Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs SonicWall TZ comparison

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Palo Alto Networks Logo
3,787 views|2,591 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
SonicWall Logo
12,752 views|11,608 comparisons
88% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks WildFire and SonicWall TZ based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, ESET and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP).
To learn more, read our detailed Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Report (Updated: March 2024).
768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"​Installing this product as a datacenter firewall for segregation and segmentation, and also configuring policies between zones has improved my organization.""The most effective feature of WildFire for threat analysis is its collaboration with other security profiles on our Palo Alto firewall.""The scalability is acceptable.""The analysis is very fast.""The most valuable feature is the Automatic Verdict, to recognize whether something is a threat, or not.""The reporting feature helps our performance.""The most valuable feature is the cloud-based protection against zero-day malware attacks.""My primary use case for this solution is for a secure gateway."

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"Access restriction and IP whitelisting are the most valuable features.""We are able to block whatever we want to block by using this product. It provides all required security features, such as content filtering, VPN, in one box. Before switching to SonicWall, we had specified all required features.""The feature we found most valuable in SonicWall TZ is that it is user-friendly for an administrator.""The most valuable feature is the protection available, and then ease of use and flexibility.""The most common feature in the firewall, apart from that traditional firewall, would be the security services, like application control, URL filtering, Gateway Anti-Virus, and IPS protection. These are the essential features in the firewalls which I think, has to be enabled and properly used at every network infrastructure.""The product’s filtering and URL-blocking features are valuable.""I've found the technical support to be helpful.""It is very stable with no issues. The firewall's been up for the past 35 days non-stop. It's performed great. It has performed as it should perform."

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Cons
"Our main concern is that everything has to be synced with the WildFire Cloud and has to be checked through the subscription.""I would give this product a rating of 9 out of 10 due to some slight issues of performance.""When you contact support, there is no guarantee that they will be available to help you tackle the issue that you are facing.""In terms of what I'd like to see in the next release of Palo Alto Networks WildFire, each release is based on malware that has been identified. The key problem is an average of six months from the time malware is written to the time it's discovered and a signature is created for it. The only advice that I can give is for them to shorten that timeframe. I don't know how they would do it, but if they shorten that, for example, cut it in half, they'll make themselves more famous.""The product fails to offer protection when dealing with high-severity vulnerabilities, making it an area of concern where improvements are required.""Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve by adding support for manual submission of suspicious files and URLs. Additionally, it would be an advantage to add rule-based analysis. Currently, it uses only static and AI. We need to be able to analyze archive files.""The cost of the solution is excessively high.""The price of WildFire should be reduced in order to make it more affordable for our customers."

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"The interface and technical support are probably the two most important things that I would like SonicWall to improve.""Its pricing can be better. It is very expensive.""The solution has lost the trust of its customers because of moving from one company to another.""They should consider working a bit more on their ransomware application.""The solution's antivirus checking could be improved so that we can have a deeper inspection of the packets.""I think content filtering is the area this product should improve. It's a little tricky to get put in correctly.""The user support could be improved because you have to go outside to get that kind of support.""It would be good if Analyzer would be part of the stock license, so even if a layperson is getting the device, he or she doesn't forgets about ordering the Analyzer because it's already there."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "It IS a bit expensive, but I think you get what you pay for. Value is there."
  • "It's not particularly cheap, but it is absolutely worth it."
  • "The pricing and licensing option should be categorized for various countries such as for Bangladesh."
  • "It is expensive, a feature more accessible to enterprise class customers, but provides an enhanced possibility that Zero- or near-Zero-day threats may be identified and mitigated. The cost of the product weighed against the potential impact of even one successful crypto malware-type exploit may justify the expense."
  • "​More expensive than other firewalls.​"
  • "The pricing is OK, it is not too expensive."
  • "It is a reasonable price compared to other solutions on the market."
  • "It's pretty expensive but with respect to value for money, it's okay."
  • More Palo Alto Networks WildFire Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Getting licenses in our country, Ghana, is not easy. Though, once we have them, adding them is quick (about a day)."
  • "SonicWall has authorized distributors in our country. They have about two or three distributors in the country, so it makes it a bit easier. What we do is to request a quotation from these distributors, then we do a value for money analysis and see which one of them is giving us a competitive price."
  • "The pricing was a factor for us, and we felt that the price was good."
  • "The product pricing is relatively good, compared to other products, including the licenses."
  • "Licensing costs have been around $2,000. There are no other costs above the standard licensing fees."
  • "License renewals come in around $35,000 to $45,000."
  • "The price is high compared to some other solutions."
  • "Its pricing is okay as compared to other solutions."
  • More SonicWall TZ Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparison Review
    Anonymous User
    Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning the management options: How to add and rename objects. How to update a device. How to find log entries. Etc. Cisco ASA Fast Management Suite: The ASDM GUI is really fast. You do not have to wait for the next window if you click on a certain button. It simply appears directly. On the Palo, each entry to add, e.g., an application inside a security rule, takes a few seconds. Better “Preview CLI Commands”: I am always checking the CLI commands before I send them to the firewall. On the Cisco ASA, they are quite easy to understand. I know, Palo Alto also offers the “Preview Changes”, but it takes a bit more time to recognize all XML paths. Better CLI Commands at all: For Cisco admins it is very easy to parse a “show run” and to paste some commands into another device. This is not that easy on a Palo Alto firewall. First, you must change the config-output format, and second, you cannot simply paste many lines into another device, since the ordering of these lines is NOT correct by default. That is, it simply doesn’t work. ACL Hit Count: I like the hit counts per access list entry in the GUI. It quickly reveals which entries are used very often and which ones are never used. On the… Read more →
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly… more »
    Top Answer:FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy… more »
    Top Answer:When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox feature… more »
    Top Answer:I’ll say it depends on your needs. Fortinet FortiGate and SonicWall TZ are both next-gen firewalls (NGFW) with similar basic features. However, Fortinet offers more performance, scalability, and… more »
    Top Answer:The most valuable feature of SonicWall TZ is the double authentication, where it asks for one password and again asks for a four-digit code, which changes every 30 seconds.
    Top Answer:The solution is moderately priced, where it's neither cheap nor expensive.
    Ranking
    Views
    3,787
    Comparisons
    2,591
    Reviews
    17
    Average Words per Review
    372
    Rating
    8.5
    12th
    out of 59 in Firewalls
    Views
    12,752
    Comparisons
    11,608
    Reviews
    12
    Average Words per Review
    347
    Rating
    8.7
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    Dell SonicWALL TZ
    Learn More
    Overview

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire is a highly effective cloud-based advanced threat protection (ATP) solution that organizations in a wide variety of fields trust to help them keep safe from digital threats. It is designed to enable businesses to confront even the most evasive threats and resolve them. It combines many techniques to maximize the level of threat protection available to users.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy WildFire include:

    Proactive real-time threat prevention. Organizations that utilize WildFire can take a proactive approach to their network security. Wildfire’s security scanning software is supported by powerful automation that enables it to run 180 times faster than other similar solutions. It also leverages machine learning to spot and address two times more malware monthly than its competitors. Users can solve issues as they arise, which prevents them from suffering severe harm.

    A holistic approach to security. WildFire leverages many of the security features and characteristics that can be found in some of the most effective security solutions in a way that provides users with a powerful protective blanket. It combines such things as machine learning, dynamic and static analysis, and a custom-built analysis environment, and enables users to cover many different potential avenues of attack. In this way, organizations can easily detect and prevent even the most sophisticated threats from harming them.

    Reduce overhead costs. Using WildFire cuts the expenses that a business incurs. Its architecture is based in the cloud and, as a result, users do not have to purchase hardware to run it. Additionally, those users do not have to pay anything more than a product subscription fee. They can scale it up as they wish and incur no additional costs.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire Features

    Some of the many features WildFire offers include:

    Third-party integrations. WildFire gives users access to integrations that can enable them to combine Wildfire’s security suite with outside tools. If an organization thinks that they are missing something, they can easily use Wildfire’s third-party integrations to bolster their capabilities. These integrations can connect to many different types of tools, like security information or event management systems.

    URL filtering. Organizations can use a URL filtering feature to safeguard themselves against known threats. When this feature is active, it will scan for traffic coming from specific URLs that are known to be malicious. This keeps them one step ahead of those threats that they know about.

    Deep analytics. Wildfire comes with the ability to provide users with a detailed analysis of any threat that it finds across all of their network environments. It gives users insight into everything from their natures to the actions that they have performed.

    Reviews from Real Users

    WildFire is a solution that stands out when compared to its primary competitors. Two major advantages that it offers are the high speeds at which it can analyze network traffic for threats and the accuracy with which it can pick out genuine threats from false positives.

    Ahmad Z., the principal consultant at Securelytics, writes, “The analysis is very fast. The intermittent is a millisecond and has a speedy response time.”

    Christopher B., the senior systems administrator at a government agency, says, “It gives a more accurate assessment of a virus in terms of whether it's truly a virus, malware, or a false positive. We have some legacy software that could pop up as being something that is malware. WildFire goes through and inspects it, and then it comes back and lets us know if it's a false positive. Usually, when it finds out that it's not a virus, it lets us know that it's benign, and it can exclude it from that scan, which means I don't even have to worry about that one popping up anymore.”

    The secure, sophisticated SonicWALL TZ is widely deployed at small businesses, retail, government, remote sites and branch offices. It combines high-performance intrusion prevention, malware blocking, content/URL filtering and application control.
    Sample Customers
    Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
    AeroM_xico Delta TechOps, Unimat
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm18%
    Computer Software Company12%
    Government12%
    Comms Service Provider9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company15%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    REVIEWERS
    Construction Company12%
    Healthcare Company12%
    Computer Software Company7%
    Non Profit7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company18%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    Retailer6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business42%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise62%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business64%
    Midsize Enterprise19%
    Large Enterprise17%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business43%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise41%
    Buyer's Guide
    Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
    March 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, ESET and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: March 2024.
    768,740 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) with 58 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Good technical support and provides automatic analysis that saves us time in filtering email". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate, Proofpoint Email Protection, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Fortinet FortiSandbox, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and SonicWall NSa.

    We monitor all Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) 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.