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."It is a good source for firewall protection."
"I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"I like the firewall features, Snort, and the Intrusion Prevention System (IPS)."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to block almost all of the ports."
"The most important feature is its categorization because on the site and social media you are unified in the way they are there."
"The protection and security features, like URL filtering, the inspection, and the IPS feature, are also very valuable for us. We don't have IT staff at most of the sites so for us it's important to have a robust firewall at those sites"
"Its in-depth monitoring and analysis help us to make better decisions and policies."
"Cisco ASA has an okay CLI with a nice GUI."
"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."
"SonicWall's technical support is very good."
"I like this solution because we are focused on VPN and have many brands that need to link a VPN and have security, like ransomware, spyware, and basic protection."
"The product is simple to manage."
"One of the main features is the built-in storage capacity."
"What I like best about SonicWall NSa is the security it offers compared to other solutions in the market. Its reduction rate is also better than others."
"It is able to fulfill my requirements. It protects our network environment. It has control over IPS, signatures, and it can also manage bandwidth and mapping. It is also stable and has good support."
"It has good reporting, the reporting is marvelous."
"The functionality is the same whether it is on hardware or a virtual appliance. The interface is the same. It's nice that it's standardized."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"With FortiGate, the main complaint that I have heard is about the technical support."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."
"Technical support for this solution can be improved."
"I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE."
"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."
"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."
"One thing that Cisco could improve is the GUI. The graphic user interface should be more user-friendly."
"It is my understanding that they are in the process of discontinuing this device."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"We cannot have virtual domains, which we can create with FortiGate. This is something they should add in the future. Additionally, there is a connection limit and the FMC could improve."
"In terms of next-generation capabilities, Cisco is a little behind, and it is way behind the market leaders."
"At times the product is sluggish and slow"
"I have worked with the new FTD models and they have more features than the ASA line."
"Critical bugs need to be addressed before releasing the version."
"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."
"The pricing for this product in India is high and the fees should be reduced."
"You can do zero-trust networking with them, but it's not easy."
"We also need to increase the throughput because the other devices are slower. The throughput will become slow. Since we're using VoIP, it tends to affect the voice quality. Even if you're using a quality service, it tends to decrease."
"The features I would like to see improve are the dashboard and the UI."
"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."
"One issue with the solution is that no authorization or authentication features exist."
"The reporting and monitoring are a bit complex and should be easier in SonicWall NSa because other firewalls I have experienced have been more simple, such as Palo Alto. We are able to receive a clear view of our network. As a general user with little experience, it would be difficult for them to handle."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 20th in Firewalls with 77 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 Huawei NGFW, 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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