We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and SonicWall NSv 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."I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"The ability to set up remote systems is the most valuable feature."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"I like Fortinet's cloud management. It allows me to manage all my devices in different branches for three cloud accounts. Even though I use on-prem devices, I can manage everything on the cloud."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"ASA is stable and with a low level of work required on the maintenance side."
"Signature-based detection; user-defined signatures with regular expressions; integrated URL and content filtering; custom URL categories filtering."
"On the network side, where you create your rules for allowing traffic — what can come inside and what can go out — that works perfectly, if you know what you want to achieve. It protects you."
"The IPS (In-plane switching) is the most valuable feature."
"It has definitely improved our organization. It gives us remote connectivity, helps workers connect remotely, and also gives us good connectivity to our other branches."
"I would say the Firepower module is most valuable. I'm trying more to transition to this kind firewall. I had to study a little on Palo Alto Networks equipment. There is a lot I have to learn about the difference."
"I like the user interface because the navigation is very easy, straightforward on your left side pane you have all the sites that you need to browse. Unlike any other firewalls, it's pretty straightforward."
"One of the most valuable features is the GUI front end, which is very easy to use. But I'm also a command-line guy, and being able to access the device via command-line for advanced troubleshooting is quite important."
"SonicWall NSV is easy to use, and you can use it to manage the logs easily."
"The product helps improve our security."
"The security of this system is fantastic, including the IPS and IDS."
"We purchased the AGSS Bundle (Advanced Gateway Security Suite) for the security services, such as antivirus, intrusion prevention system, and anti-spyware botnet GUI."
"The solution has no additional charges and no restrictions on the number of users."
"The customization of firewall rules provides great value to our customers as it allows them to lock things up in the way that they desire. When it is used for internal access, with a VPN in place for remote workers, the firewalling services provided by Azure, such as the default services that can be turned on, are applied. However, the use of a software-based virtual firewall gives us greater flexibility in introducing security controls for customers who are publishing applications that are publicly accessible from the public cloud. This virtual firewall provides an additional layer of security and more extensive security control options to ensure the protection of our customers' valuable information and assets."
"One of the standout features of SonicWall is its simplicity in creating and managing rules."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"Fortinet Fortigate could benefit by simplifying some of their processes."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."
"The improvement is related to logs. Instead of the CLI, we should be able to have more insights into the logs of the firewall in the GUI."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"The cloud features and integration could be improved."
"The IPS module is combined with the main operating system."
"The stability could be better because we have a lot of issues with the stability of Cisco Firepower."
"The ASAs are being replaced with the new Firepowers and they have a different type of structure in the configuration to be able to migrate from one to the other."
"In a future release, it would be ideal if they could offer an open interface to other security products so that we could easily connect to our own open industry standard."
"Some of the features, like the stability, need to be improved."
"The user interface isn't as good as it could be. They should work to improve it. It would make it easier for customer management if it was easier to use."
"We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI."
"The cloud does not precisely mimic what is on-premises."
"SonicWall NSV's SSL VPN could increase its number of users to 100-plus users."
"I would like to see the reporting opened up and have several more opportunities for automatic reports."
"SonicWall NSV's initial setup is complicated and requires good knowledge."
"We face some challenges when we upgrade the solution."
"There are limitations to bandwidth management."
"It has been brought to our attention by a few customers that they are dissatisfied with the fact that our virtualized service is only offered as a subscription option on the cloud. However, it is worth noting that many other similar services are also offered through a subscription model on the cloud and not through perpetual licensing. It is unclear why these customers would have an issue with this subscription service when so many others are utilizing similar methods."
"An area that could be improved is the export and import settings functionality."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while SonicWall NSv is ranked 35th in Firewalls with 7 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while SonicWall NSv is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSv writes "Easy to use, stable, and the security features work well". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas SonicWall NSv is most compared with Azure Firewall, SonicWall NSa, SonicWall TZ and Fortinet FortiGate-VM. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. SonicWall NSv report.
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