We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks VM-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."Their reliability and their policy of pre-shipping replacements when a unit has failed."
"It is easy to use and performs very well."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"This is an easy solution to deploy."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"In AWS, Palo Alto provides us a better view than flow logs for network traffic."
"We have reduced the number of configuration lines by 90%. We need fewer number of admins right now because of it."
"I have not actually called their support line, because we have a direct contact to a senior engineer in the company for any issues that we handle with them. I will say they are very responsive, and they do give you the information you need when you need it."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"It gives us the ease that we are secure. We have set up the proper things that help make our data safe."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is easy to maintain...From a security point of view, I find Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to be a better product compared to the other solutions in the market."
"It allows us to see all our traffic to properly secure it and only allow what is needed through the firewall."
"Sometimes I have some queries, and the SonicWall support team resolves my queries."
"We use SonicWall NSa for authenticating MAC (media access control) ID from the PC."
"SonicWall's technical support is very good."
"The firewall feature is most valuable since my work is to analyze if there is any potential attack. SonicWall NSa gives the perfect analysis."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"Easy to scale solution that provides advanced threat protection. Their technical support is very good, very knowledgeable, and easy to reach."
"Support has improved dramatically since their separation from Dell."
"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."
"The support system could be improved."
"Fortinet needs more memory to save the log files. We need it to save the logs on the hardware and not in the cloud. I know this feature is available in FortiCloud, but if we need this log locally, it is not available."
"Web security solutions can be improved."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"FortiGate is really good. We have been using it for quite some time. Initially, when we started off, we had around 70 plus devices of FortiGate, but then Check Point and Palo Alto took over the place. From the product perspective, there are no issues, but from the account perspective, we have had issues. Fortinet's presence in our company is very less. I don't see any Fortinet account managers talking to us, and that presence has diluted in the last two and a half or three years. We have close to 1,500 firewalls. Out of these, 60% of firewalls are from Palo Alto, and a few firewalls are from Check Point. FortiGate firewalls are very less now. It is not because of the product; it is because of the relationship. I don't think they had a good relationship with us, and there was some kind of disconnect for a very long time. The relationship between their accounts team and my leadership team seems to be the reason for phasing out FortiGate."
"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."
"The feedback that I have received is that the performance could be better, and the user experience is not as good compared to a previous solution we used. It could be more user-friendly. Of course, it still works fine for our operations."
"The only minor issue we've faced is with the app's ID configuration, which requires specific matching for application filtering."
"There is no proper support channel to follow up on cases."
"People are less aware of Palo Alto."
"It can definitely improve on the performance."
"The product's AIOps process needs improvement."
"From time to time, they have released some content updates that have some issues, maybe twice a year."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"The solution needs to improve its visibility. It's not straightforward to use. Understanding the policies, authorizations, and initializing features requires careful review. The product needs to offer proper training."
"They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI."
"The logging, reporting, and storage capacity size could improve in a future release."
"The product likely isn't a good fit for a large organization."
"Do not even consider NetExtender - probably one of the most horrific, nightmare grade Java-based VPN clients. We have but all given up trying to make it work reliably."
"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 product could expand its throughput capacity."
"SonicWall does not support DynDNS, yet this is an important feature for smaller companies that do not have a static IP address."
"This product is unable to secure access to endpoints for our external employees."
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. SonicWall NSa report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.