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OPNsense vs SonicWall NSa comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
317
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
OPNsense
Ranking in Firewalls
3rd
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
39
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonicWall NSa
Ranking in Firewalls
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of December 2024, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.5%, up from 17.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 14.6%, down from 17.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSa is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

DineshKumar28 - PeerSpot reviewer
Effective threat prevention with responsive customer support
We are using Fortinet FortiGate as a firewall Fortinet FortiGate has been invaluable. It has helped save costs due to its various features, reliable performance, very good UI, low latency, and stability. The Threat Intel engine in Fortinet FortiGate is highly rated for its effectiveness in…
Eddy Ramirez - PeerSpot reviewer
Good interface and firewall capabilities and overall easy to use
The security has improved as we can isolate the network. We can do attrition prevention via a tool that comes with the solution. We can have a VPN solution in place for those that work from home, outside the network, in a secure manner. We also like that it offers good authentication. It offers radius-based authentication, which has been useful for the company. The main platform is under the Open VPN firewall. The solution has high availability. When we have different ISPs, we can actually load balance those links or actually put some priority or even classify the traffic that might go into one ISP or another.
Swapnil Kulkarni - PeerSpot reviewer
Good user interface, quick configuration modules but faced hardware issues
It could be improved in the reporting format. The way their analysis software is working, they need to improve their reporting. Second, I think they need to improve their security at the endpoint level, in the SD-WAN area. Apart from this, the main drawbacks are their support and hardware failure. In our last four to five years with the NSa 3600, we have faced hardware failure two to three times. Even though they replaced the hardware, we still faced the issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial setup is very straightforward and easy, with wizards helping to configure the device efficiently."
"Security solution with a straightforward and quick setup. It's a stable and scalable product."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"Easy to use support and licensing portal as well as activation process."
"Its stability is the most valuable."
"Fortinet FortiGate's reliability is valuable."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"The VPN server feature is the most valuable. It is integrated with Radius and AAA for doing accounting and authentication. Insight view is also an important feature for me at this time. It allows me to assess our network traffic. I also like the firewall feature. The BSD kernel has a packet filter. It is one of the most solid frameworks for firewalls. Its user interface is one of the best interfaces I have used."
"OPNsense is easy to use and open source."
"The initial setup is easy. It only takes 15-30 minutes to deploy."
"What I like best about OPNsense is that, as a firewall, it's pretty good. I'm quite impressed with it. I had an excellent experience with OPNsense, which helped me achieve the targets I wanted."
"OPNsense is very stable, easy to upgrade, and maintain."
"It's open source."
"The solution is good for a basic firewall for a small business or for home use."
"The most valuable features in OPNsense are reporting and visibility."
"SonicWall has USCS and anti-virus at the gateway level. Everything is filtered, and if it detects an intruder, it drops the line."
"When I switched from Fortinet to SonicWall, the number of network attacks significantly decreased."
"Deep packet inspection and intelligent application control are the most valuable features. It is a very updated solution. It is very current as compared to other brands and vendors."
"It has a very good user interface."
"SonicWall NSA is easy to deploy, easy to maintain, and easy to configure."
"It's very simple to use and the support is great."
"The solution has many useful features, such as content management, user management, user filtering, and domain controller connectivity mapping."
"The most valuable features to us are the security services which is a critical factor in our deployment. Today we need to have all the security services enabled because firewalls are not enough."
 

Cons

"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"The solution lacks sufficient filtering."
"There is one big configuration file with no separations for the unique VDOMs. Maybe they could separate individual VDOM configuration files with the root VDOM configuration file referencing the individual VDOM config files.​"
"It needs more available central management."
"The user interface could be improved."
"Its reporting capabilities can be improved. It should have some out-of-the-box reporting capabilities and some degree of customization. The basic reporting that it currently has is not sufficient to create more usable reports. It needs some sort of out-of-the-box reporting. They try to make customers purchase FortiAnalyzer for this kind of reporting, which is an additional cost. Other firewall vendors, such as SonicWall and Sophos, provide this sort of reporting without any additional cost."
"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."
"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."
"OPNsense struggles to handle large volumes of voice traffic, indicating scalability issues in that specific use case."
"The logging could improve in OPNsense."
"I think the most important thing is that it should be easily accessible, but currently, that doesn't seem to be the case. We need a hardware platform that's based on common standards and open computing principles, which would be like a commodity and benefit us greatly."
"There are some add-ons that need enhancements to make management easier for users, especially the reporting features. Some reports don't show the level of detail I'm looking for, and I've had trouble installing certain add-ons, especially for Internet bandwidth shaping within my company."
"While they do have paid options that actually gives better features, for most of the clients, if they tend to take a paid option will instead opt for Fortinet."
"The solution would not be suitable for anything large-scale."
"The solution could be more secure."
"On the customer-side, because I'm a small business, I need a cheaper or free solution option."
"The content ID needs to be improved."
"The stability is not there. The features are there, but they are not stable. They need to improve on this product because I feel that they have launched this product without much R&D."
"It is very modular and with native resources which are much lower than its competitors."
"I would like U.S.-based technical support."
"The detection of malware can improve in SonicWall NSa."
"It would help us a lot of SonicWall sent us more information about the latest updates and things that are changing."
"They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI."
"We still get phishing emails that manage to come through from time to time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet FortiGate as a less expensive solution than Palo Alto."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"The price is fair compared to the other competitors."
"They need to be competitive with other solutions."
"The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."
"For our organization, the licensing costs are approximately $7,000 per year."
"It is expensive. You need to pay for the subscription every year, which is very expensive. The subscription includes technical support and hardware exchange in case of failure."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"I'm using the free version of OPNsense. I didn't check the pricing for the solution because I still need to test it before getting the approval to purchase OPNsense, and it isn't easy to get approval from the higher-ups."
"It is free."
"As an appliance, it's in the medium price range."
"The solution is not expensive."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"The price of OPNsense is good."
"OPNsense is a well known open-source tool."
"Its pricing is unbeatable in comparison to other firewalls. You can have a small instance that could be €80 a month with the hardware underneath. Azure Firewall and FortiGate are out of the question at this price. If you are on a public cloud, you need the underlying infrastructure. Other than that, there is no additional cost. If you have it on-prem, you have to buy the server or the appliance. The hardware cost is replaced with the infrastructure cost in the cloud. You also have costs for the public IPs and underlying VMs, but that's not related to OPNsense. It would be the same for a FortiGate deployment on Azure. You need a FortiGate license, and you need the underlying infrastructure that scales up depending on your needs."
"They do have the option to purchase yearly, or two years, and three years renewal."
"SonicWall NSa has reasonable pricing. My company pays for it yearly, but I forgot how much the company pays. From what I remember, you only pay for the license fees."
"The solution is cheaper than others."
"When implemented properly, the total cost of operation is very low."
"The CPUs are not able to compete with a similar price point to the Fortinet, WatchGuard, or Palo Alto product."
"The solution is based on a yearly licensing model that is reasonable compared to other options."
"The price is high. I would rate it four to five out of ten."
"Compared to Fortinet and Cisco, SonicWall NSa is a cheaper solution."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Educational Organization
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What is the difference between PfSense and OPNsense?
Two of the most common and well recognized firewalls, PfSense and OPNsense both support site-to-site IPsec VPN and cl...
What do you like most about OPNsense?
What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OPNsense?
I consider the pricing of OPNsense to be high when compared with other market products. However, as a free firewall p...
What do you like most about SonicWall NSa?
The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSa?
SonicWall is much cheaper compared to Fortinet, particularly regarding renewal and licensing costs.
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSa?
I would like more free VPN licenses. It would be beneficial if they could enhance the analytics part. It needs to be ...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
NSA 250M, NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, Dell SonicWALL NSA
 

Learn More

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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
1. Deciso B.V. 2. iXsystems, Inc.  3. EuroBSDCon  4. Netgate  5. Claranet  6. Voleatech  7. Open Systems AG  8. Securebit AG  9. Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH  10. AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH  Additional customers include: T-Systems International GmbH, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone GmbH, 1&1 IONOS SE, OVHcloud, Hetzner Online GmbH, Strato AG, PlusServer GmbH, Host Europe GmbH, United Internet AG, 1&1 Versatel Deutschland GmbH, QSC AG, Bechtle AG, Cancom SE, Computacenter AG & Co. oHG, T-Systems Multimedia Solutions GmbH, Atos SE, Capgemini SE, Accenture plc, IBM Corporation, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, Cisco Systems, Inc.
Orange County Rescue Mission, First Source, Michaels & Taylor, Green Clinic Health System, Aspire Chiltern Skills and Enterprise Centre, UnitedStack, Faith Lutheran College Redlands, Celtic Manor Resort, Star Kay White, Air Works, Unimat Life, NHS Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS), Hutt City Council, Mato Grosso do Sul, Nspyre
Find out what your peers are saying about OPNsense vs. SonicWall NSa and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.