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.
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."
"The initial setup of Fortinet FortiGate was straightforward."
"The most valuable features are simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"User-friendly and affordable security solution that's recommended for SMB customers. This solution has good technical support."
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"The signature database and zero-day detection are Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features."
"Unfortunately in Cisco, only the hardware was good."
"The fact that we can use Firepower Management Center gives us visibility. It allows us to see and manage the traffic that is going through the network."
"Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable."
"Being able to use it as a policy-based VPN is valuable. It's very easy to understand. It's very easy to troubleshoot."
"Cisco offers a great educational series to train users on their devices."
"The feature my customers find the most valuable is the exportability."
"At this point, we find that this product has high productivity and high availability and there is no need for improvement."
"The traffic inspection and the Firepower engine are the most valuable features. It gives you full details, application details, traffic monitoring, and the threats. It gives you all the containers the user is using, especially at the application level. The solution also provides application visibility and control."
"Technical support is good."
"It's a stable solution."
"I have found this solution to be easier to use when compared to other products, such as those offered by Cisco."
"SonicWall TZ is very user-friendly and has network MAC binding. Additionally, the firewall works well."
"No negative impression of the scalability."
"The features that we have found most valuable in SonicWall TZ are the intrusion and brute force attack prevention."
"The most valuable feature is the protection available, and then ease of use and flexibility."
"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."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"Performance and technical support are the main issues with this solution."
"Due to its higher cost, Fortinet FortiGate can lead to increased operational expenses."
"I would like to see improvements in the product's application rules."
"There aren't really any negative aspects to discuss."
"The captive portal could be improved."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"Sometimes, it is not easy to troubleshoot. You need to know where to go. It took me quite awhile. It's like, "Okay, if it doesn't go smoothly here, then go find the documentation." Once you do it, it is not so bad. However, it is sometimes a steep learning curve on the troubleshooting part of it."
"Cisco should improve its user interface design. There is a deep learning curve to the product if you are a newcomer."
"The operation of the ASA is good but the problem is that whenever you require an upgrade, there are multiple pieces of software that you have to upgrade. Extensive planning is required, because if you upgrade one piece of the software it has to be compatible with the others as well. You always need to check the compatibility metrics."
"I don't have any specific improvements to recommend. However, when you compare the throughput of a Cisco firewall to the competitors, especially Fortinet, what you find is that Cisco has lagged a little bit behind in terms of firewall throughput, especially for the price that you pay for that throughput."
"Our latest experience with a code upgrade included a number of bugs and issues that we ran into. So more testing with their code, before it hits us, would help."
"It is a good firewall, though not NextGen."
"I would like to see improvement when you create policies on Snort 3 IPS on Cisco Firepower. On Snort 2, it was more like a UI page where you had some multiple choices where you could tweak your config. On Snort 3, the idea is more to build some rules on the text file or JSON file, then push it. So, I would like to see a lot of improvements here."
"The maturity needs to be better."
"The interface and technical support are probably the two most important things that I would like SonicWall to improve."
"Support for SonicWall TZ needs improvement, particularly the time it takes before you're able to speak to a support person, e.g. you have to wait for at least 30 minutes on the phone."
"Sonic Analyzer could be improved. It's difficult to manage and not very intuitive."
"Its reporting can be improved. Currently, we cannot directly get the user names. It only shows the IP, which makes it a bit confusing because we need to use the IP to find the user. If we could directly get the name of the user, it would be better."
"I would like to see lower antivirus pricing."
"In general, the company needs to think contingently and integrate more security options."
"The market seems to be going to a cloud-supported, new generation of firewall products. I think that's probably going to be important to us, the next time around."
"I would like them to make the interface a little bit easier to use so you can find out where in the heck you're going instead of having to go to 15 different places to get something installed."
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.
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.
