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A10 Networks Thunder SSLi vs Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

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 November 2024, in the SSL/TLS Decryption category, the mindshare of A10 Networks Thunder SSLi is 30.0%, down from 32.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec SSL Visibility Appliance is 38.6%, down from 45.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
SSL/TLS Decryption
 

Featured Reviews

KM
Enables our content filter to do its job without any noticeable delay
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. We have 6,900 students and about 1,100 staff members. Most of our teachers and staff are connecting through our system. You add to that all the cell phones, the iPads, and all the computers, and then each individual website's connection, that's a lot of traffic in a period of one second. The delay with the SSL decryption turned on is almost unnoticeable. That is great because most SSL decryption solutions — a couple of competitors we did try — their devices crashed as soon as we turned decryption on.
MT
Easy to deploy without a lot of complications but the operations side should be simplified
One of the most valuable aspects of this solution is that it's easy to deploy without a lot of complications. Of course, one has to be very good at understanding the PKI as a whole. But in terms of implementation, we are utilizing Fail-to-Network, which means even if SSLV for some reason goes down, we don't get traffic interruption. In terms of SSLV's feature itself, it is very flexible in terms of whitelisting. For example, if I do not want to encrypt some things that are subject to compliance, it has easy categorization of the hostname that is out of the box. In one click I am able to dictate which hostname it should encrypt or not. It is easy to abide by the compliance policy. It is not just category-based, it is also very easy to whitelist or bypass the decryption based on IP addresses. For example, we have a finance minister who is in our network and we do not want to see all of his internet activity. It allows us to bypass it based on his IP address. There are many ways we can bypass SSL decryption. Be it destination IP, the source IP, the URL, the hostname, et cetera. This is the easiest solution and I did a little bit of research before and I could not find another solution that does this. There is also a return on investment. They have very good hardware and it is already prepaid for SSL 1.3. They have a way to do that. Not all types of versions can be decrypted. But to some extent, they can do that also, SSL 1.3. That is something amazing and most of the other vendors cannot do that.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"Technical support needs to be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"When you purchase the equipment, you purchase the licensing and warranty. It's all fairly standard. We haven't been caught with anything surprising."
"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
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
23%
Government
8%
Energy/Utilities Company
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

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: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.