Cisco Pix."
"They provide DDoS protection and multi-factor authentication. That is a good option as it enables work-from-home functionality."
"Since the product is stable, we do not have to spend additional money to buy other firewalls. Once deployed, we can use the product for a long time. Thus, it is cost effective."
"The product helps improve our security."
"The solution has no additional charges and no restrictions on the number of users."
"SonicWall NSV is easy to use, and you can use it to manage the logs easily."
"One of the standout features of SonicWall is its simplicity in creating and managing rules."
"We purchased the AGSS Bundle (Advanced Gateway Security Suite) for the security services, such as antivirus, intrusion prevention system, and anti-spyware botnet GUI."
"The security of this system is fantastic, including the IPS and IDS."
"The customization of firewall rules provides great value to our customers as it allows them to lock things up in the way that they desire. When it is used for internal access, with a VPN in place for remote workers, the firewalling services provided by Azure, such as the default services that can be turned on, are applied. However, the use of a software-based virtual firewall gives us greater flexibility in introducing security controls for customers who are publishing applications that are publicly accessible from the public cloud. This virtual firewall provides an additional layer of security and more extensive security control options to ensure the protection of our customers' valuable information and assets."
"FortiGate support could do some improvements on their IPv6 configuration. Right now it's still in the very early stage for utilizing in an enterprise level network environment."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"I would like to see improvements with the antivirus and IPS as they are not working properly all the time."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more storage in the hardware for log data."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"When we talk about data centers, we are talking about 100 gig capacity or 400 gig capacity. When it comes to active-active solution clustering and resilience and performance, Cisco should look into these a little bit more."
"The use of it has really bogged down our response time for certain problems, given we have to go through AT&T for everything."
"There is huge scope for improvement in URL filtering. The database that they have is not accurate. Their content awareness and categorization for URL filtering are not that great. We faced many challenges with their categorization and content awareness. They should improve these categorization issues."
"When we're looking at full-stack visibility, it can be difficult to get the right information out of Firepower."
"The IPS and GUI are outdated."
"The scalability is a bit limiting, to be honest. In terms of when you look to changing landscape in terms of threats, I think to me, my personal it's a bit limiting."
"Some individuals find the setup and configuration challenging."
"A memory leakage issue which literally freeze the nodes (we have an HA environment). The issue is still not solved and the only recommendation from Cisco is to reboot the node."
"SonicWall NSV's initial setup is complicated and requires good knowledge."
"We face some challenges when we upgrade the solution."
"SonicWall NSV's SSL VPN could increase its number of users to 100-plus users."
"There are limitations to bandwidth management."
"An area that could be improved is the export and import settings functionality."
"It has been brought to our attention by a few customers that they are dissatisfied with the fact that our virtualized service is only offered as a subscription option on the cloud. However, it is worth noting that many other similar services are also offered through a subscription model on the cloud and not through perpetual licensing. It is unclear why these customers would have an issue with this subscription service when so many others are utilizing similar methods."
"I would like to see the reporting opened up and have several more opportunities for automatic reports."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while SonicWall NSv is ranked 35th in Firewalls with 7 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while SonicWall NSv is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSv writes "Easy to use, stable, and the security features work well". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas SonicWall NSv is most compared with Azure Firewall, SonicWall NSa, SonicWall TZ and Fortinet FortiGate-VM. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. SonicWall NSv report.
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