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Hillstone E-Series vs SonicWall TZ comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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 E-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
40th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (10th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (24th)
SonicWall TZ
Ranking in Firewalls
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
86
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 0.9%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall TZ is 1.6%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonicWall TZ1.6%
Hillstone E-Series0.9%
Other97.5%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.
Ashutosh Jha - PeerSpot reviewer
Project engineer at IT Solution india private limited
Advanced security filters have blocked threats and protect our users’ web and application access
SonicWall TZ gives us multiple features, such as Content Filter, Application Filter, ATP, IPS policy, Geo-Filter, Botnet filter, and many more. I use Content Filter with SonicWall TZ most of the time because we need to create a policy on behalf of the content filter to track who is using what. If we want to block any types of websites for any specific user, we can do it from the firewall. SonicWall TZ has multiple features, such as Application Filter as well. SonicWall TZ has impacted our organization positively because it stops all threats. If any types of malware signature or any types of bad behavior malware appear, it prevents them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"If an organization is not looking for a web proxy, it's a very, very good product."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"Five out of five ROI."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients secure connectivity from a remote location to their offices or their servers."
"The VPNs are rock solid. I never have an issue with them. We also have rules to block encrypted traffic to specific sites and geolocations. The integrated VPN functionality is easy to use."
"All these solutions are very helpful, easy to configure, and easy to troubleshoot."
"The solution is priced fairly and competitively."
"The site-to-site VPN connections, content filtering, and in our current remote working situation, SSL VPN remote desktop connectivity are the most valuable features."
"With the new version, you also have more facilities and more features to protect your infrastructure."
"We like their interface very much. It's pretty easy to use."
"SonicWall provides each location with its own security and provides our company with the ability to centralize our servers so they can provide applications to all the locations and users."
"I would recommend this solution because it is easy to use and the configuration is simple."
 

Cons

"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"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."
"We do not plan to continue using SonicWall TZ; we are looking for a replacement because we need centralized monitoring across the organization."
"Content filtering, Load balancing. Bandwidth management."
"I assess the machine learning capabilities of SonicWall TZ in proactive threat detection to not be at the level of other vendors such as Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Check Point."
"Sometimes there is a glitch between the network connection. Last time, something happened on our IP phone, the SonicWall team did some updates to fix the issue. However, glitches happen very rarely. I did not experience any other types of problems."
"There is a point I don't like about SonicWall in the past and now. Most of the destinations we look at when we're detecting some user using too much bandwidth or something like that, SonicWall just gave us destination IP address, instead of the full qualified domain name. I think that's the most important part that is still missing. I think that's the most important for us."
"Technical support is not good. If we send complaints to the SonicWall support they don't provide good support for us."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"Licensing fees are on a monthly basis."
"The prices are expensive."
"The price is fair for the solution for the quality you receive."
"The price of SonicWall TZ is good for medium-sized companies."
"It comes to a range between five hundred to seven hundred dollars."
"SonicWall has authorized distributors in our country. They have about two or three distributors in the country, so it makes it a bit easier. What we do is to request a quotation from these distributors, then we do a value for money analysis and see which one of them is giving us a competitive price."
"We have to pay yearly. Its licensing can be improved, and they should provide more features, such as AV, email filtering, and so on with the basic subscription."
"Getting licenses in our country, Ghana, is not easy. Though, once we have them, adding them is quick (about a day)."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business65
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Would you choose Fortinet Fortigate or Sonicwall TZ?
I’ll say it depends on your needs. Fortinet FortiGate and SonicWall TZ are both next-gen firewalls (NGFW) with similar basic features. However, Fortinet offers more performance, scalability, and in...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall TZ?
The price is normal. It is a nominal cost for an SMB TZ used for SMB businesses. However, more licenses are required to purchase the perpetual license for SSL VPN and Global VPN. Only one SSL VPN a...
What needs improvement with SonicWall TZ?
I assess the machine learning capabilities of SonicWall TZ in proactive threat detection to not be at the level of other vendors such as Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, and Check Point. It is somewhe...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Dell SonicWALL TZ
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
AeroM_xico Delta TechOps, Unimat
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone E-Series vs. SonicWall TZ and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
919,919 professionals have used our research since 2012.