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Cisco IOS SSL VPN vs SonicWall Netextender comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

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

Cisco IOS SSL VPN
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
14th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (4th)
SonicWall Netextender
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
12th
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 September 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Cisco IOS SSL VPN is 3.2%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Netextender is 2.3%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonicWall Netextender2.3%
Cisco IOS SSL VPN3.2%
Other94.5%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

VM
student at a university with 1,001-5,000 employees
Ease and speed of connectivity impress and recommend
I have not found any areas that could be improved so far. I am not sure how Cisco IOS SSL VPN can continue their improvements for the future, but I think it is a great product. To stay on top, they probably need updates to this product. I do not know what kind of improvements these updates are offering. It is a great product so far.
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

"Cisco IOS SSL VPN is very stable. We never experience issues with it."
"It is highly scalable, speedy, and reliable."
"Usability is the most important feature for me."
"The user interface is user-friendly."
"It helps us access networks from anywhere."
"The product is very stable."
"The feature I find most valuable, is the management portal."
"The split panel functionality is much better in the Cisco IOS SSL VPN than in the Aruba VPN."
"The product is very cost-effective; for the price-sensitive market, this is a very good product for an SSL VPN solution."
"When we started to change from IPsec-type clients that were predominantly built right into the firewalls to this approach or deployment style for SSL VPN, the amount of time that our techs spent helping people with VPN issues was probably cut by more than half."
"It can support multifactor authentication. Also, it is a very basic application."
"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."
"Overall, it's a really good product."
"Productivity for my remote workers went up dramatically once we switched providers."
"The best feature is that employees can connect to our LAN, and have access to our network from home."
"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."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if we could use this not just on mobile, but on laptops and desktops as well."
"The solution does not give us options if the connectivity to one server is not available."
"The product costs a lot of money."
"The high price of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"I can't say that I would recommend this solution at this time because the support for the Token software is expiring soon and Cisco IOS SSL VPN would have to be upgraded to another solution similar to Token."
"The company sets the policies for the default location, and destination, which the VPN connects. If there is a problem with one of those locations, which happens sometimes when I travel I need to have an option to select a different available location. Currently, I am unable to see that from a user's point of view."
"They could provide the cloud-based as-a-service model with monthly rental payments."
"The performance could be improved."
"The solution takes up a lot of bandwidth."
"There must be a 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."
"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)."
"From my experience with using it, we do have problems sometimes with the credentialing-saving parts of it."
"The Netextender application itself doesn't really look pretty, however, we can still use it. We don't care what it looks like. That said, if they did a cosmetic update, that would be fine."
"The solution takes more bandwidth these days and it would be helpful if that was reduced."
"SonicWall can be difficult for some people, but I don't find it difficult. Some companies provide a VPN client for free, but you have to pay for NetExtender."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"FortiGate does not charge the client a licensing fee, although Cisco charges clients a couple of dollars per year for each license."
"The product costs less."
"Cisco IOS SSL VPN comes with a cost-effective subscription."
"The licensing cost of the solution is on a yearly basis, and it is expensive compared to other solutions in the market."
"There are no pricing programs for non-profit organizations and the product is otherwise expensive by comparison."
"The platform is expensive."
"With Cisco, there is a free solution or a licensed version of the solution with a set of endpoint services."
"It is an expensive product."
"The solution has a pretty good price."
"After a certain number of users, you require extra licensing."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
19%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cisco IOS SSL VPN?
I have not found any areas that could be improved so far. I am not sure how Cisco IOS SSL VPN can continue their improvements for the future, but I think it is a great product. To stay on top, they...
What is your primary use case for Cisco IOS SSL VPN?
Currently, I use Cisco IOS SSL VPN to VPN in, but not with high frequency. We use Cisco IOS SSL VPN as our VPN client to connect to our network. This is for health.
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

Cisco SSL VPN
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MST Systems
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco IOS SSL VPN vs. SonicWall Netextender and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.