We performed a comparison between OPNsense 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."The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"We can detect any attack of viruses or malware at the first point of contact."
"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."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"URL blocking, Wireguard, Tail Scale, Engine Blocker, and VPN are the most valuable features for me."
"It has firewall and VPN capabilities, which are very valuable features."
"OPNsense is easy to scale when running on the hardware."
"The most valuable features are reporting, the Sensei plugin, and firewall capabilities."
"The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility."
"It's more secure and more reliable."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"We can open a new VPN connection easily. It's much easier than with Fortinet in our experience."
"User-friendly with good security and application control."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the firewalling, which is very good and the GUI which is very intuitive. It is easy to use, and provides great security."
"SonicWall's sales support is much better than other vendors'."
"The features I found most valuable are email security and web filtering."
"Compared to Cisco, SonicWall NSa is much easier to configure."
"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."
"It has excellent stability."
"I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"In the balance between links feature normally you can just choose one option to balance. It would be better for the solution to have more than one option, preferably three."
"I would like Fortinet to add more automation to FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the protection, it did not prevent us from being attacked. Additionally, Fortinet FortiGate could provide more features for WAF devices. I should not have to purchase two solutions, it would be a benefit to combine these features into one solution."
"Application management can be improved."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"We did not like the fact that you have to configure everything with the graphic user interface. We have used other firewalls, such as FortiGate, that you can configure via code. OPNsense is not easy to integrate. When you are deploying via GitHub or another source repository, this is not possible. That's one thing we didn't like much."
"When using the solution at the beginning was difficult. There was a steep learning curve."
"There are issues with stability and reliability."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"The solution could be more secure."
"OPNsense could improve by making the configuration more web-based rather than shell or command-line-based."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"The dynamics needs to be improved. The solution is not very compatible compared to the market products."
"It only has a single power interface, which has limitations in terms of high availability."
"I would like U.S.-based technical support."
"We also need to increase the throughput because the other devices are slower. The throughput will become slow. Since we're using VoIP, it tends to affect the voice quality. Even if you're using a quality service, it tends to decrease."
"Competitors provide SSL encryption licenses for free, whereas SonicWall only provides two licenses by default, but you have to pay for the rest of the licenses."
"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."
"Some of the configurations could be better."
"Needs a more detailed reporting feature."
OPNsense is ranked 3rd in Firewalls with 36 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. OPNsense is rated 8.4, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of OPNsense writes "Robust network security and management offering a user-friendly interface, open-source flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, with challenges regarding initial setup and the absence of official support". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". OPNsense is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, Untangle NG Firewall, Sophos UTM and IPFire, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Check Point NGFW. See our OPNsense vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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