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SonicWall NSv vs Stormshield Network Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
580
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
SonicWall NSv
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (15th)
Stormshield Network Security
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.0
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (11th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
SG
Senior Cybersecurity Analyst at a tech company with 10,001+ employees
Secures east-west cloud traffic and improves threat visibility through deep inspection
SonicWall NSv offers great features. I cannot pinpoint a single best feature, but the best feature is the ability to deliver the full, high-efficiency inspection power of a physical SonicWall, including zero-day defense using Real-Time Deep Memory Inspection to the cloud, efficiently removing the performance versus cloud trade-off typically associated with virtual firewalls. Regarding deep memory inspection and real-time zero-day defense in SonicWall NSv, deep memory inspection is distinct from traditional sandboxing methods because it is focused on what is happening in the memory during file execution time, rather than just observing file system behavior. The deep memory inspection process addresses all challenges by employing a proprietary technique within the secure analysis environment, focusing on CPU-level analysis and real-time verdict. Those are the key points. SonicWall NSv's user interface is quite clear and easy to navigate. If someone has not worked with SonicWall and this is their first experience with the platform, I would highly recommend it. It is very easy to navigate and very user-friendly. SonicWall NSv has positively impacted our organization because we gained clear visibility into our network, and it helps to identify potential security issues that we had. We were able to remediate those issues, and so far, we have had a great experience with SonicWall NSv. We were able to manage approximately 99% of network-based attacks through this platform.
Benjamin - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Engineer at ACS2I
The intrusion detection system helps our organization by automatically detecting and responding to potential threats
The tool's most valuable feature is its dashboard, which helps you manage different aspects of a single page. The intrusion detection system helps our organization by automatically detecting and responding to potential threats. It operates similarly to Darktrace, which detects and responds automatically based on the security rules you apply. Initially, you configure everything to block, and then you can whitelist specific items as needed.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The interface and other reports are all user-friendly."
"The scalability is easy with switches and access points that are basically plug-and-play for the most part."
"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"The stability of the solution is excellent, as it is with other Fortinet products."
"The impact of SD-WAN on my network performance is clear, and if we speak about Fortinet Unified SASE, it is effective for me."
"Fortinet FortiGate has a very simple configuration, is easy to set up, and includes SD-WAN features at no additional cost."
"It is user friendly, and has all the features you need."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"SonicWall NSv has positively impacted my organization; one specific outcome I have noticed is the low cost of licensing and that it is a trusted security appliance."
"SonicWall NSv has positively impacted my organization by allowing our customers to access data 24 hours, seven days a week, making it a wonderful feature for business continuity for our customers."
"Advanced Threat Protection has made a difference for my environment by providing real-time, memory-deep inspection and a machine learning feature that is able to learn the way these devices behave and analyze them."
"SonicWall NSV is easy to use, and you can use it to manage the logs easily."
"We are very impressed with it."
"SonicWall NSv positively impacts my organization by providing firewall capabilities as a virtual firewall while offering the capabilities of a physical firewall with great performance and reliability."
"In my experience, the best feature SonicWall NSv offers is its stateful HA, which functions without any impact, ensuring a zero impact failover."
"Since using SonicWall NSv, it has positively impacted our organization by making the switches seem to be more efficient as we have changed to layer three networks in our network."
"The solution has improved my organization because I can see what traffic is happening and I can use it to block and prevent attacks."
"I can see what traffic is going on. I can easily block any programs from attacks."
"Our organization's main concern is stability, and this is a stable solution."
"The most valuable features are the IPS, the firewall function, and the price."
"I like how you can configure the rules. There is the task for the rules and a task for the network configuration. It also provides SMD filtering, and it can be integrated with the active directory for the users, their mission, and the VPN configuration. We are here in Sudan, and Stormshield didn't work in Sudan for more than a decade. Stormshield is a very strong firewall and very easy to configure and maintain. I am just working with the firewall solution, and we don't have any other solutions like endpoint solutions or something like that."
"The scalability of the solution is good."
"This solution is quick and easy to configure."
"Ease of use is the best feature of the product."
 

Cons

"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces."
"The solution is expensive."
"Another issue is how deduplication services don't work reliably after enabling deduplication on Fortinet."
"The AI with Fortinet FortiGate is not very well integrated on their devices, and their cloud infrastructure is not as good as Cisco's."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"They should add a feature for detailed reporting."
"In an incident, after a restart, Fortinet FortiGate did not connect to FortiGuard servers. Due to that reason, on the customer end, all websites got blocked."
"It has been brought to our attention by a few customers that they are dissatisfied with the fact that our virtualized service is only offered as a subscription option on the cloud. However, it is worth noting that many other similar services are also offered through a subscription model on the cloud and not through perpetual licensing. It is unclear why these customers would have an issue with this subscription service when so many others are utilizing similar methods."
"SonicWall NSv's performance is reliable but can be limited by single-stream CPU usage when DPI-SSL is enabled, but in most cases, it is a great experience."
"While I have not encountered significant challenges, during the configuration part, I noticed that some features, such as user-based policy for web filtering, are not available in SonicWall NSv compared to other firewalls."
"The customer support for SonicWall NSv is not very reachable or speedy, but we can solve issues."
"SonicWall NSv can be improved due to the lack of proper documentation, because even though there are a lot of documentation available, there are particular use cases that are not included."
"Currently, we are getting challenges with user-wise reports and other reporting details. At present, they do not provide detailed reports compared to other products."
"We face some challenges when we upgrade the solution."
"I believe SonicWall NSv is performing well overall, but I think it would be beneficial to have physical versions, such as the hardware of SonicWall NSv, for some environments that may not necessarily need to be connected to the cloud."
"The biggest issue was their support department was not able to help us, then everything stops. This is a no-go area for me."
"A more user-friendly interface would be helpful."
"Not all the fields are activated yet and we were informed that it will take at least one month."
"The product must improve its pricing."
"Stormshield Network Security is quite expensive."
"It could be better if it were more user-friendly. It's too complicated for us to use it. The price could be better as well."
"The filtering configuration could be better. We have some difficulties with the filtering configuration and the filter extension. It's not that easy. It's not that straightforward. In the next release, I would like to see a reporting system. Stormshield doesn't have any tutorials on how to do the configuration and things like that. They just have documentation on the website. If you want to configure, for example, Cisco or Fortinet, you can find tutorials on YouTube. They show you how to configure the features, and so on. In Stormshield, there is nothing on social media or the internet on how to configure different things. The lack of documentation or the lack of material makes it difficult for others to adopt this solution."
"The SD card could be more secure."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is better compared to other solutions like Check Point, Arista, or Cisco."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"The solution is very expensive so pricing is rated a one out of ten."
"I give the pricing a nine out of ten."
"The price is highly competitive when compared to other brands that offer similar functionality."
"The pricing is perfect."
"I do not have first-hand experience with the rice of Fortinet FortiGate, but I have heard the price was reasonable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is cost-efficient. Palo Alto is expensive, but Fortinet FortiGate is not."
"Our initial purchase, which included a three-year term of support, was about $25,000 USD."
"The tool is moderately priced."
"SonicWall NSV is not very costly."
"We are currently using the trial version."
"The solution's pricing is good for the technology it offers."
"The solution’s pricing is less compared to other products."
"We chose Stormshield for its price, as the Azure firewall was too expensive."
"The SN200 series costs between $500 USD and $600 USD per year, whereas the SN700 series costs approximately $1,000 annually."
"For mid-sized companies, they sell their appliances for good prices."
"We bought a three-year license, and we renew it whenever it expires. The price could be better. It's always very expensive."
"The pricing could be better."
"I think the price is good."
"The price of this solution and the price of support are ok."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Security Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business357
Midsize Enterprise133
Large Enterprise188
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise2
 

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 do you like most about SonicWall NSV?
The product helps improve our security.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSV?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it's okay.
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSV?
While I have not encountered significant challenges, during the configuration part, I noticed that some features, suc...
What advice do you have for others considering Stormshield Network Security?
The tool is like a firewall and works well. I don't have any issue with it. I rate it an eight out of ten.
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
SonicWall Network Security Virtual
NETASQ Firewalls
 

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
Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council
ACESUR group, Ministry of Education Oman, Anios Laboratories, Zain, DLM Location
Find out what your peers are saying about SonicWall NSv vs. Stormshield Network Security and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
880,745 professionals have used our research since 2012.