We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiOS and SonicWall NSa based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."The tool is a nice product and easy to handle. The software's user interface is also good. You can easily implement remote access in the solution."
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers."
"The performance is good."
"We have found it to be very reliable and that's why our teams and various users in our company use it as our main firewall every day."
"Its user interface is good, and it is always working fine."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"It can expand easily."
"A good network security system for medium-sized businesses with an excellent GUI interface that gives a graphic view of network status."
"It's very easy to use."
"All networks are security-driven, we get throughputs and security. We feel that the people at Fortinet are easy to deal with from a support standpoint. If they need to jump in and help us, they're very willing to do that. Their email filtering, their data loss prevention, their intrusion prevention, type of products in the newest OSs has been outstanding."
"The technical support on offer has always been quite good."
"Fortinet has optimized the WAN environment for connecting users to the application."
"The customer service and support team are excellent."
"The most valuable feature of this solution would be the caching feature."
"Has a very simple OS and a good price point."
"It has excellent stability."
"The most valuable feature is the sandbox."
"With the deployment of the SonicWall NSA solution, we never suffered a problem due to invasion or contamination of any kind."
"What I like best about SonicWall NSa is the security it offers compared to other solutions in the market. Its reduction rate is also better than others."
"I really like the performance; there are no delays and no latency, which is a unique quality in firewalls nowadays."
"We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the URL filtering by category, DMZ zoning, load balancing and site-to-site VPN."
"Deep packet inspection and intelligent application control are the most valuable features. It is a very updated solution. It is very current as compared to other brands and vendors."
"The most valuable feature I've found is VPN and web protection, particularly with navigation assessment. We use the application control feature to create rules controlling specific application navigation."
"Its price could be better."
"One issue that I have had is that sometimes I need to monitor the traffic, so I need to filter it according to the user and which user is using it the most. I experience a bottleneck most of the time, particularly at the peak time when the number of contracts and users are at maximum."
"It does not have key authentication for admin access."
"With the addition of some features, it is possible that FortiGate can be used in all verticals."
"They should improve high CPU and memory usage that occurs."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"There are some problems that support cannot give you a logical reason as to why it happened. For example, I had a case where I was dealing with a WhatsApp application that was giving issues. Technical support gave more than one reason it could be giving issues, but none of them solved the problem. Eventually I solved the problem, but it was far from the solutions that support had given."
"The support from Fortinet FortiGate could improve. They are not easily accessible when we need them. They could improve their response time."
"The product needs a feature that allows users to create another site on a VPN."
"The additional features I would like to see included in the next release is better troubleshooting and reporting."
"FortiOS could provide a more detailed analysis of the network and connected devices."
"It would be better if AWS instances were available. If I want to upgrade from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available rather than having a big instance and paying a lot of money for that. The issue is that we had deployed in AWS Cloud, and we were using a very small instance. Recently we wanted to move in-house and deploy it on the big instance because it was struggling with the RAM. If we use T2.small, we cannot upgrade it to the T2.medium. It has predefined instances in the marketplace with a lot of cost differences. If I can increase the RAM, I have to choose the T3.large instance. If I'm paying $270 for the small instance, I have to pay more than double the cost for T3.large. It is about $850, and this is not good. So, it would be better if it was cheaper. I think both AWS and Fortinet should think about that. They should provide it on lower instances as well. If I want to upgrade it from T2.small to T2.medium, it should be available, but it's a problem."
"The report and policy optimization tools can be improved in the next release."
"Fortinet needs to make this solution even more robust. Sometimes when we get a DDoS attack, the cannot withstand it. We can run out of sessions very easily. That said, I suppose if you want more a robust system, then you could purchase higher-end solutions, which are more expensive. Still, I would like to see more protection from even in the low-end version."
"The threat time interval lags a little, especially if there's a heavy load on the firewall."
"For monitoring purposes, we don't have any option to monitor the ISP link."
"We're not particularly fond of the way it generally performs. We are finding ourselves rebooting often. There are freeze-ups and that kind of thing. The stability needs to improve exponentially."
"I'd like to see integration with Microsoft 365 for authentication."
"The features I would like to see improve are the dashboard and the UI."
"Initially, it may be difficult for some people to learn and become acquainted with it."
"The only thing that we would want would be single-pane management, which it has, but the GMS is not very good. It's purely the management of multiple devices for multiple customers, that's the only thing that it's lacking."
"The product has a lot of bugs, actually. We are facing some issues with this product. The DPI SSL feature which is there, it is not working properly."
"They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI."
"The cost could be lower. There could also be more flexibility for smaller companies."
Fortinet FortiOS is ranked 15th in Firewalls with 73 reviews while SonicWall NSa is ranked 19th in Firewalls with 77 reviews. Fortinet FortiOS is rated 8.4, while SonicWall NSa is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiOS writes "Provides effective filtering features, good stability but initial setup is moderately challenging". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSa writes "Great performance and security with reasonable pricing". Fortinet FortiOS is most compared with Fortinet FortiManager, Fortinet FortiWeb, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection and Darktrace, whereas SonicWall NSa is most compared with SonicWall TZ, Meraki MX, Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense. See our Fortinet FortiOS vs. SonicWall NSa report.
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