We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS and SonicWall TZ 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."This is an easy solution to deploy."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"The inspection and web security features are most valuable."
"FortiGate firewalls are user-friendly, and I like the security profiling features."
"Offers good security and filtering."
"The solution is very user-friendly."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"Allows for firewall rules to be programmed and named in a way that makes it “readable”"
"The stability of Fortinet FortiOS is great."
"FortiOS's most valuable feature is a next-generation firewall that can be used as the APT solution in advanced threat protection."
"It's easy to use."
"The SSL VPN is fee for use is most attractive."
"I have found the most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS is the low maintenance."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiOS network segregation, UTM, and antivirus, freight management protection, such as DDoS. Additionally, the CLI and the GUI are easy to use. The architecture makes sense, and the command in the CLI are organized well. They have quite a lot of features are easy to use, and are user-friendly. Any novice can use Fortinet FortiOS without an issue."
"All of the features in this solution are effective and efficient."
"The solution provides good firewall and antivirus protection."
"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."
"Good site categorization and application controls."
"From our point of view, the most valuable feature was the ease of deployment."
"The stability is very nice."
"User-friendly firewall solution which scales well, is stable, and has high availability."
"I find the security we are able to do with the policies to be valuable. The monitoring is valuable as well."
"It is a scalable solution."
"Content filtering and application rules are the most valuable features. It is also easy to configure."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself."
"The process of configuring firewall rules appears excessively complex."
"It needs more available central management."
"Its price could be better."
"FortiLink is the interface on the firewall that allows you to extend switch management across all of your switches in the network. The problem with it is that you can't use multiple interfaces unless you set them up in a lag. Only then you can run them. So, it forces you to use a core type of switch to propagate that management out to the rest of the switches, and then it is running the case at 200. It leaves you with 18 ports on the firewall because it is also a layer-three router that could also be used as a switch, but as soon as you do that, you can't really use them. They could do a little bit more clean up in the way the stacking interface works. Some use cases and the documentation on the FortiLink checking interface are a little outdated. I can find stuff on version 5 or more, but it is hard to find information on some of the newer firmware. The biggest thing I would like to see is some improvement in the switch management feature. I would like to be able to relegate some of the ports, which are on the firewall itself, to act as a switch to take advantage of those ports. Some of these firewalls have clarity ports on them. If I can use those, it would mean that I need to buy two less switches, which saves time. I get why they don't, but I would still like to see it because it would save a little bit of space in the server rack."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"The reporting and monitoring could improve, they have a lot of limitations. The monitoring is not easy compared to the other firewall."
"Lacks flexibility for different scenario configurations."
"The solution could improve by making the dashboard easier to use."
"Their technical support needs improvement."
"You can enable and disable certain modules in it. However, with disabling, nobody can really tell us if that module is disabled."
"Technical support could be better. Some competitors have much more responsive support teams."
"The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall."
"The support could be improved, Fortinet's response time is very slow. Setting up the VPN could be made much easier, especially when deployed with Azure."
"The areas we would like to see improvement include more features available similar to the equivalent FortiGate appliance, e.g. SSL encryption and inspection. Two-factor authentication capability would be another additional feature that could be included in the next release."
"An additional feature that I would like to see is reporting that includes metrics to give me more information about the number of viruses that it has actually detected and interrupted."
"We require centralized monitoring of the network features, which they have but they are not to the level that we require."
"In an upcoming release, SonicWall could improve by adding cloud management for all devices for free or at a nominal cost. Currently, they have a cloud management platform but is not free. We have the MySonicWall portal for purchasing from them for software updates and renewals."
"The solution must provide more ports."
"It needs more robust self-help documentation along with examples and things to watch out for."
"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."
"The VPN that is available in the new version is a bit bulky and slower in speed."
Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Fortinet FortiWeb, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Darktrace, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Fortinet FortiOS vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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