We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Firewall and Sonicwall TZ based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Of the two solutions, Sonicwall TZ seems to be the more desirable product because of its easy deployment, great set of features, and affordable price.
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"This solution has helped our organization by having strong functions and a reliable firewall."
"The wireless control is helpful."
"From the firewall perspective, the rules and policies are very sufficient and easy to use."
"FortiGate is on the cheaper end, and it offers good value."
"The product offers very good security."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"Fortigate represents a really scalable way of delivering perimeter network security, some level of layer 7 security, WAF, and also a way to create a meshed ADVPN solution."
"The solution is pretty easy to deploy."
"The transparency of the single UI to ensure security. A product has to be simple so that an administrator can use it."
"The user interface is easy to navigate."
"Strong in NAT and access-lists."
"It's easy to integrate ASA with other Cisco security products. When you understand the technology, it's not a big deal. It's very simple."
"One of the most valuable features of Firepower 7.0 is the "live log" type feature called Unified Event Viewer. That view has been really good in helping me get to data faster, decreasing the amount of time it takes to find information, and allowing me to fix problems faster. I've found that to be incredibly valuable because it's a lot easier to get to some points of data now."
"The most important features are the intrusion prevention engine and the application visibility and control. The Snort feature in Firepower is also valuable."
"All the rules are secure and we haven't had a significant malware attack in the five years that we've been using ASA Firewall. It has been a tremendous improvement for our network. However, I can't quantify the benefits in monetary terms."
"We like the central interface and we like the security features. Additionally, we use SonicWall with VPN connectivity and we have had no problems with SonicWall all these years."
"They give good protection to my network and support it."
"SonicWall TZ is a very cost-effective solution that provides good security."
"Technical support is good."
"It's a very cost-effective solution."
"It does what it says it is going to do."
"We are able to block whatever we want to block by using this product. It provides all required security features, such as content filtering, VPN, in one box. Before switching to SonicWall, we had specified all required features."
"The performance has been very good. Overall, the solution is quite stable."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"The monitor and the visibility, in this proxy, is very weak."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve the logging and reporting. Additionally, the next-generation application's policies should be improved. When they were released they had bugs."
"There are mainly two areas of improvement in Fortinet FortiGate— the licensing cost and the timing of upgrading licenses for boxes."
"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."
"It is stable, but its stability can be improved."
"Make the IPS baked-in."
"I wish the Cisco interface was not so granular. Check Point was easier to create specific rules than with ASAv."
"Some individuals find the setup and configuration challenging."
"We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI."
"The installation and integration of Cisco ASA with FirePOWER can be improved. The management with Fortigate is easier than Cisco ASA on FirePOWER. The management side of Cisco ASA can be improved so it can be more easily configured and used."
"Implementations require the use of a console. It would help if the console was embedded."
"The virtual firewalls don't work very well with Cisco AnyConnect."
"These firewalls are not for beginners."
"We would like to improve the rules configuration in SonicWall TZ. Sometimes the rules don't work."
"I would like to see lower antivirus pricing."
"You need to be a certificate holder to set it up and configure it. It's really important because it looks easy, but it is complex. You need to have the knowledge and experience. But this is normal for technical products. It's not a product for regular user. It's for technical people. You need to have skills."
"The log analyzer in SonicWall TZ is something that they need to improve upon."
"In terms of what needs to be improved, I would say better load balancing and data filtering."
"The technical support has room for improvement."
"The dashboard needs to be improved."
"The stability could be a lot better."
Cisco Secure Firewall is ranked 4th in Firewalls with 404 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Cisco Secure Firewall is rated 8.2, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Secure Firewall writes "Highlights and helps us catch Zero-day vulnerabilities traveling across our network". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Cisco Secure Firewall is most compared with Palo Alto Networks WildFire, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Azure Firewall, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa and OPNsense. See our Cisco Secure Firewall vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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