We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM 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."It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"The simplicity of the product is great. It's very easy to use, which is a compliment we get all the time in terms of feedback."
"The most important features of Fortinet FortiGate are the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) and firewall control applications."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."
"We use a southern institution that's audited for IT security and the reporting that automatically comes off the unit makes it much easier to meet compliance standards and makes it easier as far as the amount of time that has to be spent to compile that information. If you get your reporting set up correctly when you initially set it up, you just select the one you want and hit print. The auditing trail on it is the best feature."
"The solution is very secure, and its technical support is on point."
"The policies are very valuable. They allow me to secure and manage future traffic effectively."
"The most valuable features are the SD-WAN and the web filtering applications control."
"The dashboards are a good feature."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the integration within the environment, with centralized reporting."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the ease of use, IPS system, application filter, web filtering, and email security. Additionally, there is a migration tool that other vendors do not provide. We only need to upload the configuration file to the tool, and it converts everything, except the passwords, and gives us the new configuration, which we can directly upload on the firewall. This migration process takes a maximum of 15 minutes."
"Good for the servers and can stop network attacks, including spam."
"The most valuable feature I've found is VPN and web protection, particularly with navigation assessment. We use the application control feature to create rules controlling specific application navigation."
"I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays."
"One of the main features is the built-in storage capacity."
"The most valuable feature is the Global Management System."
"The most valuable features to us are the security services which is a critical factor in our deployment. Today we need to have all the security services enabled because firewalls are not enough."
"The solution can scale."
"I like this solution because we are focused on VPN and have many brands that need to link a VPN and have security, like ransomware, spyware, and basic protection."
"The most valuable features of this solution are intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, and the advanced capture client, which provides live traffic analysis."
"Fortinet already improved FortiGate, but in the current market, many brands of security devices have improved together. Fortinet still needs to catch up with market standards. Fortinet is lacking in features in comparison to competitors."
"They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"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."
"Fortinet could improve the availability and delivery of its products. It takes four to six weeks for every purchase to arrive."
"The key activation is very complicated at times."
"FortiGate-VM could be improved by making it cloud-based. I'd like it to be a cloud-based management solution instead of just a dedicated management orchestration tool."
"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."
"We have had some stability issues."
"One thing that can be better is added automation. And, on top of that, enhanced security when it comes to the automation itself."
"It is difficult to size the VM in terms of machine resources, and for this reason, clients prefer the appliance."
"FortiGate's application load balancing has to be improved. They need to improve a lot on the load balancing and RAF side. They are far behind Citrix in that regard."
"The dynamics needs to be improved. The solution is not very compatible compared to the market products."
"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."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"An area for improvement would be SonicWall NSa's integration with antiviruses."
"The features I would like to see improve are the dashboard and the UI."
"The user interface could be better."
"The reporting feature could be better because most of the companies want to have the analytics included, which is something that you have to buy separately."
"It is very modular and with native resources which are much lower than its competitors."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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