McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] vs SonicWall NSa comparison

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] and SonicWall NSa based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

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Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The most valuable feature is the SSL VPN, as it allows us to connect and it separates this product from other firewalls.""The wireless control is helpful.""It is very flexible to use.""It is a good source for firewall protection.""What I like the most is the configuration and that it's simple, and straightforward to maintain.""The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall.""The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management.""Using this product makes the VPN seamless and almost invisible to me in the sense that I don't have to think about it."

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"It does give certain protection for everything that is well configured on our McAfee server. We have good protection with it. If we could find a feature and make it work, it would work perfectly, there would be no bugs, and it would be really good."

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"Valuable features include a web filter, DHCP, and monitoring capabilities.""The most valuable features are the VPN, SSL VPN, and IPSec VPN.""Easy to scale solution that provides advanced threat protection. Their technical support is very good, very knowledgeable, and easy to reach.""It is a brilliant product. It is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) system. It has got about 11 security services that take care of your perimeter security. It takes care of any kind of cyber threats that could come in. It takes care of creating VPNs between two SonicWalls instantly and very easily. It has got spyware in it as well as a firewall. It has also got a gateway antivirus and an application firewall that can block things from outside.""We have not found any vulnerabilities since implementing the solution.""Our old firewall was running as HA (High Availability) on two different but identical rack mounted servers. Moving to SonicWall allowed the company to move to one unit, yet accommodate more connections because it had sixteen ports and handled fail-over better than the old firewall solution.""We use SonicWall NSa for authenticating MAC (media access control) ID from the PC.""Content Filtering and sandboxing are valuable features."

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Cons
"I'm not sure if it's something that they already have or are developing something, however, we need some dedicated features for container security.""The stability could be a bit better.""Cisco Meraki products are rising very quickly in the cloud and the connected era. Meraki products offer much better ROI, upgradability, and manageability.""The Web-filter in this solution is not very good.""It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls.""Pricing for it is a bit high. It could be cheaper.""There are just some services that aren't available. For example, the Ethernet or point-to-point protocols. They could add these services to their product offering - especially services for ISPs.""WAN load-balancing could be a lot better at detecting when a link is poor or inconsistent, and not just flat out dead."

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"Customer support and AV are both lacking and are really hard to come to you when the product is installed. Those are the two major points that they need to work on."

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"Initially, it may be difficult for some people to learn and become acquainted with it.""The stability is not there. The features are there, but they are not stable. They need to improve on this product because I feel that they have launched this product without much R&D.""We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us.""It would be useful to have an application firewall that prevents the outside world from seeing your private IPs. You don't need to publicize your private IPs to the outside world, and you can create a barrier, like a proxy server.""This product is unable to secure access to endpoints for our external employees.""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.""It only has a single power interface, which has limitations in terms of high availability.""We still get phishing emails that manage to come through from time to time."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

    Information Not Available
  • "Additional resources are too expensive."
  • "Considering the market, I believe that the price of this solution is great."
  • "In our evaluation, we found that the costs of deploying the solution, and also purchasing the hardware and licenses, were very attractive."
  • "Licensed features provide application control, content filtering, antivirus, and anti-malware all in a single appliance."
  • "The CPUs are not able to compete with a similar price point to the Fortinet, WatchGuard, or Palo Alto product."
  • "A firewall doing anti-spam might be a low cost solution, but it is not your best strategy."
  • "You need their analyzer to properly generate reports. This is an expensive, licensed feature, with a complex application or appliance back-end."
  • "If you want to connect more than five concurrent users by VPN then you have to pay an additional fee."
  • More SonicWall NSa Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage at… more »
    Top Answer:From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know… more »
    Top Answer:As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite… more »
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    Top Answer:The scope of management must be improved. The scope of what users can do with the product must be improved. The product… more »
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Firewall Enterprise MFE, Intel Security Firewall Enterprise MFE
    NSA 250M, NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, Dell SonicWALL NSA
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    McAfee Firewall Enterprise defends critical assets, such as regulated data repositories (customer, financial, and healthcare data), email and web servers, extranets, and data centers. This proxy-based firewall also offers application visibility and deep application controls for defense, delivers strong policy-based controls, blocks the latest threats, and eliminates unwanted traffic.

    SonicWall NSa dispenses advanced threat protection using a high-performance security platform. The NSa series implements intuitive deep learning technologies in the SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform to dispatch the automated real-time threat detection and deterrence enterprise organizations need today. SonicWall Network Security appliance (NSa) series is best for mid-sized organizations to distributed enterprises and data centers.

    SonicWall NSa series next-generation firewalls (NFGWS) combine two very robust security ideologies to deliver advanced threat protection to keep users’ networks safe. Boosting SonicWall’s multi-engine advanced threat protection (ATP) is their Real-time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI™). The RTDMI intuitively identifies and stops aggressive zero-day threats and vicious malware by investigating memory directly. This real-time process allows SonicWall RTDMI to be accurate, lessen false positives and discover and alleviate malicious threats and attacks. SonicWall’s single-pass Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) will audit every byte of each and every packet by investigating both outbound and inbound traffic on the firewall. By combining the SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform along with on-box offerings such as intrusion prevention, web/URL filtering, and anti-malware, the NSa series is able to block the most malicious and dangerous threats at the gateway.

    Additionally, SonicWall firewalls supply absolute protection by executing complete inspection and decryption of SSH and TLS/SSL encryption connections - no matter the port or protocol. The firewall takes a deep dive into each and every packet (the header and data) routing out any anomalies, zero-day intrusions, threats, and protocol non-compliance. Users can also define unique criteria specific to their organization to ensure their networks remain safe. This aggressive deep packet inspection is able to identify and block malicious attacks, stop dangerous malware downloads, prevent the spread of infections, and defeat command and control (C&C) communications and data exfiltration. Protocols involving inclusion and exclusion allow users complete control to decide, based on specific governance policies, organizational policies, or government or legal compliance, which traffic is to be investigated for decryption or inspection.

    SonicWall Nsa offers enterprise organizations the network control and fluid flexibility they desire using an intrusion prevention system (IPS), VPN, real-time visualization, and other advanced powerful security features, making it a popular firewall solution in today's marketplace.

    Reviews from Real Users

    “The features that I have found most valuable are the firewalling, which is very good, and the GUI which is very intuitive. It is easy to use and provides great security.” - Network Engineer at a maritime company

    “What's valuable in SonicWall NSa is the ATP (advanced threat protection). It can protect users from malicious links. SonicWall NSa also has a Sandboxing service that is very helpful for us, especially when end users accidentally click on malicious links. Another valuable feature of this solution is that it is very useful for site-to-site VPN connectivity issues. SonicWall NSa has very good hardware. I also love that SonicWall has very good technical support, who are very knowledgeable, provide good suggestions, and they're easy to reach.” - Mohammed M., Network Administrator at Transgulf Readymix

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    French Ministry of Education, RWTH Aachen, Avency, Cegedim, Cobweb, Intel Security, Cemex Mauser, R_sler Oberfl_chentechnik
    Orange County Rescue Mission, First Source, Michaels & Taylor, Green Clinic Health System, Aspire Chiltern Skills and Enterprise Centre, UnitedStack, Faith Lutheran College Redlands, Celtic Manor Resort, Star Kay White, Air Works, Unimat Life, NHS Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS), Hutt City Council, Mato Grosso do Sul, Nspyre
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    No Data Available
    REVIEWERS
    Manufacturing Company19%
    Educational Organization8%
    Retailer8%
    Construction Company8%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Comms Service Provider7%
    Government7%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    No Data Available
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business59%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise22%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business40%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise44%
    Buyer's Guide
    Firewalls
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls. Updated: March 2024.
    765,386 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] doesn't meet the minimum requirements to be ranked in Firewalls while SonicWall NSa is ranked 20th in Firewalls with 76 reviews. McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] is rated 7.0, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] writes "For managing multiple MFE firewalls it is incredibly handy but it could be easier for customers to migrate from one version to another. ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". McAfee Firewall Enterprise MFE [EOL] is most compared with , whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense.

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    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.