We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate vs SonicWall NSa based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate has the winning edge in this comparison. Customers are more satisfied with Fortinet FortiGate’s scalability, robust features, and ROI.
"The solution is easy to configure and maintain remotely."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"The solution can scale well."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The scalability is good in Fortinet FortiGate."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"We have not found any vulnerabilities since implementing the solution."
"SonicWall's sales support is much better than other vendors'."
"The antivirus and items of that nature were quite helpful to have."
"With the deployment of the SonicWall NSA solution, we never suffered a problem due to invasion or contamination of any kind."
"One of the main features is the built-in storage capacity."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the control aspect of the solution."
"User-friendly with good security and application control."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."
"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"Its price could be better."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us."
"Potential improvement around the associated VPN cost"
"I would like to have a built-in vulnerability scanner in the firewall. It would be great to have such functionality. Its price could also be better. It would also be good to have a local warehouse. It doesn't get damaged a lot, but if a customer needs a replacement, currently, it has to come from Miami or Mexico, which can take a few days. It would be better if they have a local warehouse from where we can just pick replacements and quickly solve a client's needs in terms of replacing equipment. It would be great to have it locally instead of waiting for it from Mexico or the USA."
"The thing main thing is that there's no user admin and in other firewalls, we can enable the scalable features, but SonicWall doesn't have that feature."
"The problem primarily with SonicWall is it's a Unix box. And it's all software, all the activities, blocking, censoring, everything has to happen in the software. If you start hitting the box with a lot of sessions it slows down and that's not what I expect from a firewall."
"A room for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the log server because it could be more user-friendly compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks. My company has many rule sets up for review, so sometimes, my team needs to use Excel for filtering, but the UI cannot support the Excel function."
"This product is unable to secure access to endpoints for our external employees."
"Overall, Im satisfied with SonicWall NSa, but it would be better if they could add a small terminal to each device. This would help me deal with certain issues by running a small bot onto any PC."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Palo Alto Networks WildFire, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.