Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

OPNsense vs SonicWall NSa comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
328
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
18th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
87
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OPNsense is 12.3%, down from 17.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSa is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
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.
Vijay Mohan - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers a simple console to manage multiple branches and content filtering
The centralized console is great for managing multiple branches. It's a very simple console to connect all three of our branches in the US and India. We connect through three firewalls in a single console and manage any policy. So, if we need to change a policy, the global admin can connect from anywhere and easily make changes. Log usage is also very easy. The threat prevention capabilities are very good. Preventing the latest threats is very easy. You can define rules, and it automatically alerts you. For example, if there's a sudden increase in malicious spam, it will notify you immediately.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What's most important is the ease of use."
"I would recommend using Fortinet FortiGate because of its usability."
"The features that we have found most valuable are the SSL VPN and the User Portal."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The FortiGate controls the user's activities and maximizes my bandwidth use overall."
"You can purchase switches and you don't need to do anything with them. You just put in the firewall and the switches get all the policies and rules that you already have in the firewall. With Fortinet, you just connect the FortiSwitch to the Fortinet and that's it."
"The dashboard I have found the most valuable in Fortinet FortiGate."
"The GUI is good."
"The feature I find most valuable, is that the program helped me to realize all the requested functionality that was needed."
"The initial implementation process is simple."
"What I like the most about OPNsense is that it offers an easy-to-use dashboard for device management and control."
"I have found the solution has some great features overall, such as guest access capabilities, dashboards, and ease of use. There is plenty of documentation and support and it has the plugins that I needed."
"The solution has high availability."
"One of the most valuable features is the network checking. Additionally, the firewall and web filtering functionalities are highly useful."
"I mostly rely on the solution's network intrusion detection and prevention system, along with other systems, CMs, and log management."
"It has an open license. It works very well, and there is an update every month."
"Easy to scale solution that provides advanced threat protection. Their technical support is very good, very knowledgeable, and easy to reach."
"The basic firewall rules of the solution are great."
"I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays."
"I like the solution's configuration, interfaces, and user guides."
"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's very simple to use and the support is great."
"SonicWall's sales support is much better than other vendors'."
"The ease of configuration is excellent."
 

Cons

"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"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."
"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."
"Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment."
"There are some complex administration tasks in their administration portal. That needs to be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"In terms of improvement, the performance could be enhanced."
"There is room for improvement in SSL inspection."
"pfSense has better performance and quicker updates."
"The only thing that I would like to see improved is the Insight or the NetFlow analysis part. It would be good to have the possibility to dig down on the Insight platform. Right now, we can easily do only a few analyses. If this page becomes more powerful, it surely will be a well-adopted platform."
"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."
"They should improve IPEs for security in the future."
"OPNsense showed me some problems when using it in different environments. The problem is integration with a virtual server."
"Given that OPNsense plays a pivotal role as a firewall, safeguarding against various threats, having a reliable backup ensures uninterrupted protection even if unforeseen events impact the primary virtual machine."
"Potential improvement around the associated VPN cost"
"There are a few areas that need improvement including the VPN, user management, and reporting."
"Some of the configurations could be better."
"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 pricing for this product in India is high and the fees should be reduced."
"The dynamics needs to be improved. The solution is not very compatible compared to the market products."
"The dashboard must be improved."
"The reporting format could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"For the price, I'd rate it a ten because it's very cost-effective."
"Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."
"I think that the pricing is fair."
"Setup cost may be not so low, as you expect, because it depends on different factors, but TCO for 5 years may pleasantly surprise you."
"By default, they give SD-WAN along with the firewall. They don't have separate licensing for the SD-WAN functionality. However, they have security licenses that are sold separately on a subscription basis. Customers can consume these security features to protect their users from internet traffic."
"It is cost-effective, and provides a good value for your money. The pricing, and license renewal, is very reasonable for us."
"Fortinet is competitive price-wise."
"I think the price of Fortinet FortiGate is very reasonable."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing a nine out of ten, especially considering the availability of a free community edition."
"It's a free solution."
"It is not an expensive product. Basically, I deployed it because it was the fastest solution to satisfy our needs in open source."
"It's not expensive."
"The price of OPNsense is good."
"It costs about $1000."
"It is open source and free."
"Licensed features provide application control, content filtering, antivirus, and anti-malware all in a single appliance."
"Normally, when we buy any product, we buy it with a five-year service built into it. Later on, depending on the growth of the organization, we go for a new one or an upgrade."
"NSa is not expensive, not high. It's at a moderate or medium level."
"When implemented properly, the total cost of operation is very low."
"Additional resources are too expensive."
"The price is reasonable."
"If you want to connect more than five concurrent users by VPN then you have to pay an additional fee."
"The return on investment is very good."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
21%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
13%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Educational Organization
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
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?
I would rate the price of the product as seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSa?
There are some aspects of the dashboard configuration or customization that could be improved.
 

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
 

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: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.