We compared SonicWall NSa and WatchGuard Firebox across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: SonicWall NSa's setup is generally considered easy, while WatchGuard Firebox is described as straightforward and simple. SonicWall NSa offers advanced threat protection and unique features like centralized firewall management, while WatchGuard Firebox is praised for its comprehensive features and user-friendly interface. SonicWall NSa could improve integration and bandwidth monitoring, while WatchGuard Firebox needs enhancements in areas such as interface, web blocker feature, reporting, and customer support. The pricing and licensing for both products are generally reasonable, but SonicWall NSa offers more diverse pricing models.
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is Quota."
"Provides good firewall security and has great VPN features."
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."
"The pipe filter application is an outstanding feature."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a security device. It can optimize security on the networks of a company. It actually protects the company from attacks from outside. With FortiGate, you can categorize the users. You can create a group of users that can access all of the websites for their work. You can limit other users' access."
"SonicWall NSa's most valuable features are the ease of configuration and the GUI."
"We like the features, but the main thing is from a commercial and cost perspective it is very good."
"I like that SonicWall NSa is a stable product. It's also a scalable product."
"Support is usually good when it comes to helping with issues."
"Valuable features include a web filter, DHCP, and monitoring capabilities."
"The functionality is the same whether it is on hardware or a virtual appliance. The interface is the same. It's nice that it's standardized."
"It is able to fulfill my requirements. It protects our network environment. It has control over IPS, signatures, and it can also manage bandwidth and mapping. It is also stable and has good support."
"We have not found any vulnerabilities since implementing the solution."
"What I found most valuable in WatchGuard Firebox is that it's a functional platform that works, and each of its features works well. The solution also has good reporting and dashboard capabilities. I also find the overall performance of WatchGuard Firebox great."
"The set up was quite straightforward and we handled it in-house. It took a few hours to deploy the product."
"The ports that I have assigned appear to be unattainable to outside 'mal-actors,' unless they have an address registered on the internet that this thing is expecting. That's a layer of security."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the FireWall features. The management side of WatchGuard is quite easy because it supports two ways to manage it - by the web and the other one they call WatchGuard systems manager. I used to be familiar with WSM only, but they improved their GUI in the web browser and now it is much easier to do it within the web browser."
"The Dimension control, the one-spot reporting and control, has been nice. It's been easy to go in and make sure people are doing what they're supposed to be doing and that only the right stuff is getting in."
"[A] valuable feature would be the branch office. We have five offices throughout the United States, and it coordinates the connections of those offices."
"The reports are detailed."
"Efficient to setup, run, and maintain. Saving man hours and cost in the process."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."
"The Wi-Fi controller needs a lot of improvement."
"Its customer service could be better."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"Its filtering is sometimes too precise or strict. We sometimes have to bypass and authorize some of the sites, but they get blocked. We know that they are trusted sites, but they are blocked, and we don't know why."
"The firewall engine is not so strong as of now, in my opinion... My second concern is that, while they have Zero-day vulnerability and anti-malware features, the threat engine needs to be strengthened, its efficiency can be increased."
"We would like to see an upgrade to the VPN feature, we are using the VPN from outside of our office and there is a limitation to 10 connections, more connections would be suitable."
"I would like to have a built-in vulnerability scanner in the firewall. It would be great to have such functionality. Its price could also be better. It would also be good to have a local warehouse. It doesn't get damaged a lot, but if a customer needs a replacement, currently, it has to come from Miami or Mexico, which can take a few days. It would be better if they have a local warehouse from where we can just pick replacements and quickly solve a client's needs in terms of replacing equipment. It would be great to have it locally instead of waiting for it from Mexico or the USA."
"There are a few areas that need improvement including the VPN, user management, and reporting."
"The dashboard must be improved."
"They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI."
"When it comes to security I think all of the features are currently open to improvement."
"SonicWall needs to work on SD-WAN."
"After-sales support and hands-on training facilities are not available in my country."
"Do not even consider NetExtender - probably one of the most horrific, nightmare grade Java-based VPN clients. We have but all given up trying to make it work reliably."
"There should be better integration and a way to configure multiple vendors into the same data center in order to offer more flexibility."
"An area for improvement is that when we use a web administration link, there is no security."
"The scalability of the solution needs improvement."
"The documentation for the System Manager/Dimension configuration, could be a little bit clearer... The use case where you have multiple sites with multiple firewalls, and one site that has the System Manager server and the Dimension server, wasn't really well defined. It took me a little bit of digging to get that to actually work."
"The performance of the solution's processor needs to be faster."
"There is room for improvement in the threat protection, data packet inspection, and performance of the solution. Generally, it's just a lower-end product. It does the job but doesn't do it very well."
"There are a couple of things I wished that it would do, but I can't think of those off the top of my head."
"We use WatchGuard to manage our failover for internet. If a primary internet goes down, it does a failover to the secondary the internet. However, what it doesn't do so well is that if the primary internet has a lot of latency but it's not completely down, it doesn't do a failover to the backup in a timely manner."
SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 80 reviews while WatchGuard Firebox is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 79 reviews. SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8, while WatchGuard Firebox is rated 8.4. The top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". On the other hand, the top reviewer of WatchGuard Firebox writes "Offers a streamlined deployment, intuitive interface and robust security features". SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and OPNsense, whereas WatchGuard Firebox is most compared with Netgate pfSense, Sophos XG, OPNsense, SonicWall TZ and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway. See our SonicWall NSa vs. WatchGuard Firebox report.
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