We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and SonicWall NSa 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."There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over."
"The license management is very valuable. You can get a new license each year, or you can enroll every two to four years. You can get the logs, and you will get the information on the risk in your network and the entire organization. With this information, you can take action on your actives, computers, or devices. You can bring your own device as an SSE."
"It's inexpensive compared to some of the other technology out there."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."
"The "OpenVPN Client Export" package is really helpful in exporting the VPN client software on most popular devices: iOS/Android, Windows, Mac, Linux, and a handful of SIP handsets."
"The built-in open VPN and the VPN Client Export are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"The concurrent users are perfect for us."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"The classic features such as content inspection, content protection, and the application-level firewall, are the most important."
"The main features of this solution are customization and ease to use."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"It's very simple to use and the support is great."
"We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the URL filtering by category, DMZ zoning, load balancing and site-to-site VPN."
"The product is working okay. The product is working feature-wise."
"SonicWall's sales support is much better than other vendors'."
"The functionality is the same whether it is on hardware or a virtual appliance. The interface is the same. It's nice that it's standardized."
"Deep packet inspection and intelligent application control are the most valuable features. It is a very updated solution. It is very current as compared to other brands and vendors."
"SonicWall NS has a lot of valuable features. One of the best SonicWall NSa features is the ability to collect mini routers and get only one user connection."
"SonicWall has all the usual functions, like LAN configurations, security features, word filters, etc., but it also has the CFS agent, which isn't available in any other firewall. Reporting port support is also there."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"Palo Alto has a feature called WildFire Analysis that is unavailable in FortiGate. WildFire is better than a sandbox because it can address zero-day threats and vulnerabilities. It can immediately identify zero-day threats from the cloud."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"FortiOS is not simple."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"We would like to see ready-made profiles to cover most users' needs."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"The configuration of the solution is a bit difficult."
"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The integration should be improved."
"It doesn't require much improvement. The only improvement area is that cloud reporting, assessment reporting, and other reporting features should be available with the subscription. They should provide reporting features with the subscription base, which is currently not there. We bought the reporting tool, but there are some complications. They have made some changes to the application, and now the reporting management is completely on the cloud."
"The product has a lot of bugs, actually. We are facing some issues with this product. The DPI SSL feature which is there, it is not working properly."
"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."
"I would like U.S.-based technical support."
"There are a few areas that need improvement including the VPN, user management, and reporting."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"The filter settings are confusing and overly complicated. The user interface can be improved."
"I would like to see better integration."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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