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Fortinet FortiClient 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

Fortinet FortiClient
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
4th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (9th), Endpoint Compliance (1st)
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 November 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiClient is 4.3%, down from 9.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Netextender is 2.2%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiClient4.3%
SonicWall Netextender2.2%
Other93.5%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

KL
Senior Technical Manager at Flexaccel
Remote access has become seamless and secure while deployment remains simple for our users
Performance could be improved today. People are now moving toward SASE, which stands for Secure Access, Secure Edge Solution. Fortinet also has that offering, which would be easier since it operates through the cloud, acting as a first line of defense. When the user connects to the internet, they connect to the cloud first for posture assessment and monitoring before connecting to the outside world. The impact is significant because nowadays people are adopting SASE. During COVID time, many users were trying to connect back to their office, causing the performance or CPU utilization of the firewall to increase tremendously, which slowed down performance. I have not worked with endpoint telemetry in Fortinet FortiClient that could have been helpful for threat mitigation.
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

"Installation was easy."
"The most valuable feature is the single pane of glass, single point of management."
"I think the solution is highly scalable."
"The use of IoT devices is growing and it is important to manage data assets, and we have to follow rules and standards from our organization that FortiClient has helped with as an important tool on the end-users systems."
"Remote connectivity is its most valuable feature."
"From an application perspective, this solution is stable."
"The deployment was fast and easy to use, and on the firewall we can see if you are a client or not, so it's good for visibility while also offering strong vulnerability scanning, useful malware protection, and solid patch management."
"Implementing this solution has streamlined time management in our organization."
"It's a stable tool that does what it is supposed to do."
"NetExtender works very well; I have never had an issue with it, and it has been working well for me."
"The best features of the SonicWall Netextender were its ease of use."
"The best feature is that employees can connect to our LAN, and have access to our network from home."
"One of the most valuable features of SonicWall Netextender is the integration of VPN accounts with Microsoft Identity Management, which enables us to enforce secure access through Microsoft Intune and conditional access policies. This helps ensure that only authorized individuals are able to access the VPN, rather than anyone with knowledge of a password."
"Overall, it's a really good product."
"The product is very cost-effective; for the price-sensitive market, this is a very good product for an SSL VPN solution."
"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

"The solution could add data to the endpoint."
"The connectivity could be improved."
"It would be interesting if the solution offered a way to try to investigate and create a use case to trace vectors."
"The endpoint side of FortiClient needs improvement, specifically the agent-based endpoint, which requires enhancements in detection and additional features to reduce bugs."
"It would be extremely useful to have an automatic updating feature."
"The solution could improve by providing analytics or more detailed reports."
"Working with Distribution sometimes comes at a cost due to a lack of knowledge of the current status of your licensing and products."
"I would like for the next release to be more user-friendly for users who do not have as much of a technical background."
"Sometimes you can get bounced around through the departments until you find the right one. Sometimes if you don't have the most current support contract or your license is out of date, they won't even talk to you."
"They need to rewrite the software to make it a usable product."
"The solution takes more bandwidth these days and it would be helpful if that was reduced."
"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."
"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 UI could be a little better."
"From my experience with using it, we do have problems sometimes with the credentialing-saving parts of it."
"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

"The pricing is reasonable."
"The solution is more cost efficient than Cisco, as FortiGate tends not to charge for the client license, which allows one to make free use of whatever is supported on the device."
"The solution is not expensive. We need more discounted rates in Pakistan. The price of the solution could be reduced to be more affordable for the solution."
"Pricing is an area that I would like to see improved, as it could be lower."
"Licensing was free up to ten users and after that, it was pretty reasonable."
"Anyone can download this product for free, but you have to have a FortiGate gateway that you are connecting to."
"FortiClient is quite reasonably priced."
"The price is reasonable compared to competitors, it is very good."
"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."
"The solution is cheap itself, not too costly."
"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."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

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

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

How does Fortinet FortiClient compare with Open VPN Access Server?
Fortinet FortiClient is a feature-rich solution that is easy to use and deploy without sacrificing safety and security. It has a very fast connection rate and has a built-in VPN. With this solution...
What's the difference between Fortinet's FortiEDR and FortiClient?
I suggest Fortinet’s FortiEDR over FortiClient for several reasons. For starters, FortiEDR guarantees solid protection because it continually scans servers for emerging vulnerabilities, which gives...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiClient?
The solution is not cloud-based; it comes from the firewall itself.
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

FortiClient
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiClient vs. SonicWall Netextender and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,929 professionals have used our research since 2012.