We performed a comparison between pfSense and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: pfSense offers valuable features such as IP address blocking, user-friendly dashboards, scanning and filtering capabilities, stability, customization abilities, and cost-effectiveness. SonicWall TZ provides unified threat management, VPN capabilities, web security, a user-friendly interface, simplicity, stability, performance, content filtering, and additional features.
pfSense users have suggested the need for instructional videos for beginners, a clearer web interface, improved stability, a mobile application, enhanced reporting, and better integration with other solutions. Users of SonicWall TZ have pointed out improvements that are needed in rated throughput, secondary DNS hosting, cloud management, user interface, integration and flexibility, marketing and branding, reporting and licensing, additional ports, affordability and competition, UI application and policy synchronization, technical support and VPN connections, and pricing.
Service and Support: Some users of pfSense have appreciated the technical support, while others have sought help from the online community. SonicWall TZ has garnered both positive and negative feedback. While some customers have found the support to be satisfactory, others have encountered delays and language barriers.
Ease of Deployment: Users generally find the initial setup of pfSense to be straightforward and easy, with a simple installation process. However, they express the need for clearer guidance or a configuration wizard. The initial setup for SonicWall TZ is considered intuitive and not overly complex, with a smooth out-of-the-box process.
Pricing: The cost of setting up pfSense is affordable and requires no extra charges for firmware updates. Opinions on SonicWall TZ's pricing are divided, with some deeming it cost-effective for medium-sized businesses, while others perceive it as pricey and lacking competitiveness.
ROI: pfSense provides a budget-friendly option with a low yearly cost and substantial hardware savings, leading to a considerable ROI. SonicWall TZ is suggested for improved efficacy and is seen as an essential element for safeguarding the network.
Comparison Results: pfSense is the preferred option when comparing it to SonicWall TZ. Users appreciate pfSense's easy-to-use dashboards, its open-source nature, and its capability to block IP addresses. They find it affordable, customizable, and effective in preventing attacks.
"We've found the solution to be pretty stable."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"The technical support in our region is excellent."
"It has improved our security capabilities."
"The product is very stable, easy to troubleshoot, and configure, so it has reduced the time it takes for support."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"Is good at blocking IP addresses."
"The product’s documentation is good."
"It is much simpler than other solutions such as Fortinet."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"We can run it on any hardware."
"The most valuable features are the VPN and the capture photo."
"I find the security we are able to do with the policies to be valuable. The monitoring is valuable as well."
"The solution boasts good performance and is easy to use."
"I have found this solution to be easier to use when compared to other products, such as those offered by Cisco."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly navigation."
"The VPN is quite useful for us, as well as the ATP."
"SonicWall TZ is very user-friendly and has network MAC binding. Additionally, the firewall works well."
"It is very stable with no issues. The firewall's been up for the past 35 days non-stop. It's performed great. It has performed as it should perform."
"The installation is straightforward and took approximately 30 minutes."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability."
"The performance could be a bit better. Right now, I find it to be lacking. Having good performance is very important for our work."
"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license. There must be some of kind synergy between the license so we don't have to pay for every individual license that we would like to have."
"I would suggest that Fortinet add sandboxing to their solution."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"This solution is good for small businesses but it is not as stable as other competitors such as Fortinet."
"The GUI could use more “bells and whistles”. It's got plenty of info for a Sysadmin but some people like shiny things."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"A way to clean squid cache from the GUI."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"It's just not listed as FIPS compliant for where we're at now in government, which is an issue."
"Its reporting can be improved. Currently, we cannot directly get the user names. It only shows the IP, which makes it a bit confusing because we need to use the IP to find the user. If we could directly get the name of the user, it would be better."
"I can't get the support that I need from SonicWall."
"Getting support can be slow."
"The solution should provide some additional ports."
"It would be good if Analyzer would be part of the stock license, so even if a layperson is getting the device, he or she doesn't forgets about ordering the Analyzer because it's already there."
"Its pricing can be better. It is very expensive."
"In general, the company needs to think contingently and integrate more security options."
"FortiGate has a client DNS in the firewall, but SonicWall doesn't have that. To create or configure a site-to-site VPN tunnel, we have to give a DNS name. Currently, we have to get the DNS name from a third party and then include it in SonicWall, whereas FortiGate has its own client DNS, so it provides a DNS name, and it does not require a third party. There should be a graphical option to view the network utilization and bandwidth usage."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. 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 TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Untangle NG Firewall, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa, WatchGuard Firebox and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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Just purchase an anti-spam license and activate it at the SonicWall license portal.
I would like to recommend you SONICWALL HOSTED EMAIL SECURITY ADVANCED. It is more helpful and if you are using Office365 or GSuite, go for SonicWall Cloud App Security.
It is more powerful.
Hi, for SonicWall you buy a license and on the same firewall you can activate the antispam only in the ingress mode.
But there is a catch, at the moment they don't support TLS for SMTP so I would recommend their other solution, that has email security for appliance and virtualized on VMware or Hyper-V.