We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks PA-Series 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."Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"The initial installation is very straightforward."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The solution has a three-layer architecture, and it helps customers to deploy the solution quickly."
"The solution provides good customer support."
"It is a scalable solution."
"The reporting feature and application ID functionality within Palo Alto Networks PA-Series are incredibly valuable to us."
"The tool's most valuable feature is WildFire."
"App-ID is a really good feature."
"The product's most valuable feature is web filtering."
"It is stable when you set up something and put it into production. Once it works, you don't have other tasks or actions to perform."
"It allows us to block applications, i.e., websites by application type category. It is far more capable than content filtering alone."
"This product has kept us safe and we haven't had any breaches."
"Easy to setup and implement"
"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."
"SonicWall NSA is easy to deploy, easy to maintain, and easy to configure."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the control aspect of the solution."
"The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites."
"Compared to Cisco, SonicWall NSa is much easier to configure."
"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."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by having more capabilities for troubleshooting VPN connections. For example, I do get some feedback about the current status, but I could use some history and logging of important events. The information is logged in our Syslog server, but I could use that information from the device. If they could provide a GUI to have some more insight on what's going with my VPN would be useful."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"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."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"The SD-WAN feature of Palo Alto Networks is not good compared to FortiGate."
"Compared to other vendors, the solution's community should be strong enough to solve the problems engineers face."
"I encountered a slight issue with the application portal, which was not functioning correctly."
"The product's gateway services can be improved."
"There are constant updates for the operating system. It is a nice thing also, but it has its own disadvantages. Continuous updates are there. The users face issues like, how often do I need to update that? Within a period of five months, I'm updating it two or three times. It gives them a feeling that they are not confident about their product and have to update it so frequently."
"The interface is complex."
"Currently, they are not protected with any data security when they work from home or outside the network. They surf the Internet directly and should implement a proxy or firewall to monitor the data between the endpoint and the internet."
"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"It only has a single power interface, which has limitations in terms of high availability."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"We have security as a service, and they make recommendations about adding to the denylist and other things. That part could be more accessible and more user-friendly. I'd like to see SonicWall add a user-friendly interface where our internal team can drag and drop everything."
"The logging, reporting, and storage capacity size could improve in a future release."
"The filter settings are confusing and overly complicated. The user interface can be improved."
"The product must enable integration with endpoint protection tools."
"The cost could be lower. There could also be more flexibility for smaller companies."
"Sometimes I found the GUI and some of the features a little bit hard to navigate, as opposed to Fortigate, which is much more user-friendly."
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is ranked 16th in Firewalls with 28 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is rated 8.6, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series writes "Offers trained customer support, stability and ease of use ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Juniper SRX Series Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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