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Aruba Virtual Intranet Access vs SonicWall Netextender comparison

 

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

Aruba Virtual Intranet Access
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
34th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonicWall Netextender
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
11th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Aruba Virtual Intranet Access is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Netextender is 3.1%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonicWall Netextender3.1%
Aruba Virtual Intranet Access0.8%
Other96.1%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1934385 - PeerSpot reviewer
Director of Electronic procurement department at a government with 51-200 employees
Very user friendly but configurations can be a bit complex
We use the solution to access company information via the cloud.  The solution is very user friendly.  Configurations can be a bit complex.  I have been using the solution for two years.  The solution is stable.  Technical support is very helpful so I rate them a seven out of ten.  Neutral…
Rich Darress - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Operating Officer at Darress Tech
Has provided secure remote access to multiple client networks with consistent performance
When buying the appliance itself, there is one downside that isn't exclusive to SonicWall. When you apply all the security settings, many people have one gig connections for internet ISP. If you're bringing in a one gig connection, you have to have a more robust SonicWall to handle that throughput with all your security settings turned on. It gets pretty pricey upfront if you're bringing in a one gig connection. If the customer starts with a two, three, four, or 500 meg connection and has a small unit, they have to replace the whole box when upgrading to a gig, so scalability there is atrocious. However, this issue exists with pretty much any appliance.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very user friendly."
"The solution is very user friendly."
"The solution provides high availability."
"The product has two-factor authentication."
"The initial setup is pretty straightforward."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"NetExtender works very well. I never had an issue with it, and it has been working well for me. In terms of management, you have good control over the destination. You can use NetExtender to set the policy and the static route for a client. You can modify it based on what your client needs or can access. You have good control over routing."
"My company opted for this solution because it can individually perform. Basically, we don't require load balancers and all those additional feature sets or additional devices that might be required. The solution can handle the certificate, DNS queries, and all that stuff individually."
"The product is very cost-effective; for the price-sensitive market, this is a very good product for an SSL VPN solution."
"It can support multifactor authentication. Also, it is a very basic application."
 

Cons

"Configurations can be a bit complex."
"Configurations can be a bit complex."
"There must be multi-factor authentication enabled or integrated by default with it in order to be integrated with NetExtender."
"The initial setup of SonicWall Netextender is straightforward. The only issue we encountered was with relocating the VPN appliance. If we needed to move it from an on-premise to an on-cloud architecture, we had to start over and redeploy it from scratch. Unfortunately, it is not portable and any changes to its physical location often result in the need for a fresh deployment to ensure everything functions properly."
"They need to rewrite the software to make it a usable product."
"In future releases, introductions of AI features would be really helpful."
"The solution takes more bandwidth these days and it would be helpful if that was reduced."
"Some companies provide a VPN client for free, but you have to pay for NetExtender."
"NetExtender did nothing to improve my organization - in fact, it was quite the opposite. Users constantly complained of lag and unbearable sluggishness (with a max speed of 10-30kbps) through the VPN, even though we have relatively high bandwidth for a small office (400mbps)."
"The only concern I do have is with the zero trust, and the solution is not coping with the newer technologies as much as it needs to do on that particular factor."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The solution is cheap itself, not too costly."
"You have to pay for its license. There are some other companies that provide a VPN client for free. When you buy NetExtender, its license is available for one, three, or five years."
"Cost wise, it would be a few hundred dollars for the base appliance with the first five clients. Then from there, your cost per seat depends on how many you're getting. It's a one-time cost, and then you have a few hundred dollars a year for the maintenance contract once you get the one-time seat costs out of the way."
"After a certain number of users, you require extra licensing."
"The solution has a pretty good price."
"Compared to others, it is cheaper. When we compare it with Palo Alto, Check Point, or Fortinet, it is a little cheaper."
"The price of SonicWall Netextender is reasonable. Whether it's a small shop with only five users or a larger operation with 130 users, we have received no complaints or objections regarding cost from any of the clients we are looking to deploy it with."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall Netextender?
The pricing for my experience with the setup cost and licensing of SonicWall Netextender is fair. The Netextender itself has no cost. It's the SSL licensing that is attached to the SonicWall. It us...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Netextender?
SonicWall Netextender has not helped with compliance, as it is not applicable for what I'm doing. I've put several feature requests in over the years and they've implemented them all, so it current...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Netextender?
Getting to local resources on a customer's network is my main use case with SonicWall Netextender or SonicWall SSL-VPN. As a managed service provider, all my customers have SonicWalls and I get int...
 

Also Known As

Aruba VIA
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

VERISK
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenVPN, Fortinet, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN. Updated: February 2026.
885,667 professionals have used our research since 2012.