![]() | Anonymous User Lead System Engineer at a comms service provider |
![]() | Anonymous User Deputy Manager IT at a computer software company |
![]() | Anonymous User Manager |
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
"Cisco ASA NGFW significantly improves our bank. It protects any high-value products that we use from hackers, viruses, malware, and script-bots. It gives us metrics on network traffic as well as what kind of attacks we are getting from the outside."
"We moved from a legacy firewall to the ASA with FirePOWER, increasing our Internet Edge defense dramatically."
"Integration with all the other Cisco tools is valuable."
"The firewall power that comes with Cisco ASAv is the most valuable asset. They are are very easy to manage."
"The web interface was easy for me. The configuration is logical, so it's easy to use and easy to understand how to protect, how to open a port, how to manage and how to route a device. That's why I prefer Cisco. It's robust and I never have issues with the hardware. That's why I choose Cisco and not another vendor."
"The features I found most valuable in this solution, are the overall security features."
"The basic setup is fine. We're just one person. It's only when you want to do some more sophisticated setup like channeling and stuff like that that it's more complicated."
"We are using the Cisco AnyConnect for our end-user VPN with the ASA."
"It seems to be a durable, stable product."
"In terms of the most valuable features, the IPS report is quick and updated. Performance is also valuable."
"It's a very simple to use product."
"Sangfor has the best capabilities for securing connections, securing web browsers, securing servers, and general threat protection."
"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."
"I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays."
"With the deployment of the SonicWall NSA solution, we never suffered a problem due to invasion or contamination of any kind."
"It allows us to block applications, i.e., websites by application type category. It is far more capable than content filtering alone."
"Support has improved dramatically since their separation from Dell."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"The most valuable features are that it is reasonably-priced and works well."
"The most valuable feature is the Global Management System."
"Cisco should improve its user interface design. There is a deep learning curve to the product if you are a newcomer."
"The product would be improved if the GUI could be brought into the 21st Century."
"With regards to stability, we had a critical bug come out during our evaluation... not good."
"We found it difficult to publish an antennae sidewalk with the ASDM. I think Cisco should improve this by creating a simpler interface for the firewall."
"The service could use a little more web filtering. If I compare it to Cyberoam, Cyberoam has more the web filtering, so if you want to block a website, it's easier in other solutions than in Cisco."
"It could also use a reporting dashboard."
"The user interface is old fashioned."
"I would like to see them release a patch for ASAv with cross-platform FirePower integration."
"They need to improve their research team and they need to study their data to analyze it and build the product."
"Occasional issues with breaches which are dealt with expediently."
"The web interface needs to be improved, making it more user-friendly."
"I feel that the SSL VPN client software needs a lot of improvement."
"The cloud services may be in need of some improvement."
"This product is unable to secure access to endpoints for our external employees."
"The anti-spam requires a specific Java version on the server side (do not update it, otherwise it will break)."
"They are not ready for managed security services. Their Cloud GMS product is weak, barely out of beta (buggy)."
"Do not even consider NetExtender - probably one of the most horrific, nightmare grade Java-based VPN clients. We have but all given up trying to make it work reliably."
"I would like U.S.-based technical support."
"Having to deal with too many lower-level people in technical support means that it takes longer to resolve issues, so escalating support tickets should be faster."
"Watch out for hidden licensing and incredibly high annual maintenance costs."
"I bought a license for three years and it was really affordable."
"With AnyConnect, it depends on your license. It depends on the number of concurrent users you want to connect."
"This solution might be expensive, but it is economical in the long run."
"Some of our customers would be more likely to standardize on Cisco equipment if the cost was lower because a lot of people install cheap equipment."
"The cost of this solution is high."
"It would be nice if pricing could do more to reflect the economy of the country where the product is being implemented."
"The program is very expensive."
"It costs about 8 to 10 thousand dollars per year for 500 users, standard licensing fees included."
"Sangfor is cheaper than competing vendors."
"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."
"SonicWall is a one-time purchase and there is no renewal license."
Cisco ASA firewalls deliver enterprise-class firewall functionality with highly scalable and flexible VPN capabilities to meet diverse needs, from small/branch offices to high performance data centers and service providers. Available in a wide range of models, Cisco ASA can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance. Flexible VPN capabilities include support for remote access, site-to-site, and clientless VPN. Also, select appliances support clustering for increased performance, VPN load balancing to optimize available resources, advanced high availability configurations, and more.
Cisco ASAv is the virtualized version of the Cisco ASA firewall. Widely deployed in leading private and public clouds, Cisco ASAv is ideal for remote worker and multi-tenant environments. The solution scales up/down to meet performance requirements and high availability provides resilience. Also, Cisco ASAv can deliver micro-segmentation to protect east-west network traffic.
Cisco firewalls provide consistent security policies, enforcement, and protection across all your environments. Unified management for Cisco ASA and FTD/NGFW physical and virtual firewalls is delivered by Cisco Defense Orchestrator (CDO), with cloud logging also available. And with Cisco SecureX included with every Cisco firewall, you gain a cloud-native platform experience that enables greater simplicity, visibility, and efficiency.
Learn more about Cisco’s firewall solutions, including virtual appliances for public and private cloud.
Sangfor Next Generation Firewall (also known as NGAF) is a converged security solution providing protection against advanced threat, malware, viruses, ransomware and web-based attacks using integrated security features like firewall, IPS, anti-virus, anti-malware, APT, URL filtering, Cloud Sandbox, and WAF. As the world's first AI-enabled and fully integrated Next Generation Firewall & Web Application Firewall (WAF), NGAF offering the security visibility, real-time detection and response, simplified operation and maintenance and high-performance application layer security needed to operate an enterprise network in total security. Tested and proven to provide cutting-edge network security by ICSA Labs and endorsed by Gartner Inc., NGAF harnesses the power of Sangfor’s Neural-X threat intelligence and analytics platform and Engine Zero’s innovative malware detection to provide next-generation protection for today’s enterprise.
Sangfor NGAF is ranked 29th in Firewalls with 4 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 28 reviews. Sangfor NGAF is rated 8.0, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Sangfor NGAF writes "We don't lose data anymore because it protects us from viruses". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "A rugged solution capable of defeating advanced threats". Sangfor NGAF is most compared with Fortinet FortiGate, Sophos XG, Sophos UTM, Fortinet FortiOS and Meraki MX, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with Meraki MX, Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard Firebox, SonicWall TZ and Sophos XG. See our Sangfor NGAF vs. SonicWall NSa report.
See our list of best Firewalls vendors.
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.