We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense 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 very easy to configure."
"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"It is very flexible to use."
"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"pfSense helped us during COVID-19 because we used OpenVPN to connect from home."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"Centralized administration with multiple services, which allows for execution in several important functionalities of information security."
"The GUI is easy to understand."
"I like the connectivity to the open VPN. It's very smooth."
"One of the advantages of pfSense is that it is very easy to work with. It is a very good open-source solution, and it works really well. pfSense provides a complete package. For some features, it could be the first solution in the world. It is a very good alternative in the market for a firewall solution. You don't need to go to Cisco or other brands with expensive firewalls. pfSense also allows us to offer some support services."
"What I like about pfSense is that it works well and runs on an inexpensive appliance."
"For everyday tasks, we just get alerts. It's anything that's suspicious, including from our Netgate. So, it's part of how we maintain cybersecurity in our school. This is working alongside our endpoint security solution."
"The technical support is very good."
"We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the URL filtering by category, DMZ zoning, load balancing and site-to-site VPN."
"The prices are similar to other vendors and the support is good."
"SonicWall has USCS and anti-virus at the gateway level. Everything is filtered, and if it detects an intruder, it drops the line."
"SonicWall NSa has a user-friendly firmware"
"It has good reporting, the reporting is marvelous."
"The most valuable features are that it is reasonably-priced and works well."
"It is a brilliant product. It is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) system. It has got about 11 security services that take care of your perimeter security. It takes care of any kind of cyber threats that could come in. It takes care of creating VPNs between two SonicWalls instantly and very easily. It has got spyware in it as well as a firewall. It has also got a gateway antivirus and an application firewall that can block things from outside."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"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."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"It should provide better visibility over the network and more information in the form of reports for the end users. Its installation should also be easier."
"I've never tried it in large environments. All my clients are small businesses with a handful of employees, so I am not sure how it works in large environments. I keep up with recent versions, and there's nothing I'm waiting for, and nothing breaks when I get a new version."
"In terms of areas of improvement, the interface seemed like it had a lot. The GUI interface that I had gotten into was rather elaborate. I don't know if they could zero in on some markets and potentially for small, medium businesses specifically, give them a stripped-down version of the GUI for pfSense."
"It could use a little bit of improvement in the reporting."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"The integration of pfSense with EPS and EDS could be better. Also, it should be easier to get reports on how many users are connecting simultaneously and how sections connect in real-time."
"It requires more attention to provide a better alternative for open source to small government or educational institutions with reduced budgets in terms of technology."
"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."
"The product must provide integration with other solutions."
"Port forwarding could use streamlining."
"The only thing that we would want would be single-pane management, which it has, but the GMS is not very good. It's purely the management of multiple devices for multiple customers, that's the only thing that it's lacking."
"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."
"I would like U.S.-based technical support."
"It is very modular and with native resources which are much lower than its competitors."
"A room for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the log server because it could be more user-friendly compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks. My company has many rule sets up for review, so sometimes, my team needs to use Excel for filtering, but the UI cannot support the Excel function."
"SonicWall NSa's reporting could be improved."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 77 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. 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 NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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