We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall 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."The most valuable features are the enterprise modeling and the simple interface."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"Good anti-malware and web filtering features."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"The notable features that I have found most valuable are that it includes the antivirus, and also IPS, and even SD-WAN."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"It is extremely stable I would say — at least after you deploy it."
"IPS and Snort are very important because they also differentiate Cisco from other vendors and competitors."
"Cisco ASA works very nicely from an administration perspective. The management of the device is very nice. The ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) is the software that we use and it is very easy to configure using the GUI."
"An eight because it's a good security solution. It's more mature than its competitors."
"For our very specific use case, for remote access for VPN, ASAs are very good."
"It is one of the fastest solutions, if not the fastest, in the security technology space. This gives us peace of mind knowing that as soon as a new attack comes online that we will be protected in short order. From that perspective, no one really comes close now to Firepower, which is hugely valuable to us from an upcoming new attack prevention perspective."
"Valuable features include AnyConnect, double translations, and an independent IPS module."
"Easy to deploy in a working environment between servers and users."
"Overall SonicWall NSa is a good solution for our use case."
"It allows us to block applications, i.e., websites by application type category. It is far more capable than content filtering alone."
"The most valuable feature is the sandbox."
"The solution can scale."
"Support is usually good when it comes to helping with issues."
"The product is working okay. The product is working feature-wise."
"It has excellent stability."
"SonicWall has USCS and anti-virus at the gateway level. Everything is filtered, and if it detects an intruder, it drops the line."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"In the next release, maybe the documentation on how to use this solution could be improved."
"Its reporting can be improved. Sometimes, I don't get proper reports."
"I would like to have logs, monitoring, and reporting for a month without extra fees."
"Currently, without the additional reporting module, we only have access to basic reporting."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"Usually, the customers are satisfied, but I am going to recommend that all clients upgrade to FirePOWER management. I want Cisco to improve the feature called anti-spam. We use a Cisco only email solution, that's why we need the anti-spam on email facility."
"The use of it has really bogged down our response time for certain problems, given we have to go through AT&T for everything."
"The solution could offer better control that would allow the ability to restrictions certain features from a website."
"We would like to be able to manage a set of firewalls rather than individual firewalls. We haven't really looked into it or yet implemented it, but a single pane of glass would be helpful. We also use another vendor's firewalls, and they have a centralized management infrastructure that we have implemented, which makes it a little bit easier when you're managing lots of firewalls."
"I think the ASA layer is thin. It's always Layer 3 or Layer 4 source controller and doesn't control the Layer 7 traffic. It's important, and you'll need an additional firewall."
"It doesn't have a proper GUI to do troubleshooting, so most people have to rely on the command line."
"Its user interface is good, but it could be better. Currently, you have to know what to do before you can manage a device. If you don't know what to do, you can mess things up. There are some devices that are easier, such as FortiGate. The user interface of FortiGate is more intuitive. It is very easy to log in and configure things."
"Virtual patching would be helpful for servers that are not able to update patches due to compatibility issues."
"I feel that the SSL VPN client software needs a lot of improvement."
"One issue with the solution is that no authorization or authentication features exist."
"I would like to see better integration."
"The security standards for space and point of view should be improved so that the solution deploys in critical areas."
"They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI."
"In terms of improvement, features like App Control do not work properly"
"A room for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the log server because it could be more user-friendly compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks. My company has many rule sets up for review, so sometimes, my team needs to use Excel for filtering, but the UI cannot support the Excel function."
"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."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 20th in Firewalls with 76 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. 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 NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Cisco ISE (Identity Services Engine), whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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