We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Sonicwall TZ based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Of the two solutions, Sonicwall TZ seems to be the more desirable product because of its easy deployment, great set of features, and affordable price.
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"Its administrative panel is very intuitive and simple. It is simpler than the other solutions that we had. As an administrator, we are always looking for the easiest solution to manage network policies. We are able to filter everything on our network and also use the VPN feature, which is important these days when people are working remotely during COVID."
"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."
"It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."
"The web tutor and automatic rules by schedule are good features."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."
"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."
"The feature set is fine and is rarely a problem."
"With the FMC and the FirePOWERs, the ability to quickly replace a piece of hardware without having to have a network outage is useful. Also, the ability to replace a piece of equipment and deploy the config that the previous piece of equipment had is pretty useful."
"It has a good security level. It is a next-generation firewall. It can protect from different types of attacks. We have enabled IPS and IDS."
"Sourcefire has been a great addition. The visibility and control have been nice."
"Implementing Cisco Secure Firewall has saved us time because we rely on most of the out-of-the-box signatures. It has reduced the time and effort spent in configuration within the security network."
"To be honest, all of the features that are provided, all the other vendor will also have. One feature we did find valuable was the CLI, it is more accurate. Additionally, I was happy with the customization, dashboards, access lists and interface."
"Manageability of Cisco ASA. It has a GUI interface, unlike the most of Cisco IOS. For beginners they can "sneak in" and apply the command and see the actual commands that the GUI launches. In addition, Cisco has the reputation regarding security."
"We find all of its features very useful. Its main features are policies and access lists. We use both of them, and we also use routing."
"It is very user-friendly, and there is no problem in using its interface."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly navigation."
"The most valuable features are unified threat management which provides security intelligence and the VPN for both site-to-site and remote access."
"We like the central interface and we like the security features. Additionally, we use SonicWall with VPN connectivity and we have had no problems with SonicWall all these years."
"With the main firewall routing there, we can do connectivity point-to-point. On the low bandwidth we can connect in all the branches with my corporate office."
"We are very much happy with the support."
"We like the unified threat management for defense-in-depth. We can terminate our site-to-site and remote access VPNs with it."
"Technical support is good."
"I think there could be more QoS features"
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"It would be good if they had fewer updates."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"They can do more tests before they release new versions because I would like to be more assured. We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction. The manufacturer should be able to prove that everything works or not only that it might work. This is applicable to most of the other services, software, and hardware companies. They all should work on this. We cannot trust every new release, such as a beta release, on the first day. We wait for some comments on the forums and from other companies that we know. We always wait a few weeks before we use the updated version. They should also extend the VPN client application, especially for Linux versions. Currently, it has an application for Linux devices, but it doesn't work the way we want to connect to the VPN. They use only the old connection, not the new one. They have VPN client applications for Windows and Mac, but they can add more useful features to better manage the devices and monitor the current health of each device. Such features would be helpful for our company."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"The solution's framework needs to be frequently updated in order to have a stable solution."
"In the future, I would like to be able to use an IP phone over a VPN connection."
"I would like to see them add more next-generation features so that you don't need a lot of appliances to do just one task. It should be a single solution."
"When we talk about data centers, we are talking about 100 gig capacity or 400 gig capacity. When it comes to active-active solution clustering and resilience and performance, Cisco should look into these a little bit more."
"Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall can be more secure."
"It has poor performance."
"Sometimes my customers say that Cisco Firewalls are a bit more difficult compared to Fortigate or Palo Alto. There is complexity in the configuration and the GUI could be improved."
"There are some limitations with SSL. Regarding the security assessment for the ISO 27000 standard, there are certain features that Cisco needs to scale up. Not all products support it, so you need to be slightly careful, especially on the site track."
"It is a good firewall, though not NextGen."
"It could be made more user friendly."
"Getting support can be slow."
"In general, the company needs to think contingently and integrate more security options."
"SonicWall TZ can improve the UI application and when you create any net policies or any new policy, it will not sync or work properly."
"The stability could be a lot better."
"I currently have two of the issues from SonicWall. One issue is that the IP is not the public IP. Sometimes it moves to an alternate source and I have to refresh the new IP then we can go on."
"They should consider working a bit more on their ransomware application."
"The solution's pricing could be made cheaper."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while SonicWall TZ 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 TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Azure Firewall, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa and OPNsense. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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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.
