We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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."FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"It's super reliable. I don't think I've ever had a reliability issue with it."
"The reporting and monitoring are very good."
"Good load balancing feature."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"The base firewall features are quite valuable to us."
"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"With its single pane of glass, it makes monitoring and troubleshooting a bit more homogeneous. We are not looking at multiple platforms and monitoring management tools. It is more efficient from that perspective. It is more of a common monitoring and control system for multiple aspects of what used to be different systems. It provides efficiency and time savings."
"It worked fine normally."
"IoT security is most valuable in the current version. Content IDs, DDoS protection, zone protection, and DLP are the most prominent features in Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall. It is easier to configure than other solutions."
"One of the simple features I like about Palo Alto firewalls is that it's extremely easy to find out what's happening in the network. The reporting is phenomenal, and it's easy to find which threats have been detected and what traffic is going through the box. When a customer notices something is wrong, you can quickly check the amount of traffic going through the firewall around that time. If there is anything out of the ordinary, you can decide it needs to be investigated further."
"The interface is very nice. We generally like the UI the product offers."
"The solution is user-friendly. It's secure and easy to understand your network visibility, control the network, and prevent attacks."
"It's a next-generation firewall and it's pretty stable. You don't have to worry about if you restart it for some maintenance. It will just come back."
"I'm using most of its features such as antivirus, anti-spam, and WAF. I'm also using its DNS Security and DNS sinkhole features, as well as the URL filtering and application security features."
"The most valuable feature is the Global Management System."
"With the deployment of the SonicWall NSA solution, we never suffered a problem due to invasion or contamination of any kind."
"Since SonicWall is a UTM, we have enabled all the features: antivirus, IPS, URL filtering, and content filtering. All of these features are working fine."
"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."
"They offer good antivirus solutions."
"Deep packet inspection and intelligent application control are the most valuable features. It is a very updated solution. It is very current as compared to other brands and vendors."
"User-friendly with good security and application control."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."
"Fortinet should focus on enhancing the capabilities of FortiGate by consolidating its various products, such as FortiGate Cloud, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer."
"The logging details need to be improved."
"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."
"It would be a benefit if Fortinet would release a one-stop solution that is better integrated with other products and an automated emergency response system."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"The user interface can be significantly simplified."
"There is a web-based GUI to do management, but you need to know how the machine or firewall operates. There are hundreds of different menus and options. I have used other firewalls before. Just implementing or designing a policy with Palo Alto, if you want a certain port to be open to different IP addresses, then that could take 20 to 25 clicks. That is just testing it out. It is quite complex to do. Whereas, with other places, you tell it, "Okay, I want this specific port open and this IP address to have access to it." That was it. However, not with Palo Alto, which is definitely more complex."
"It is a complete product, but the SSL inspection feature requires some improvements. We need to deploy certificates at each end point to completely work out the UTM solutions. If you enable SSL encryption, it is a tedious process. It takes a lot of time to deploy the certificates to all endpoints. Without SSL inspection, UTM features will not work properly. So, we are forced to enable this SSL inspection feature."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls do not provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities."
"The stability, scalability for enterprise-level organizations, and technical documentation have room for improvement."
"The support could be improved. Palo Alto does not have a support team located in Bangladesh, and their support team operates from another location. Therefore, when we raise a ticket, it takes some time for them to respond, which can be problematic for us."
"I am in GCC in the Middle East. The support that we are getting from Palo Alto is disastrous. The problem is that the support ticket is opened through the distributor channel. Before opening a ticket, we already do a lot of troubleshooting, and when we open a ticket, it goes to a distributor channel. They end up wasting our time again doing what we have already done. They execute the same things and waste time. The distributor channel's engineer tries to troubleshoot, and after spending hours, they forward the ticket to Palo Alto. It is a very time-consuming process. The distributor channels also do not operate 24/7, and they are very lazy in responding to the calls."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls don't provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. It's missing some features for geofencing and understanding locations."
"Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster."
"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."
"The content ID needs to be improved."
"We're not particularly fond of the way it generally performs. We are finding ourselves rebooting often. There are freeze-ups and that kind of thing. The stability needs to improve exponentially."
"In terms of improvement, features like App Control do not work properly"
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"The user interface could be better."
"I'd like to see integration with Microsoft 365 for authentication."
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Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 163 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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