We performed a comparison between SonicWall NSa and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: SonicWall TZ has an edge in this comparison. Unlike SonicWall NSa, its reviewers mention seeing an ROI.
"FortiGate's web and URL filtering are unlike any other firewall I've used. The functionality of URL filtering in those solutions is problematic because everything is encrypted, and firewalls can't break that encryption protocol. Fortinet has an SSL proxy, so the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves the FortiGate. The URL filter is definitely one of the most helpful features."
"Fortinet has a very good solution for Secure SD-WAN. One very good feature is that they have robust and simple FortiOS through which they provide all solutions. That's their strength. There's not much complexity involved with the Secure SD-WAN solution of Fortinet as compared to Cisco's solution, which has a lot of flexibility but complexity also comes with that flexibility."
"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."
"This product is definitely scalable."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"Their proxy-based inspection is responsive and secure."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"SD-WAN is a good feature."
"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."
"Support has improved dramatically since their separation from Dell."
"Easy to scale solution that provides advanced threat protection. Their technical support is very good, very knowledgeable, and easy to reach."
"The solution has many useful features, such as content management, user management, user filtering, and domain controller connectivity mapping."
"We have not found any vulnerabilities since implementing the solution."
"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."
"SonicWall NSa's most valuable features are the ease of configuration and the GUI."
"The general feature is the antivirus policy, followed by the ransomware protection, and these are the features I was looking at."
"The features that we have found most valuable in SonicWall TZ are the intrusion and brute force attack prevention."
"No negative impression of the scalability."
"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."
"We like their interface very much. It's pretty easy to use."
"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."
"The feature with SonicWall that I have found most valuable is that all the models have the same interface. We don't need to learn different interfaces in the smaller or bigger models."
"SonicWall TZ is stable."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"This product could be improved with Active directory integration and better handling in IPsec and GRE Tunnels."
"The solution needs to improve its integration with cybersecurity."
"We sometimes have issues with FortiGate's routing table in the latest firmware update. We had to downgrade the device because our customers complained about bugs."
"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."
"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."
"SonicWall does not support DynDNS, yet this is an important feature for smaller companies that do not have a static IP address."
"The cloud services may be in need of some improvement."
"The ongoing service fees are high."
"Initially, it may be difficult for some people to learn and become acquainted with it."
"Port forwarding could use streamlining."
"The logging, reporting, and storage capacity size could improve in a future release."
"Competitors provide SSL encryption licenses for free, whereas SonicWall only provides two licenses by default, but you have to pay for the rest of the licenses."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"An additional feature that I would like to see is reporting that includes metrics to give me more information about the number of viruses that it has actually detected and interrupted."
"The log analyzer in SonicWall TZ is something that they need to improve upon."
"The monitoring is a little bit confusing."
"It could be made more user friendly."
"The lack of support is having me look into other solutions to replace SonicWALL."
"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."
"There can be an improvement in analysis and reporting. We need enhancement on the reporting side."
"The technology in this particular version is very old."
SonicWall NSa is ranked 20th in Firewalls with 21 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 11th in Firewalls with 19 reviews. SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "It has no issues stability-wise and is scalable, but it has a complicated GUI, its setup is complex, and its product support is mediocre". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Highly acceptable on a small scale, straightforward out the box installation, with a good price point". SonicWall NSa is most compared with Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Cisco Secure Firewall and WatchGuard Firebox. See our SonicWall NSa vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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Basically, the main difference is that the TZ series is intended for a Branch office since it has fewer ports and the speed is around 1 GB.
The NSA series has more processor power and more port where you can create subnets and zones (like DMZ). Also, it has ports with 10 Gb and a processor to support the demand.
I have read that an approximate number of users in the highest TZ series (TZ 670) is around 150 to 200 but that is just an estimate.
Hope this helps. You can get more details in SonicWall datasheets where you will find the speed, throughput and more technical specifications to select the one that fits your requirements.
In simple words,
TZ is for small businesses (less than 100, maximum 150 users).
TZ has fewer ports.
NSA is for medium and large enterprises: > 150 Users,
NSA has many ports to support large networks