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.
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."
"Secure, user-friendly, stable, and scalable network security solution. Installation is straightforward."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"UTM/NGFW features and FortiCloud for logs and backups are awesome."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The security fabric is excellent."
"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."
"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."
"SonicWall has all the usual functions, like LAN configurations, security features, word filters, etc., but it also has the CFS agent, which isn't available in any other firewall. Reporting port support is also there."
"It's very flexible and meets our customer's needs."
"This product is user-friendly and easy to configure."
"This product has kept us safe and we haven't had any breaches."
"We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the URL filtering by category, DMZ zoning, load balancing and site-to-site VPN."
"I like that SonicWall NSa is a stable product. It's also a scalable product."
"The antivirus and items of that nature were quite helpful to have."
"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 network security is great."
"No negative impression of the scalability."
"The most valuable features are unified threat management which provides security intelligence and the VPN for both site-to-site and remote access."
"It's a stable solution."
"The most valuable features are security and technical support."
"The most valuable features have been content filtering, and the interface is easy to navigate and to use."
"Ease of management and the VPN integration."
"It would be nice if FortiGate incorporated some built-in endpoint protection features. I would also like a built-in SOC dashboard for managing multiple Fortinet firewalls."
"Fortinet FortiGate is not very easy to use. The navigation could be improved to make it easier to use."
"I would like to see better pricing in the next release, as well as a simplification of the installation."
"It could use more templates for third-party site-to-site VPN setups other than FortiGate and Cisco."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"The biggest "gotcha" is that if the client purchases what they call the UTM shared bundle, which has unified threat management on both, it's not as easy to manage if you have more than one firewall."
"I would like reporting to be improved and should offer a lot more tools to monitor the products."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us."
"The problem primarily with SonicWall is it's a Unix box. And it's all software, all the activities, blocking, censoring, everything has to happen in the software. If you start hitting the box with a lot of sessions it slows down and that's not what I expect from a firewall."
"The dashboard must be improved."
"SonicWall NSa doesn't have a proxy. It also needs a quota management feature in specific scenarios where you must limit user bandwidth for a particular day."
"The detection of malware can improve in SonicWall NSa."
"The scalability is something that should be improved."
"It's very hard to manage this box. You really need a lot of skills to operate the SonicWall. There is training and the like, but it's just hard to manage. Even if you have the knowledge, there are too many options. The menus are not very clear, where you should find the information."
"The security standards for space and point of view should be improved so that the solution deploys in critical areas."
"The solution should provide some additional ports."
"The quality of tech support can vary."
"You need to be a certificate holder to set it up and configure it. It's really important because it looks easy, but it is complex. You need to have the knowledge and experience. But this is normal for technical products. It's not a product for regular user. It's for technical people. You need to have skills."
"Although the pricing is good, it could always be lower. If we get to pay less, we're happier."
"The solution has lost the trust of its customers because of moving from one company to another."
"SonicWall TZ can improve the UI application and when you create any net policies or any new policy, it will not sync or work properly."
"Its reporting can be improved. Currently, we cannot directly get the user names. It only shows the IP, which makes it a bit confusing because we need to use the IP to find the user. If we could directly get the name of the user, it would be better."
"I would like the solution to build in more redundancy. I"
SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". 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, WatchGuard Firebox and Cisco Secure Firewall. 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