SonicWall NSa Reviews

We use the solution on campus for students. We are not a non-profit organization working with financial constraints. We are an academic institute, so not very much security is required. We are required to provide real-time security.

SonicWall's technical support is very good. We get real-time support from them. The product also works fine. There are no issues with the hardware. The security is also good.

One issue with the solution is that no authorization or authentication features exist. We have to use another software, which should be built for authentication.

Other than that, it's become difficult to get the best price from SonicWall.

I've been using SonicWall NSa for the last nine years.

I rate SonicWall NSa's stability a ten out of ten.

I rate SonicWall NSa's scalability an eight out of ten. We have 700 student users on campus, but fewer than 500 concurrencies exist.

The setup process is very simple. I am 100% aware of how to install and configure it and how to make policies and implement them, such as website application blocking. I'm very comfortable with this firewall because it is simple. There is very little complexity.

We are checking the viability of Sophos over SonicWall. When we started using Firewall or UTM, Sophos was Cyberoam. The license was user-based. We saw that Cyberoam was costlier than SonicWall. We could not get financial approval for that.

SonicWall NSA is a good product, and we are not facing any issues. I rate it a ten out of ten.

I'm using SonicWall NSa as an external firewall.

For me, the most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the UTM.

A room for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the log server because it could be more user-friendly compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks.

Another area for improvement is the UI of SonicWall NSa, mainly because the rule set is challenging to review, and you always have to export the rule set for review. My company has many rule sets up for review, so sometimes, my team needs to use Excel for filtering, but the UI cannot support the Excel function.

In the next release of SonicWall NSa, I want the solution to be more user-friendly.

I've been working with SonicWall NSa for more than ten years.

SonicWall NSa is a stable solution.

I am still determining how scalable SonicWall NSa is.

SonicWall NSa support is fine overall. My company always gets help from the local vendor.

My company used Check Point ten years ago, but its pricing was higher than SonicWall NSa. The cost to maintain Check Point was also higher, so now the company uses SonicWall NSa.

SonicWall NSa is relatively easy to set up because my company always partners with local support.

It took one month to implement the solution because the company had to migrate from the old to the new, including checking the rule sets. I'm referring to upgrades because the deployment from scratch happened ten years ago, so I don't remember the details.

An in-house team implemented SonicWall NSa together with a local support team.

My company has yet to evaluate any ROI from SonicWall NSa.

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.

I believe I'm using the latest SonicWall NSa version, 2700, though I'm not sure.

My whole company in Hong Kong uses SonicWall NSa, so that's about one hundred people. Mainly two people maintain the solution.

A few people took care of the deployment of SonicWall NSa.

I rate SonicWall NSa as nine on a scale of one to ten.

I'm a SonicWall NSa user.

I use SonicWall NSa for bandwidth monitoring and aggregation. I also use it to control browsing.

What I like best about SonicWall NSa is the security it offers compared to other solutions in the market. Its reduction rate is also better than others.

SonicWall NSa has multiple areas for improvement.

One is that it doesn't have a proxy. It also doesn't have the quota management feature required in specific scenarios where you need to limit user bandwidth for a particular day, so one user isn't using up too much bandwidth compared to other users.

Active/Active HA is also missing in the product.

What I want to be added to SonicWall NSa in the future is the bandwidth optimization feature.

I've been using SonicWall NSa for fifteen years.

SonicWall NSa is a stable product.

To scale SonicWall NSa, you need to keep changing the model of the box, but this is the case in any other solution, so you go for hardware appliances, such as Fortinet, Sophos, Palo Alto Networks, and Check Point because after reaching a specific capacity, you need to change the model.

SonicWall NSa has good technical support, so support-wise, I'm giving it a ten out of ten.

Positive

My company chose SonicWall NSa over other products because it was good. It was better than others.

SonicWall NSa is easy to implement. It took two hours to deploy the product completely.

We implemented SonicWall NSa as we're SonicWall resellers.

There's ROI from SonicWall NSa, and its reduction rate is the best.

There are different pricing models for SonicWall NSa.

My company uses a next-generation firewall from SonicWall, SonicWall NSa.

I'm using version 2650 of SonicWall NSa.

My company is a SonicWall NSa reseller.

In the company, everyone uses SonicWall NSa, particularly fifty people.

My advice to people looking into implementing SonicWall NSa is that it depends on the setup. What my company does is first understand the setup and why the customer wants to deploy the product. Based on the customer's answers, my company presents solutions that would work. For example, if you require a proxy or a quota management feature, SonicWall NSa will not be a complete solution. If you need Active/Active HA, SonicWall NSa won't be the right match. You need to understand what you require from the product. If you need browsing and management turnovers, then SonicWall NSa will be good enough. Overall, the product still has some areas for improvement.

My rating for SonicWall NSa is seven out of ten. For me to give it a higher rating, it should have more features. Right now, I'm unable to market it well because it doesn't score very well in Gartner. I can only position SonicWall NSa as having the best reduction rate. The product is relatively good and stable but still needs certain features.

We're using the solution as a gateway-level device.

It's good for firewall and gateway-level security. The VPN service is quite good, including the site-to-site VPN.

It works well for the corporate sector. 

Sometimes I have some queries, and the SonicWall support team resolves my queries.

It offers a very straightforward setup. 

I do not see any specific areas that need improvement. 

The solution can be a bit expensive. 

I've been using the solution for more than ten years. 

It's stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

SonicWall is scalable. Currently, I have two NSa 4600s and they are good for my users.

We have around 400 people using the solution. 

At this time, there is no plan to increase usage. 

Technical support has been good. 

Positive

I previously used Sophos.

The solution is easy to set up. It is also easy to deploy. How long it takes to deploy depends on your work culture and how you want to use it. 

For my organization, I deployed it with my support partner, and it has been working fine over the last few years.

There is a good ROI.

For some services, we have to pay for a license. We need to renew for either one or three years.

It can be quite expensive compared to other products with the same features. 

I have the on-premise model, and I have the TZ270. There are more than 20 devices.

I can recommend it to people who are somewhat technical. They would have no trouble with SonicWall products.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

The solution is primarily used as a perimeter firewall for a gateway toward public internet traffic. Basically, it is a gateway between our internal network and public traffic.

Feature wise, the content filtering is good.

The basic firewall rules of the solution are great.

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 IRL, when it was installed, had us facing some issues. However, as they kept on uploading the images, the issues are starting to get fixed. 

They already have this feature of advanced capture, set rotation, and so it is a next-generation firewall only. They could improve on their software side. Their software, which is managing the hardware, it's not up to the mark.

We've been using our current particular model (NSA 5600, the most current model) for the last two years. The other firewall we were using, SonicWall 5500 we've used for the last seven or eight years. 

It took some time for us to establish stability within the solution at the beginning. At this point, we find it to be quite stable except for the DPI SSL feature.

We had already scaled from the older version, the 5500, however, the 5600, is quite a new product. They have since changed the OS, so it ended up being a bit complex from the earlier version. The complexity is there, obviously. It's not that easy to manage. You really need to have someone with knowledge right there with you.

It is an internal firewall. All of our traffic, internal traffic, goes through this firewall only. There are somewhere around, at any point in time, 600, 700 users. We have total sync of 2,000 users, 2,000 plus. But at any point in time, 600 users are there, connected. It runs continuously, on a daily basis.

We've never contacted technical support in the past. We go through our vendor. We don't call SonicWall. 

While there are a lot of options on the market, we only use SonicWall at this time. We have used Sophos in the past previously. We found that Sophos Firewall had more flexibility compared to SonicWall, especially in the configuration capabilities.

he initial setup was actually it was done by our vendor partner. And it was not difficult for them. However, during the initial set up, we faced some issues. It was not easy until there were image upgrades, and now those issues are fixed. 

We've also outsourced the maintenance part of the solution's upkeep to our vendor. We only do the followup and we level call. Basic manageability, they do the operation, we manage at our end. Basic operations. But for other calls, we level call with the vendor.

We hired our vendor partner to do the initial implementation for us. We didn't handle it in-house.

I'm not sure what the pricing of the product is. It falls within a middle range in terms of pricing. It' not the cheapest or more expensive. 

The SSL VPN feature, which is what we needed to purchase, is a separate license.

There's a lot of firewalls available, including Cisco, FortiGate, and Juniper firewalls too. There are many alternatives.

We're just a customer. We don't have a business relationship with SonicWall.

I wouldn't recommend the solution, actually. It's hard to set up and the stability takes a while to establish. They need to do better on their software side, and other solutions, like Sophos, have more flexibility in their configuration capabilities.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We use the solution to provide edge security. We provide edge policies and protection. We use a very old version.

I rate the performance an eight out of ten. The product is simple to manage. It is a good solution.

The scope of management must be improved. The scope of what users can do with the product must be improved. The product must enable integration with endpoint protection tools.

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a five out of ten. We don’t need to scale. However, if we need scalability, we will have to change the solution.

The price is reasonable. The tool is cheap.

We did not see much improvement in our organization after using SonicWall NSa. We are evaluating other tools.

Overall, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

The solution is used basically a parameter firewall and to secure the company network.

The content filtering is very good.

The solution is easy to use.

They offer good antivirus solutions. It's basically a complete package.

The solution is stable. 

There's always room for improvement. 

For example, the monitoring system is in need of improvement. Their monitoring system is too expensive. Most of the company doesn't apply the monitoring system as it's too expensive. Some more monitoring features should be built into the firewall device itself.

Management spends a lot of money on the device, and they want to know what is working, et cetera. To understand this, we need some reports, graphs, and figures. Without these items, management may not be convinced they are spending the money in the right way. Having reports that reflect the work done to keep the network secure would show the benefits and the ROI in a positive way that would help sell management on the product itself.

The ongoing service fees are high.

The solution could use more online educational tools to help users understand the underlying functionality of the product. Things like videos and tutorials could help a lot. 

I've been working with the solution for the last nine years or so at this point. It's been almost a decade.

The solution is very stable. We can do 80% to 90% of tasks with no issues whatsoever. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The solution can scale, however, in Pakistan, it's not easy not to spend so much. One device can last over five to six years. You can say scale, however, you need to have an understanding of what functionality you will need over the years. Over four to six years, the device can fulfill your requirements. After six to seven years, you can replace it with another model or another brand to meet your updated needs.

I didn't use support over the last nine years, except for handling the device replacement itself. I needed a device replacement due to some damage, and they fulfilled my request and requirements. In terms of tasks such as configuration issues, I've never actually asked for assistance for those queries and therefore could not rate how helpful or responsive they are when they cover those matters. 

In the past, I have also used Fortinet and FortiGate as well as Juniper. I have 19 years of experience with various solutions. I have used multiple devices including Cisco, Juniper, FortiGate, SonicWall, and others. Basically, FortiGate and SonicWall are more or less the same types of solution. However, the SonicWall is easier to install than FortiGate.

I have deployed the solution myself. I did not need the help of an integrator or consultant.

The pricing is reasonable, however, all firewalls have high prices for subscriptions for their services to cover after warranty needs for content filtering, for antiviruses, for web filtering, et cetera. All firewalls have extra prices. 

After spending so much money year over year, we were surprised that we had to still pay more than the device cost just to covers services. That's why you may find that most companies stop their services and just running the firewall as a box. Most small companies stop their services just due to the high subscription fees. That said, multinationals or larger organizations likely still pay the service fees.

In places like Pakistan, a developing country, it's hard to continuously pay, as we find the continuing service fees expensive. They should work to make an exception for certain regions such as ours.

I'm a customer and an end-user.

I can't remember the exact versions we are using. We may be on version 6, and the models I have used include the 2600, 2500, and 3600 series.

I'd warn new users that the box is huge. The box has multiple functionalities and most users are not trained. They can't benefit from all the functionality as they don't know that it exists. Due to the lack of knowledge, most users don't leverage additional functionalities which they should. While the solution offers good devices and reasonable pricing for the box, companies need to educate themselves on how they can best use the product to their advantage. SonicWall can help by posting more videos and sharing more information.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I use the solution to filter the IPs. Our users also use it for connectivity purposes.

The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites. The tool blocks some IP addresses.

The dashboard must be improved. The product should enable alerts. When hackers compromise our websites and applications, it will help us alert our staff and network administrators.

I have been using the solution for two to three years.

I rate the tool’s stability a seven out of ten. We face glitches sometimes.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten. We have approximately 1200 users in our organization.

My colleagues are happy with the response time and quality of support.

Positive

The setup is simple.

The solution is cheaper than others. It has a reasonable price.

I will recommend the tool to others. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.