We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Based on the parameters we compared, SonicWall TZ outperforms Fortinet FortiGate in several key areas, including more satisfaction with features, service, and support and fewer complaints on pricing.
"Since the product is stable, we do not have to spend additional money to buy other firewalls. Once deployed, we can use the product for a long time. Thus, it is cost effective."
"Firepower NGFW has improved my organization in several ways. Before, we were trying to stamp out security threats and issues, it was a one-off type of way to attack it. I spent a lot of manpower trying to track down the individual issues or flare-ups that we would see. With Cisco's Firepower Management, we're able to have that push up to basically one monitor and one UI and be able to track that and stop threats immediately. It also gives us a little more granularity on what those threats might be."
"You can also put everything into a nice, neat, little package, as far as configuration goes. I was formerly a command-line guy with the ASA, and I was a little nervous about dealing with a GUI interface versus a command line, but after I did my first deployment, I got a lot more comfortable with doing it GUI based."
"The Inline Mode configuration works really well, and ASA works very impressively."
"Netting is one of the best features. We can modify it in different ways. Site-to-site VPN is also an awesome feature of Cisco ASA. The biggest advantage of Cisco products is technical support. They provide the best technical support."
"I'm a big fan of SecureX, Cisco's platform for tying together all the different security tools. It has a lot of flexibility and even a lot of third-party or non-Cisco integration. I feel like that's a really valuable tool."
"This solution made our organization more secure and gave us better control."
"I love the ASDM (Adaptive Security Device Manager) which is the management suite. It's a GUI and you're able to see everything at a glance without using the command line. There are those who love the CLI, but with ASDM it is easier to see where everything is going and where the problems are."
"It is simple to manage, and there are a lot of functionalities in the same box."
"Initial setup is easy to configure."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are remote access, web filtering, and IPS."
"The web filtering facility and application control are the most valuable features from the point of view of our clients. The VPN feature is also quite popular amongst our clients. Two-factor authentication is one of the good features in Fortinet. These features are important for the current scenario of security. Security has become a necessity nowadays. With cyber-attacks becoming more common, protecting an organization's data is one of the major tasks. It is also very stable and scalable, and it is very straightforward to configure. Their technical support is also good."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are it is one of the most mature firewalls in the UTM bundle."
"The multi-tenancy feature is most valuable. It integrates very well with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer."
"The pricing is great and very reasonable."
"It is easy to manage, and it doesn't need much knowledge from the team. It is a stable device, and there are many features that are included out of the box."
"SonicWall TZ is very user-friendly and has network MAC binding. Additionally, the firewall works well."
"It's been very easy to implement and deploy."
"SonicWall TZ think it's a good, solid, and stable product."
"The scalability of SonicWall TZ is good and easy to add users."
"User-friendly firewall solution which scales well, is stable, and has high availability."
"The most valuable feature is the user-friendly navigation."
"The general feature is the antivirus policy, followed by the ransomware protection, and these are the features I was looking at."
"It is very user-friendly, and there is no problem in using its interface."
"The solution has not had any layer upgrades. It does not have layer five and upwards, it only has up to layer four. This has caused some problems for us."
"It lacks management. For me, it still doesn't have a proper management tool or GUI for configuration, logging, and visualization. Its management is not that easy. It is also not very flexible and easy to configure. They used to have a product called CSM, but it is no longer being developed. FortiGate is better than this solution in terms of GUI, flexibility, and user-friendliness."
"Web filtering needs improvement because sometimes the URL is miscategorized."
"One of the challenges we've had with the Cisco ASA is the lack of a strong controller or central management console that is dependable and reliable all the time."
"When you make any changes, irrespective of whether they are big or small, Firepower takes too much time. It is very time-consuming. Even for small changes, you have to wait for 60 seconds or maybe more, which is not good. Similarly, when you have many IPS rules and policies, it slows down, and there is an impact on its performance."
"The configuration in Firepower Management Center is very slow. Deployment takes two to three minutes. You spend a lot of time on modifications. Whereas, in FortiGate, you press a button, and it takes one second."
"We have more than one Cisco firewall and it is difficult for me to integrate both on the single UI."
"The user interface is a little clunky and difficult to work with. Some things aren't as easy as they should be."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"Lacks training for new features."
"When we cluster the two Fortinet FortiGate boxes together we have some issues."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding enhancements to FortiMail, FortiSOAR, and FortiDeceptor."
"Security is a continuous process. In every product, there is a requirement for improvement. Its pricing should also be improved according to Indian market requirements. They must also improve on the reporting part. Its reporting can be more precise. If we can get a real-time report in a specific format, it will be helpful for customers to know about the current status of their security."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."
"The areas we would like to see improvement include more features available similar to the equivalent FortiGate appliance, e.g. SSL encryption and inspection. Two-factor authentication capability would be another additional feature that could be included in the next release."
"SonicWall TZ can improve the UI application and when you create any net policies or any new policy, it will not sync or work properly."
"The stability could be a lot better."
"The technology in this particular version is very old."
"The log sections could be done more clearly."
"FortiGate has a client DNS in the firewall, but SonicWall doesn't have that. To create or configure a site-to-site VPN tunnel, we have to give a DNS name. Currently, we have to get the DNS name from a third party and then include it in SonicWall, whereas FortiGate has its own client DNS, so it provides a DNS name, and it does not require a third party. There should be a graphical option to view the network utilization and bandwidth usage."
"It could probably be more user-friendly, and it could be more scalable with releases and subscriptions."
"Support for SonicWall TZ needs improvement, particularly the time it takes before you're able to speak to a support person, e.g. you have to wait for at least 30 minutes on the phone."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 92 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 13th in Firewalls with 38 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "SSL proxy makes URL filtering easier because the encryption is done before the packet ever leaves ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Multifeatured firewall solution with a user-friendly interface, high availability, scalability, and stability". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with pfSense, Sophos XG, Check Point NGFW, Meraki MX and Cisco SD-WAN, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, pfSense, SonicWall NSa, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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