Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs SonicWall NSSP comparison

Fortinet and SonicWall are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Fortinet is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while SonicWall is ranked #39 with an average rating of 7.3. Fortinet holds a 1.9% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to SonicWall’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SonicWall users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Download the report

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate-VM and SonicWall NSSP are two prominent network security solutions. Although SonicWall NSSP is recognized for its advanced features, Fortinet FortiGate-VM receives higher user ratings for pricing, support, and overall satisfaction.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is praised for its robust security controls, scalability, and ease of management. SonicWall NSSP users value its superior threat intelligence, real-time analytics capabilities, and advanced analytics.

Room for Improvement: User reviews suggest Fortinet FortiGate-VM could improve on complex configuration processes, stability during heavy traffic periods, and user documentation. For SonicWall NSSP, users point out the need for better documentation, more intuitive setup processes, and enhancements in user experience.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is highlighted for a straightforward deployment model and responsive customer support. SonicWall NSSP deployment can be more challenging, yet its customer service is consistently well-rated.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM is often seen as providing better value for money, with competitive setup costs and a positive ROI. SonicWall NSSP users, however, feel that the higher cost is justified by its comprehensive security features. Users generally find FortiGate-VM more cost-effective, but SonicWall NSSP features justify its premium price for many.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSSP Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSSP

April 2025

Download the complete report

Helped 850,236 peers since 2012

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 FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 1.9%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSSP is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

Read full review

Pietro Di Blasi

Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Organize networks efficiently while benefiting from strong reliability and support

The main use is for clients who are migrating to the cloud. We started this journey during the pandemic, and the main case is with clients who are moving to either a private or a public cloud The solution allows us to organize our networks and access within one vendor, using an integrated…

Read full review

Lenin Christopher

Director at Techfruits

Enhanced security with advanced threat protection and superior support

We serve as an integrator for SonicWall, deploying this solution for customers in the media and entertainment, banking, and finance sectors. We use SonicWall to protect their environments against digital attacks SonicWall has helped us deliver security solutions effectively, particularly in…

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It's a user-friendly firewall. Most of the tasks are very simple. It's simple to configure and troubleshoot this firewall."

"Easy to implement, and it is also reliable."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."

"It is a good source for firewall protection."

"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."

"The product has been very stable, based on my ten to eleven years of experience."

"Whenever I need something, Fortinet improves and updates the software for me."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The setup is simple."

"It provides an ease of management and configuration as well."

"The solution is stable."

"I like the visibility and monitoring features because they're easy to use to monitor traffic. Features like geo-blocking and more have AI, and we're currently using all of it. But for now, we're only using geo-blocking, and we're able to block traffic from different countries. I also like that it's highly responsive. VM04 is also very powerful."

"The most valuable features are network security, VLAN, network protection, and encryption are very valuable to us."

"We are able to closely monitor the usages of individual users and see their usage habits and other items, including the data itself, which gives us quite a bit of visibility."

"I did like the ability to back up the configuration into the cloud, as opposed to having to store the configurations or just downloading them, the backups, to local devices."

"It is very useful to make lists for rules and prepare firewall rules."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"The product's most valuable features are simplicity and comprehensive protection capabilities, including load balancing, IPS, antivirus, and web filtering."

"SonicWall has helped us deliver security solutions effectively, particularly in threat prevention and content filtering."

"It has been delivering results efficiently. Its configurations and updates have been easy. It is also user-friendly."

"SonicWall NSSP is stable and scalable too."

"The solution's pricing is good."

"The VPN functionality is really good. Overall, the whole device is very easy to manage. The software that comes with it is also good."

"I like the filtering feature, which provides easy access. The SSL certification feature is also nice. The solution enhanced our security posture."

Cons

"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."

"I prefer Palo Alto over Fortinet FortiGate. Its IPS engine is not better than the Palo Alto version. The monitoring tool needs improvement, and the syslog configuration needs enhancement."

"I think that the infrastructure for the VPN could be improved. The way that it is bundled also made it difficult to use and sell as it is too expensive."

"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."

"Reporting is limited to providing an external appliance for improving the reporting capabilities of the FortiAnalyzer. It does not offer a central management and is also sold separably as an appliance."

"I would prefer to have more detailed logs within the FortiGate products themselves rather than relying on a separate tool."

"I would like to see improvements made to the dashboard and UI, as well as to the reporting."

"There are a lot of bugs I have found in the solution and it is difficult to upgrade. These areas need improvement."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"New versions are complicated with a big configuration."

"The log settings and filters could use some improvement."

"The management tools should be more user-friendly."

"We face some issues with the IPsec connection during replication."

"We have experience stability issues, when the product sizing is wrong or on configuration errors."

"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."

"The partner support is quite low, and the end-user support is delayed at levels L2 and L3. L1 support is quick."

"The stability of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"The platform could benefit from an improved marketing strategy."

"No security product is foolproof against hackers, intruders, and other such things. As a security product, they have to keep pace in terms of protection from new hackers and intruders."

"Its reporting functions can be improved. It has decent reporting, but you got to pay a lot more money for it. That's where it begins to fall apart. It comes with minimal zero reporting unless you buy some extra modules. With those extra modules, you can get all the data, but it takes a while to put together what you need for your customer. It is for technical people, but there is no executive summary of the reporting."

"The EDR and XDR capabilities of SonicWall need to be improved."

"The user interface, the GUI, could be improved."

"The product needs improvement for phishing emails."

"The solution's stability and scalability also need improvement."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Easy to understand licensing requirements."

"The price of the license and warranty can be better because it is very expensive."

"The price could be lower."

"Before choosing a piece of equipment you have to take into account the cost-benefit offered by each one. Sometimes it is not worth paying a very cheap price to have a minimum level of security."

"Fortinet is the least expensive solution."

"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."

"The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."

"It is affordable. Palo Alto is much more expensive than Fortinet."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It is an expensive solution if you are migrating from an open source solution."

"It would be nice to have the ability to extend FortiGuard subscriptions at a reasonable yearly cost versus a bulk three year pricing."

"There are yearly or monthly licenses which you can choose from."

"VMs can be affordable, but for high-demand scenarios, I'd still recommend the hardware. For the cost, it's a ten out of ten."

"The license we pay is a yearly fee. I can't say it's very expensive; it is a good price and is highly suitable for our usage."

"The price could be lower."

"The price of the solution is competitive. Fortinet FortiGate-VM had a lot of advantages when it came to pricing. However, the competition has also geared up to a larger extent and it has become comparable now to the other solutions."

"There is a need to make payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

"For SonicWall NSSP high availability, active/passive, you need to buy one license, and so you get much more value for money."

"The setup costs and licensing are reasonable, and the solution provides good value for its features."

"You got to buy some VPN licenses, and there might be a $40 to $50 one-time license fee per current user. There are different layers. They have several different levels of event security software and depending on the model, it seems to come out to be $1 to $2 a day. So, if you bought a three-year license, it is going to be anywhere from $900 to $1800 depending on the bundle and model that you buy."

"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."

"The pricing is cheap, and that's where, you know, the some of the organization goes for the SonicWall."

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

20%

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

See all answers

What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

See all answers

What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

See all answers

Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls

In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

See all answers

Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?

Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...

See all answers

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.

See all answers

What do you like most about SonicWall NSSP?

The solution's pricing is good.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSSP?

SonicWall is a rather expensive solution with a rating of eight out of ten regarding its pricing. Despite being expen...

See all answers

What needs improvement with SonicWall NSSP?

The EDR and XDR capabilities of SonicWall need to be improved. When compared to a brand like SentinelOne, SonicWall s...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 26% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

Zyxel Unified Security Gateway vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiOS vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 3% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Competitors

SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall NSSP

Compared 49% of the time

More SonicWall NSSP Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

May 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

April 2025

Download SonicWall NSSP product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

SonicWall Network Security Services Platform

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

FortiGate Virtual Appliances allow you to mitigate blind spots by implementing critical security controls within your virtual infrastructure. They also allow you to rapidly provision security infrastructure whenever and wherever it is needed. FortiGate virtual appliances feature all of the security and networking services common to traditional hardware-based FortiGate appliances. With the addition of virtual appliances from Fortinet, you can deploy a mix of hardware and virtual appliances, operating together and managed from a common centralized management platform.

Fortinet

The SonicWall Network Security services platform (NSsp) 12000 series takes a modern approach to threat detection and prevention by combining cloud intelligence with appliance-based protection in a scalable, high-speed platform.

SonicWall

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSSP

April 2025

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSSP

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSSP and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

DOWNLOAD NOW

850,236 professionals have used our research since 2012.

See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSSP report.

See our list of best Firewalls vendors.

We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.