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A10 Networks Thunder SSLi vs Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

A10 Networks Thunder SSLi
Ranking in SSL/TLS Decryption
3rd
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec SSL Visibility App...
Ranking in SSL/TLS Decryption
1st
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the SSL/TLS Decryption category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder SSLi is 29.3%, down from 30.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance is 39.7%, down from 43.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
SSL/TLS Decryption
 

Featured Reviews

CC
The SSL decryption successfully decrypts at a rate that has minimal to no impact on our end users
With the Thunder SSLi, we're better protected. We can stop use of VPN and proxies. We are better protected against dirty traffic coming back to our schools. Having a secure decrypt zone with the equipment lowers the chances that our security infrastructure could possibly miss an attack. It gives us insight into the actual traffic that a student is following. What's the value of identifying possible risks or possible intent based on unencrypted traffic where you have insight to what the student's intent may be? E.g., anonymous bully reporting. It's invaluable to be able to leverage that insight and data to maybe bring help or avert a possible bad circumstance. It's something that's very important to us that this type of system gives us insight into that. For terms of ease of use, it's fairly simple. My analysts tell me that they don't mind getting in there. It was something new that we had to throw on their plate. Every time you add a new element and a new level of complexity, your analysts will look at you like you're crazy, Our plan was originally to use our native firewalls to do the decryption. Unfortunately, that was a feature set which was added on afterward. It just ended up bogging down our system. That is the reason why we had to add the extra hardware. Once the team understood that, the UI was intuitive and a huge help. We use the solution’s Harmony analytics and visibility controller. We have been able to proactively engage and deescalate situations with it. We love Harmony’s traffic management capabilities because it is centralized management. It has a rich analytics capability. This allows us insight into the aggregate performance of all the boxes. so we can possibly leverage any resources available to enhance the environment. We love the single pane of glass traffic management. Single pane of glass is huge, centralized logging. It is the buzzword that everyone is talking about right now, except what nobody seems to take into consideration, is that an analyst only has two eyes. The administration piece of it is huge. It allows us to not just look and get the information, but also cipher it, which is actionable. Looking at logs all day is great, but you can stare in the matrix so long before you want to get in the game. This single pane of glass allows us to look at information that's actionable.
MT
Enhanced our threat detection rates and does not interrupt our traffic on failure, but it needs to be easier to manage
Technical support needs to be improved. I would like to see a graphical trace or view of the issues. It has to be in the simplest language because a lot of network and security operations people do not understand SSL. For the sake of smooth operations, there should be a graphical, easy naming convention for SSL. The GUI should give us easier access to those concerns, like a packet tracer. If somebody enters the host IP or the hostname then it will tell the administrator that there is a problem with a policy, or what is causing the issue. Again, it has to be in the simplest words because not all organizations can hire PKI experts. It depends on the organization because in banking they will have a PKI team and they understand these things well, but a lot of organizations do not have the same resources. Essentially, from an operations perspective, they have to come up with nice ways for operational personnel to easily and effectively manage it.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"With the Thunder SSLi, we're better protected. We can stop use of VPN and proxies. We are better protected against dirty traffic coming back to our schools. Having a secure decrypt zone with the equipment lowers the chances that our security infrastructure could possibly miss an attack."
"We have several proxies in our environment, so we localized internet traffic between these proxies. Instead of getting a really huge proxy box, according to our size, we can use three boxes and share the traffic with A10's load-balancer feature."
"Its most valuable feature is its ability to do its job accurately, effectively, and very quickly. The amount of traffic that we have going through our system is astounding... The delay with the SSL decryption turned on is almost unnoticeable."
"The most valuable feature is the Fail-to-Network (FTN) option, which means that if for any reason the appliance goes down then there is no interruption in traffic."
"The ability to do SSL chaining is most valuable. It provides the ability to send decrypted traffic at close-to-line speed to products that can't decrypt. So, it can take the decrypted traffic and send it to your IPS or your other tools to be able to see what's inside of that traffic for DLP or malicious content detection. That's the whole beauty of it. It was probably the elephant in the room for the longest in terms of SSL decryption. It can get the high band, especially for places that had a lot of decryption to do, such as big finance companies, big telcos, etc."
"The most valuable feature is the Fail-to-Network (FTN) option, which means that if for any reason the appliance goes down then there is no interruption in traffic."
"One of the most valuable aspects of this solution is that it's easy to deploy without a lot of complications."
 

Cons

"There is one thing I would like to see changed. In their features for setting things up, there is a templating system that would normally assist clients. However, we had a better time setting up the device either through the command line or through the interface and not using the templates that were pre-installed. So there is room for improvement to the templates for initial installation."
"I would like them to have a better UI (better universal design)."
"It would be great if it supported SSL operations according to Active Directory users. For example, if we want to bypass one of the servers or a client's internet access for SSL interception, we have to do it according to the IP address. It would be better if we could do it according to the Active Directory username. A10 says they kind of support that but we haven't tested it."
"From the operations perspective, they have to come up with easier ways so that the operational guys can easily manage it."
"They're working on being able to handle more traffic. They're working on bigger boxes full of throughput because now networks are going to 40 gigs and 100 gigs. So, trying to keep up with the bandwidth demands is where things are being pushed."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When you purchase the equipment, you purchase the licensing and warranty. It's all fairly standard. We haven't been caught with anything surprising."
"Our licensing costs, yearly, are just under $15,000. Your initial cost of acquisition is obviously going to be more than $15,000..."
"We always pay for support. Any organization of our size who doesn't is asking for problems."
"Licensing fees are billed annually and we purchased a three-year license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
University
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
No data available
 

Also Known As

Thunder SSLi
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Klein Independent School District
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about A10 Networks Thunder SSLi vs. Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.