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 simplicity, management, and that it's constantly evolving."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"The solution can scale well."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The user interface (UI) is very, very good."
"It works very well. It has a lot of different functionalities. Its cost is also fine for our customers."
"We have been using a 5520 for seven years in our datacenter and we are satisfied by this version."
"It's protecting the organization against the impact of cyber threats and cybersecurity. We run manufacturing plants that have hazardous material, and we don't want that manufacturing process to be impacted by break-in exposure, cyber threats, or any other similar thing."
"The most valuable features are the flexibility and level of security that this solution provides."
"I like the firewall features, Snort, and the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)."
"I have integrated it for incidence response. If there is a security event, the Cisco firewall will automatically block the traffic, which is valuable."
"Cisco ASA Firewall is a well known product. They're always updating it, and you know what they're doing and that it works."
"We found the initial setup to be easy."
"The most important feature is the intensive way you can troubleshoot Cisco Firepower Firewalls. You can go to the bit level to see why traffic is not handled in the correct way, and the majority of the time it's a networking issue and not a firewall issue. You can solve any problem without Cisco TAC help, because you can go very deeply under the hood to find out how traffic is flowing and whether it is not flowing as expected. That is something I have never seen with other brands."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"The most valuable features are flexibility, ease of setup, and it's a good product cost-wise."
"With the deployment of the SonicWall NSA solution, we never suffered a problem due to invasion or contamination of any kind."
"The antivirus and items of that nature were quite helpful to have."
"The solution has many useful features, such as content management, user management, user filtering, and domain controller connectivity mapping."
"I like that SonicWall NSa is a stable product. It's also a scalable product."
"The most valuable features are that it is reasonably-priced and works well."
"The most valuable feature is the sandbox."
"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"A sandbox would be good in order to be able to inspect the emails containing spam and be able to validate the emails that contain malware, prior to delivering to the customer."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"They sometimes hide some features and if you want to enable them, you have to go in the CLI, enable the feature and configure it through the CLI. Customers, typically, like everything to be done by the GUI."
"They've become quite expensive."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"It is confusing to have two management interfaces, e.g., ASDM and Firepower Management Center."
"Its configuration through GUI as well as CLI can be improved and made easier."
"We only have an issue with time sync with Cisco ASA and NTP. If the time is out of sync, it will be a disaster for the failover."
"The overall licensing structure could improve to make the solution better."
"The application detection feature of this solution could be improved as well as its integration with other solutions."
"I don't have to see all the object groups that have been created on that firewall. That's just something that I would really appreciate on the CLA, even though it already exists on the GUI."
"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."
"The solution is overcomplicated in some senses. Simplifying it would be an improvement."
"I would like to see better integration."
"The product has a lot of bugs, actually. We are facing some issues with this product. The DPI SSL feature which is there, it is not working properly."
"I feel that the SSL VPN client software needs a lot of improvement."
"The pricing for this product in India is high and the fees should be reduced."
"There are a few areas that need improvement including the VPN, user management, and reporting."
"The security standards for space and point of view should be improved so that the solution deploys in critical areas."
"The product likely isn't a good fit for a large organization."
"The scalability is something that should be improved."
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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