We performed a comparison between pfSense and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: pfSense offers valuable features such as IP address blocking, user-friendly dashboards, scanning and filtering capabilities, stability, customization abilities, and cost-effectiveness. SonicWall TZ provides unified threat management, VPN capabilities, web security, a user-friendly interface, simplicity, stability, performance, content filtering, and additional features.
pfSense users have suggested the need for instructional videos for beginners, a clearer web interface, improved stability, a mobile application, enhanced reporting, and better integration with other solutions. Users of SonicWall TZ have pointed out improvements that are needed in rated throughput, secondary DNS hosting, cloud management, user interface, integration and flexibility, marketing and branding, reporting and licensing, additional ports, affordability and competition, UI application and policy synchronization, technical support and VPN connections, and pricing.
Service and Support: Some users of pfSense have appreciated the technical support, while others have sought help from the online community. SonicWall TZ has garnered both positive and negative feedback. While some customers have found the support to be satisfactory, others have encountered delays and language barriers.
Ease of Deployment: Users generally find the initial setup of pfSense to be straightforward and easy, with a simple installation process. However, they express the need for clearer guidance or a configuration wizard. The initial setup for SonicWall TZ is considered intuitive and not overly complex, with a smooth out-of-the-box process.
Pricing: The cost of setting up pfSense is affordable and requires no extra charges for firmware updates. Opinions on SonicWall TZ's pricing are divided, with some deeming it cost-effective for medium-sized businesses, while others perceive it as pricey and lacking competitiveness.
ROI: pfSense provides a budget-friendly option with a low yearly cost and substantial hardware savings, leading to a considerable ROI. SonicWall TZ is suggested for improved efficacy and is seen as an essential element for safeguarding the network.
Comparison Results: pfSense is the preferred option when comparing it to SonicWall TZ. Users appreciate pfSense's easy-to-use dashboards, its open-source nature, and its capability to block IP addresses. They find it affordable, customizable, and effective in preventing attacks.
"The payment function for applications is good."
"LinkGreat firewall capabilities"
"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."
"The threat prevention is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"Centralized monitoring, policy management, and virtualized appliances allow us to take control over our public and private infrastructure."
"The most valuable features of the solution are SD-WAN, filtering testing applications, web filtering, and the new VPN."
"The most important feature, normally for small business customers, is link load balancing."
"This solution has helped our organization by protecting our network from attacks."
"It is effective. We have not had any problems."
"My company mainly works in the health and educational domain, schools and universities. I prevent the improper use of content from schools and universities. I defend the medical records for the patients in our hospitals. That is the main use case for me for the firewall."
"One of the advantages of pfSense is that it is very easy to work with. It is a very good open-source solution, and it works really well. pfSense provides a complete package. For some features, it could be the first solution in the world. It is a very good alternative in the market for a firewall solution. You don't need to go to Cisco or other brands with expensive firewalls. pfSense also allows us to offer some support services."
"pfSense is a nice product, and I find that there's a lot of information out there. There are some good tutorials on YouTube and other websites with helpful information."
"We've found the stability to be very good overall."
"The gain in performance and security from configuring the VPN connections was significant."
"The most valuable features of pfSense are the reports, monitoring, filtration, and blocking incoming and outgoing traffic."
"SonicWall TZ is a stable product."
"The solution is stable."
"It protects against intrusion while allowing needed access."
"I find the security we are able to do with the policies to be valuable. The monitoring is valuable as well."
"We like the unified threat management for defense-in-depth. We can terminate our site-to-site and remote access VPNs with it."
"It does exactly what it says on the tin. It is good for protecting the business from being compromised. Its port protection is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly navigation."
"Ease of management and the VPN integration."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"The license renewal process, annual renewal price, and the web application firewall features should be improved."
"They have to just improve its performance when we enable all UTM features. When you enable all the features, the performance of FortiGate, as well as of Sophos and SonicWall, goes down."
"Tunnel flapping was one of the major things I had seen wherein your internet link remains but your VPN tunnel is down. However, since I got a fix from the TAC team, I have not noticed it, but the customer complained a few times that they couldn't access the internet because of this problem."
"The pricing could always be better."
"The scalability could be better."
"The logs need to be better. They need to be more visible and easier to access."
"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."
"The integration should be improved."
"Also, simplifying the rules for the GeoIP. Making it simpler to understand would be an improvement."
"I'd like to find something in pfSense that is more specific to URL filtering. We have customers who would like to filter their web traffic. They would like to be able to say to their employees, "You can surf the web, but you cannot get access to Facebook or other social media," or "You can surf the web, but you're not allowed to gamble or watch porn on the web." My technicians say that doing this kind of stuff with pfSense nowadays is not easy. They can implement some filters using IP addresses but not by using the names of the domains and categories. So, we are not able to exclude some categories from the allowed traffic, such as porn, gambling, etc. To do that, we have to use another product and another web filter that uses DNS. I know that there are some third-party products that could work with pfSense, but I'd like the native pfSense solution to do that."
"More documentation would be great, especially on new features because sometimes, when new features come out, you don't get to understand them right off the bat. You have to really spend a lot of time understanding them. So, more documentation would be awesome."
"They could improve their commercial stance and be more agile when it comes to the commercial pricing of enterprise deals."
"Perhaps the documentation is not clear and because it is supported in the community there is no basic documentation."
"The Netgate forums and community don’t provide extensive discussions and topics related to every pfSense service."
"The stability could be improved."
"The solution has lost the trust of its customers because of moving from one company to another."
"It could be made more user friendly."
"The VPN that is available in the new version is a bit bulky and slower in speed."
"From a support perspective, if we're talking tech support I think Silver Partners, Gold Partners, Platinum, whatever level, should have a different number to call. End users can call tech support over at SonicWall if they've paid for support as part of their AGSS or whatever services they bought. The end-user can call, or we can call, however, I don't want to be calling the same line that an end user's calling. I don't want the same response time. I need a different level of expertise."
"The market seems to be going to a cloud-supported, new generation of firewall products. I think that's probably going to be important to us, the next time around."
"Support for SonicWall TZ needs improvement, particularly the time it takes before you're able to speak to a support person, e.g. you have to wait for at least 30 minutes on the phone."
"The price could be better for us in Bolivia."
"It needs more robust self-help documentation along with examples and things to watch out for."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, KerioControl and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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Just purchase an anti-spam license and activate it at the SonicWall license portal.
I would like to recommend you SONICWALL HOSTED EMAIL SECURITY ADVANCED. It is more helpful and if you are using Office365 or GSuite, go for SonicWall Cloud App Security.
It is more powerful.
Hi, for SonicWall you buy a license and on the same firewall you can activate the antispam only in the ingress mode.
But there is a catch, at the moment they don't support TLS for SMTP so I would recommend their other solution, that has email security for appliance and virtualized on VMware or Hyper-V.