SonicWall NSa vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

SonicWall and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. SonicWall is ranked #18 with an average rating of 8.2, while Zscaler is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.6. SonicWall holds a 1.7% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 88% of SonicWall users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

SonicWall NSa and Zscaler Cloud Firewall are both competitors in the network security market. Users often favor SonicWall NSa for its support and pricing while Zscaler Cloud Firewall stands out for its advanced features despite higher costs.

Features: SonicWall NSa provides comprehensive threat detection, robust VPN capabilities, and reliable performance. Zscaler Cloud Firewall offers scalability, seamless cloud integration, and advanced threat protection. SonicWall's strong security features and reliable VPN make it ideal for on-premises environments, while Zscaler's cloud-centric functionality provides benefits for dynamic and distributed setups.

Room for Improvement: SonicWall NSa can enhance its reporting tools, ease of configuration, and user interface. Zscaler Cloud Firewall needs better offline capabilities, a simpler setup process for new users, and increased flexibility in configuration options.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: SonicWall NSa is known for straightforward deployment in on-premises settings and reliable customer support. Zscaler Cloud Firewall is effective for cloud deployment but faces initial setup challenges. Customer service for Zscaler, while satisfactory, is less praised than SonicWall's hands-on support.

Pricing and ROI: SonicWall NSa offers competitive pricing with long-term cost benefits and solid ROI. Zscaler Cloud Firewall's higher initial investment is justified by its extensive features, providing significant ROI for businesses leveraging cloud infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed SonicWall NSa vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall NSa vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 2025

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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

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 SonicWall NSa is 1.7%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

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.

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Vijay Mohan

Senior Manager INFOSEC AND Risk ASSESSMENT Engineering at Atlas Systems

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.

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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues

The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate has many valuable features, such as IDS, and intrusion detection. It has security features that are in part with the technologies that are available in the market."

"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."

"It's very easy to configure."

"It enables our organization to become more productive. Also, it protects our NEtWare from viruses and malware."

"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."

"The initial setup is easy."

"It is useful for protecting and segregating the internal networks from the internet. Most of our customers also use the FortiGate client to connect to their offices by using the VPN client, and of course, they usually activate the antivirus, deep inspection, and intrusion prevention services. They are also using it for web filtering and implementing various policies dealing with forwardings, NAT, etc."

"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The product is simple to manage."

"User-friendly with good security and application control."

"It's very flexible and meets our customer's needs."

"The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites."

"I like this solution because we are focused on VPN and have many brands that need to link a VPN and have security, like ransomware, spyware, and basic protection."

"The stability is better than other products."

"We like the features, but the main thing is from a commercial and cost perspective it is very good."

"The most valuable aspect of the solution is its ability to work like any other firewall."

More SonicWall NSa pros

"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."

"The visibility and log availability offered are highly valued for troubleshooting purposes, and this is a key factor driving customer interest in the firewall module."

"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."

"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."

"If malicious traffic attacks our on-premises servers, then it gets blocked by Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall understands the applications in the current generation and adapts to the present generation cloud applications."

"I like the ease of deployment and its flexibility. We don't need to deal with license, quotes, procurement, delivery, and installation. Everything is software-based, and it's very easy to operate."

"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"Application management can be improved."

"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."

"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."

"They are doing good, but they can improve the distributor assignment. The availability of the product and the timeline of delivery are the main things. The distribution should be swift, and the distributor should not reach out to end customers directly. They should work as a distributor. There should also be one more local distributor. Currently, there is only one distributor in Pakistan, and the rest of them are in UAE. It is difficult to work with only one distributor. Sometimes, you don't get along with the same distributor, and that's why they should have one more distributor. Their licensing should also be improved. The activation or renewal of the product should be done from the date of renewal, not from the date on which the license expired."

"The documentation available for Fortinet FortiGate should be improved"

"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."

"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."

"Their support can be better, and there should be better policies for immediate replacement in critical situations."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The product could expand its throughput capacity."

"The only thing that we would want would be single-pane management, which it has, but the GMS is not very good. It's purely the management of multiple devices for multiple customers, that's the only thing that it's lacking."

"Live tracking of packets could be improved."

"Sometimes I found the GUI and some of the features a little bit hard to navigate, as opposed to Fortigate, which is much more user-friendly."

"The scalability is something that should be improved."

"The product has a lot of bugs, actually. We are facing some issues with this product. The DPI SSL feature which is there, it is not working properly."

"The reporting feature could be better because most of the companies want to have the analytics included, which is something that you have to buy separately."

"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."

More SonicWall NSa cons

"When it comes to customer support, there is room for improvement in Zscaler's service."

"Apart from the issues associated with the product in areas like the DC performance issues and DC failover, Zscaler Cloud Firewall's IP should not have a proxy IP."

"We are having some issues with internet access being denied when organizational ID-based policies change. For example, a lower level employee ends up getting the same level of access as that of a higher level employee."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."

"If I can get rid of Jetscaler, I will use Twingate for sure."

"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."

"Certain criteria need to be met if you want to scale this solution."

"There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, the GUI is outdated, with noticeable lags and delays, especially when generating reports for past transactions."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"When I look around at other products, such as Sophos, Fortinet FortiGate is 20% to 30% more expensive with our current cost."

"Fortinet FortiGate has different licensing models, depending on what you're going to do. Services included would depend on the license model. Licenses can be renewed annually."

"It is too expensive for us. My organization is very small, and we have a total of ten users. We have three internal users and seven external users. The FortiGate 100D series is too expensive for renewing the licenses."

"FortiGate's pricing falls within the mid-range when compared to other leading firewall solutions."

"Each feature costs money, so it is important to study your needs."

"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."

"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."

"The license is too expensive to renew. The license renewal process is also complex."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"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."

"A firewall doing anti-spam might be a low cost solution, but it is not your best strategy."

"It's become difficult to get the best price from SonicWall."

"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."

"The solution is cheaper than others."

"They do have the option to purchase yearly, or two years, and three years renewal."

"The price of SonicWall NSa is expensive."

"The CPUs are not able to compete with a similar price point to the Fortinet, WatchGuard, or Palo Alto product."

More SonicWall NSa pricing and cost advice

"There are licensing costs, and I would not say that it's a cheap vendor."

"Zscaler is priced too high compared to the cost of Fortinet."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the license in charges associated with the product."

"It comes at a significantly reduced cost while ensuring control and effectiveness."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Government

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...

See all answers

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...

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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 ...

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What do you like most about SonicWall NSa?

The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSa?

I would rate the price of the product as seven out of ten.

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What needs improvement with SonicWall NSa?

There are some aspects of the dashboard configuration or customization that could be improved.

See all answers

Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?

Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...

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What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Sophos XG vs SonicWall NSa

Compared 14% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs SonicWall NSa

Compared 11% of the time

Meraki MX vs SonicWall NSa

Compared 8% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs SonicWall NSa

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs SonicWall NSa

Compared 5% of the time

More SonicWall NSa Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 17% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Multicloud Defense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall NSa

March 2025

Download SonicWall NSa product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

March 2025

Download Zscaler Cloud Firewall product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

NSA 250M, NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, Dell SonicWALL NSA

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

SonicWall NSa dispenses advanced threat protection using a high-performance security platform. The NSa series implements intuitive deep learning technologies in the SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform to dispatch the automated real-time threat detection and deterrence enterprise organizations need today. SonicWall Network Security appliance (NSa) series is best for mid-sized organizations to distributed enterprises and data centers.

SonicWall NSa series next-generation firewalls (NFGWS) combine two very robust security ideologies to deliver advanced threat protection to keep users’ networks safe. Boosting SonicWall’s multi-engine advanced threat protection (ATP) is their Real-time Deep Memory Inspection (RTDMI™). The RTDMI intuitively identifies and stops aggressive zero-day threats and vicious malware by investigating memory directly. This real-time process allows SonicWall RTDMI to be accurate, lessen false positives and discover and alleviate malicious threats and attacks. SonicWall’s single-pass Reassembly-Free Deep Packet Inspection (RFDPI) will audit every byte of each and every packet by investigating both outbound and inbound traffic on the firewall. By combining the SonicWall Capture Cloud Platform along with on-box offerings such as intrusion prevention, web/URL filtering, and anti-malware, the NSa series is able to block the most malicious and dangerous threats at the gateway.

Additionally, SonicWall firewalls supply absolute protection by executing complete inspection and decryption of SSH and TLS/SSL encryption connections - no matter the port or protocol. The firewall takes a deep dive into each and every packet (the header and data) routing out any anomalies, zero-day intrusions, threats, and protocol non-compliance. Users can also define unique criteria specific to their organization to ensure their networks remain safe. This aggressive deep packet inspection is able to identify and block malicious attacks, stop dangerous malware downloads, prevent the spread of infections, and defeat command and control (C&C) communications and data exfiltration. Protocols involving inclusion and exclusion allow users complete control to decide, based on specific governance policies, organizational policies, or government or legal compliance, which traffic is to be investigated for decryption or inspection.

SonicWall Nsa offers enterprise organizations the network control and fluid flexibility they desire using an intrusion prevention system (IPS), VPN, real-time visualization, and other advanced powerful security features, making it a popular firewall solution in today's marketplace.

Reviews from Real Users

“The features that I have found most valuable are the firewalling, which is very good, and the GUI which is very intuitive. It is easy to use and provides great security.” - Network Engineer at a maritime company

“What's valuable in SonicWall NSa is the ATP (advanced threat protection). It can protect users from malicious links. SonicWall NSa also has a Sandboxing service that is very helpful for us, especially when end users accidentally click on malicious links. Another valuable feature of this solution is that it is very useful for site-to-site VPN connectivity issues. SonicWall NSa has very good hardware. I also love that SonicWall has very good technical support, who are very knowledgeable, provide good suggestions, and they're easy to reach.” - Mohammed M., Network Administrator at Transgulf Readymix

SonicWall

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100% cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances or hybrid solutions are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates the world’s largest cloud security platform, protecting thousands of enterprises and government agencies from cyberattacks and data loss.

Check more details: https://www.zscaler.com/produc...

Zscaler

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

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

Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall NSa vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 2025

Free Report: SonicWall NSa vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about SonicWall NSa vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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