We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate vs SonicWall NSa based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Fortinet FortiGate has the winning edge in this comparison. Customers are more satisfied with Fortinet FortiGate’s scalability, robust features, and ROI.
"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."
"It performs very well."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a scalable solution."
"You can create multiple Virtual Domains (VDOMs), which are treated as separate firewall instances."
"I like several features that this product has, such as antivirus and internet navigation inspection. It is also simple to use."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"The firewall feature is most valuable since my work is to analyze if there is any potential attack. SonicWall NSa gives the perfect analysis."
"Setup is easy. Anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the control aspect of the solution."
"The basic firewall rules of the solution are great."
"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."
"The most valuable feature I've found is VPN and web protection, particularly with navigation assessment. We use the application control feature to create rules controlling specific application navigation."
"The stability is better than other products."
"User friendly and intuitive."
"The support structure needs to be improved because every time we contact them, there is a delay in the response."
"Some of the software stability could improve."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."
"The debugging and troubleshooting has room for improvement."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"The support we receive when we need to upgrade is not satisfactory and has room for improvement."
"There are a few areas that need improvement including the VPN, user management, and reporting."
"A room for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the log server because it could be more user-friendly compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks. My company has many rule sets up for review, so sometimes, my team needs to use Excel for filtering, but the UI cannot support the Excel function."
"The anti-spam requires a specific Java version on the server side (do not update it, otherwise it will break)."
"You can do zero-trust networking with them, but it's not easy."
"After-sales support and hands-on training facilities are not available in my country."
"Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased."
"They are not ready for managed security services. Their Cloud GMS product is weak, barely out of beta (buggy)."
"When it comes to security I think all of the features are currently open to improvement."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and Palo Alto Networks WildFire, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Fortinet FortiGate 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.
