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Hillstone A-Series vs SonicWall NSa comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Hillstone A-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
49th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonicWall NSa
Ranking in Firewalls
25th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Hillstone A-Series is 0.3%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSa is 1.4%, down from 1.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonicWall NSa1.4%
Hillstone A-Series0.3%
Other98.3%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies
Good performance, responsive support, and an easy setup
We use the product for small and medium-sized businesses. Their scalability is good. They have a lot of choices based on their performance. Even on one unit, they have multiple ports to support customers so that they can connect to different devices. I'd rate the scalability nine out of ten.
Mahendra Basera - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Engineer at InterGlobe Technology Quotient
Automated breach prevention has protected critical workloads and keeps external attacks blocked
I am familiar with SonicWall TZ. I have done a POC of TZ but I have not worked extensively with it. I have worked with the 2600 firewall and then the 3600. These are the models which we have worked with.SonicWall NSa was an on-premises solution. The two firewalls which were in production, in the data center and on the LAN side, were both on-premises solutions. We had a pre-decided budget under which we would purchase the firewall. All parameters including security, high availability, and budget concerns were covered with SonicWall NSa being implemented at that time. SonicWall NSa is a user-friendly product that is easy to configure, and it is easy for network personnel and firewall administrators to work with. Even the L1 team captured and learned this firewall effectively, helping us resolve all parameters related to high availability firewalls within budget-friendly costs. I rate this review a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The antivirus is very good."
"It has good reporting, the reporting is marvelous."
"One good point about the more expensive license for this product is that they provide a hardware guarantee, which means direct replacement, no matter how long you've been using it, whether you've used it for two, three, five, or seven years."
"The product is simple to manage."
"SonicWall absolutely has the best bang for the buck hands down."
"The most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the control aspect of the solution."
"We have utilized all the features. The most valuable are the URL filtering by category, DMZ zoning, load balancing and site-to-site VPN."
"Setup is easy, and anyone with basic firewall experience can do it."
"It's very simple to use and the support is great."
 

Cons

"It would be helpful if they could integrate more with third-party security systems."
"We have security as a service, and they make recommendations about adding to the denylist and other things. That part could be more accessible and more user-friendly. I'd like to see SonicWall add a user-friendly interface where our internal team can drag and drop everything."
"SonicWall uses a cloud-based database for content filtering. If the NSA cannot contact that online DB, filtering is handled one of two ways."
"Currently, the only issue that has been experienced is with expansion. The model that we are using cannot expand very well, and the firewall is not able to handle all of them."
"Do not even consider NetExtender - probably one of the most horrific, nightmare grade Java-based VPN clients. We have but all given up trying to make it work reliably."
"Competitors provide SSL encryption licenses for free, whereas SonicWall only provides two licenses by default, but you have to pay for the rest of the licenses."
"Also, their desktop anti-virus sucks."
"One area for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the GUI. It isn't easy to understand. The support for SonicWall NSa is mediocre, which is another area for improvement."
"The reporting and monitoring are a bit complex and should be easier in SonicWall NSa because other firewalls I have experienced have been more simple, such as Palo Alto. We are able to receive a clear view of our network. As a general user with little experience, it would be difficult for them to handle."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Its price is okay."
"The price is high. I would rate it four to five out of ten."
"SonicWall NSa has reasonable pricing. My company pays for it yearly, but I forgot how much the company pays. From what I remember, you only pay for the license fees."
"There is a license required for this solution and you can purchase a one, two, or three year term. Typically businesses choose the one year subscription and then later choose the three year licensing option if they are satisfied."
"SonicWall is not an expensive solution."
"The price of SonicWall NSa is expensive."
"The CPUs are not able to compete with a similar price point to the Fortinet, WatchGuard, or Palo Alto product."
"A firewall doing anti-spam might be a low cost solution, but it is not your best strategy."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Construction Company
12%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business56
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSa?
I am overall satisfied with everything, including the price.
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSa?
The CPU configuration for SonicWall NSa, based on my experience, is average. It should be increased somewhat because we are not always aware of the load under varying organizational working standar...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall NSa?
We have SonicWall NSa models including NSA 2600, NSA 3600, and 6600 firewalls in our environment.We have used the Deep Packet Inspection feature of SonicWall NSa. We adopted a security package that...
 

Also Known As

No data available
NSA 250M, NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, Dell SonicWALL NSA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. Google 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. IBM 5. Cisco 6. Oracle 7. Intel 8. HP 9. Dell 10. Apple 11. Facebook 12. Twitter 13. LinkedIn 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. Salesforce 17. VMware 18. Samsung 19. Sony 20. Toshiba 21. Panasonic 22. LG 23. Nokia 24. Ericsson 25. Siemens 26. Philips 27. General Electric 28. Honeywell 29. BMW 30. Mercedes-Benz 31. Audi 32. Volkswagen
Orange County Rescue Mission, First Source, Michaels & Taylor, Green Clinic Health System, Aspire Chiltern Skills and Enterprise Centre, UnitedStack, Faith Lutheran College Redlands, Celtic Manor Resort, Star Kay White, Air Works, Unimat Life, NHS Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS), Hutt City Council, Mato Grosso do Sul, Nspyre
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