SonicWall NSa Reviews

Our primary use case for SonicWall NSa is a firewall and for analytics. I use SonicWall NSa to follow the users. Some users manage to bypass the firewall sometimes and install certain software. I track all of this "bad" behavior and block it.

SonicWall NS has a lot of valuable features. One of the best SonicWall NSa features is the ability to collect mini routers and get only one user connection.

Overall, I'm satisfied with SonicWall NSa, but it would be better if they could add a small terminal to each device. This would help me deal with certain issues by running a small bot onto any PC. This terminal could control technical configuration from a centralized configuration with the SonicWall appliance. 

I have been using this solution since last February. However, I have worked with SonicWall since 2007.

We have about 150 users. Each employee configures up to three connections: one on a PC and one or two on mobiles.

We are happy with SonicWall NSa's tech support. We have an account manager and whenever I run into any issues, I email him directly and he calls me within the hour. This is sufficiently fast for our needs. 

We previously ran MicroTech and FortiGate. We switched because we wanted to try something new. We change the technology we use each year.

The initial setup is easy for me because I am a specialist. I previously worked for a Dell and SonicWall partner before, so I'd configured SonicWall NSa many times before. However, now as a customer, I had a SonicWall consultant deploy it.  

We used a SonicWall NSa consultant for the deployment. 

I can't speak to any ROI we've had in terms of numbers but all technology of this type will give you a return on investment because it's secure and makes your business run smoothly.

For example, as I am in the desert and there is no fiber connection here, I was using SIM cards that gave me seven GB a day. Before we deployed SonicWall NSa, I was running seven SIM cards for a total of about 50 GB per day. Right now, I use only one seven-GB SIM card.

SonicWall prevents and restricts access to websites for employees as well as anyone who comes into the office.

Most firewalls have active/active high-availability mode. If I'm paying for two firewalls, why shouldn't AI utilize both? It would be better if SonicWall came with n active/active feature instead of active/standby.

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

SonicWall NSa is simple to scale. You can easily add more firewalls to the cluster.

SonicWall's sales support is much better than other vendors'. 

Deploying SonicWall NSa is straightforward. A new user can easily configure the firewall. You can usually complete the deployment within a day. Setting up the prerequisites takes about two hours and then it takes some time to deploy the policies. That varies depending on what the customer wants. 

Maintenance is primarily configuration-related stuff, and our customers have their own engineers, but we give them advice. One engineer can maintain the solution.

You don't need to pay an annual fee, but any cost matters to the customer. Let's say SonicWall is giving me a firewall at a certain price, while a FortiGate firewall costs the same but offers added features like free SSL and active/active. Then customers might think it's better to buy a FortiGate.

Competitors provide SSL encryption licenses for free, whereas SonicWall only provides two licenses by default, but you have to pay for the rest of the licenses.
However, when most customers go beyond 20 or so users with SSL licenses, they usually go with a dedicated appliance, so a firewall should provide at least 20 to 25 SSL licenses for free.

I rate SonicWall NSa eight out of 10.

Our primary use case for SonicWall NSa is as a public firewall, as an interface between our private network and the public network.

The product is working okay. The product is working feature-wise.

I would rate SonicWall NSa as an average product, not a very highly recommended one. It is an average product.

The stability is not there. The features are there, but they are not stable. They need to improve on this product because I feel that they have launched this product without much R&D.

We are using SonicWall NSa for quite a long time, around 10 to 12 years, but that includes the the older model, which was the 5500. Now we have been using the 5600 model for the last two, three years.

Performance wise, they are good - not very good, but they're okay, just good.

They are not stable. It is a very unstable product.

For maintenance, we require one engineer from the support partner, one from the tech side, and one from our side, so three engineers and one manager.

At any point in time we have more than 600 users.

We do not have plans to increase the number of users.

Tech support is okay, but the product needs much improvement.

We were not using a different solution before. We have always been using SonicWall, just the older model, which was 5500. We upgraded to 5600.

The installation part of the initial setup was a painful experience. I felt at the time that it was not a finished product. They have to do more R&D on this product to improve it.

It took a very long time to set it up, to be honest. It took very long because they had some bugs and fixes. After so many fixes, it took them very long to install this product.

Obviously, no OEM deals directly with them. We have their channel partners who did the installation.

To be very honest, we are not satisfied with the 5600 product.

On a personal level, I would not recommend SonicWall NSa.

On a scale of one to ten, you can rate SonicWall NSa a six.

The license and the hardware both need to be renewed. The annual maintenance contract is there. So they have to renew the licenses.

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.

SonicWall NSa can be used as a perimeter and ELAN firewall.

The solution has many useful features, such as content management, user management, user filtering, and domain controller connectivity mapping.

The reporting and monitoring are a bit complex and should be easier in SonicWall NSa because other firewalls I have experienced have been more simple, such as Palo Alto. We are able to receive a clear view of our network. As a general user with little experience, it would be difficult for them to handle.

I have been using SonicWall NSa for approximately seven years.

I have found SonicWall NSa to be stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 180 users using this solution.

The support of the solution has been good. We normally go through our partner support but if anything is outside the limits of their knowledge then it gets passed onto the SonicWall support.

The installation is not easy, you should have a basic understanding of your network and what your requirements are. Generally, the implementation is done by the vendor. We have an external party who used to do the basic configuration. However, the new generation firewalls do not take much time and are easier.

We used an outsourced vendor for the implementation of the solution. 

We have approximately two individuals that do the maintenance of the solution.

There is a license required for this solution and you can purchase a one, two, or three year term. Typically businesses choose the one year subscription and then later choose the three year licensing option if they are satisfied.

I have evaluated Palo Alto firewalls.

I would recommend this solution.

I rate SonicWall NSa a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for security. It's used as a firewall.

The solution is very stable.

It's an excellent product for an SMB.

The filtering is excellent.

The solution is quite stable.

We found the initial setup to be straightforward.

You can scale the solution to a certain extent.

The product likely isn't a good fit for a large organization.

They need to elaborate on their business from a technical point of view. 

I've been working with the solution for about four or more years at this point. It's been a while. 

The product scales quite well. There are no bugs. It's not glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze. I find it to be reliable. 

You can scale the solution. We haven't used it beyond 1,000 to 1,500 users. Beyond that, I'm not sure what it can handle. I haven't really tried to scale it too much.

I've also used Palo Alto. I used it at my previous organization.

We found the initial setup to be very straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. A company should have any problem with the process.

We're a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with SonicWall.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. While we've been mostly happy with it, it's more for SMBs as opposed to larger organizations.

I'd recommend the product to small organizations for sure.

We use this solution for network security in our branch office.

One of the main features is the built-in storage capacity. 

The logging, reporting, and storage capacity size could improve in a future release.

I have been using this solution within the last 12 months.

The stability is good in this solution. 

The solution is scalable. There are 200 people using this solution in my companies branch office.

The technical support was very responsive.

I have used SonicWall TZ previously.

The installation was straightforward.

We are on a three-year license for the solution. The price is inexpensive compared to other solutions.

We have evaluated Sophos and Fortinet, SonicWall NSa we found to be much better.

I would recommend this solution to those who have between 150 to 500 users.

I rate SonicWall NSa a seven out of ten.

We primarily use the solution just for IPsec tunnels. It's two routers between locations with IPsec tunnels, nothing more. We don't use their firewall 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.

The solution is a good product with a good value for money.

The security capabilities and policies are good. They can do a lot of tasks with ease. 

The product is very useful for organizations with many locations. If you've got a lot of locations, the product can save you money as you don't need a physical box at each location.  

The scalability is very good as it really can cover multiple locations.

SonicWall offers NG capabilities in virtual appliances.

It's not as easy to use, as, for example, Palo Alto.

Some of the configurations could be better.

The solution is stable. We haven't had any issues so far.

The scalability is quite good. You can scale well across locations very well for not too much cost. If a company needs to expand, it can do so relatively easily.

Also, cost-wise, it's very affordable to scale up. It's not expensive to add hardware and licenses as needed. They make upgrading very cheap.

We have 200 people on the solution. That said, they are using with IPsec tunnel. They don't use all of the capabilities of the hardware. They are using it just to encrypt tunneling between the sites.

We may not continue to sue the solution as we have found a solution that is better and that can help us get faster than IPsec can. We're looking instead at MACsec.

I've never opened up a technical support case with the product. It's worked quite well, and we haven't run into trouble that would require us to reach out. I can't really speak to how helpful or responsive they are due to the fact that I have no experience with them.

We've also worked with Palo Alto, Barracuda, and Sophos.

Palo Alto is more expensive to use and to scale. Sophos is very easy to set up. Barracuda also has NG capabilities, like SonicWall, and has the same limitations in terms of security policies. It also can take a bit longer to set up.

I have ten years of IT experience, and therefore, for me, the entire implementation process was not overly difficult. They have good manuals that you can read through at the start. It's not a difficult process, especially if you are already comfortable with the technology.

Of course, it's not quite as straightforward as something like Sophos, which you can just plug in and have the vendor configure for you. However, that said, it's not too difficult.

SonicWall still is only a dollar or Euro per gigabit. This means, of the IPsec, it's the cheapest solution. 

Due to the fact that we've got some projects now, we might abandon IPsec, as we had two Blade fibers with separate paths to a secondary location and we will start using MACsec. It's a layer 2 security. Therefore, we don't need IPsec anymore.

Originally, actually, we bought it without any licenses, just boxes with IPsec capabilities.

The pricing, in comparison to some solutions, such as Palo Alto, is much better.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. I tell everybody, if your business is a lot of locations and not so many personal policies, to check the SonicWall portfolio. You can configure it with two boxes and if you need to you can scale it without any trouble into the tens or hundreds.

In general, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten.