Netgate pfSense vs SonicWall NSSP comparison

Netgate and SonicWall are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Netgate is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.8, while SonicWall is ranked #38 with an average rating of 7.3. Netgate holds a 12.7% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to SonicWall’s 0.1% mindshare. Additionally, 93% of Netgate users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 83% of SonicWall users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Netgate pfSense and SonicWall NSSP compete in the network security category. Users are more satisfied with Netgate pfSense's pricing and features, but SonicWall NSSP is regarded as having stronger security capabilities.

Features: Netgate pfSense is known for its customizability, VPN integration, and comprehensive reporting tools. SonicWall NSSP offers advanced threat protection, high-speed performance, and scalability. Netgate pfSense provides straightforward configuration, whereas SonicWall NSSP is noted for its security features in high-protection environments.

Room for Improvement: Users suggest Netgate pfSense could have better documentation and more intuitive configuration for beginners. For SonicWall NSSP, there is a need for improved firmware updates and fewer false positives in threat detection. Netgate pfSense users focus on ease of use, while SonicWall NSSP users seek better performance reliability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Netgate pfSense is praised for easy installation and comprehensive community support. SonicWall NSSP has a more complex setup process but benefits from effective customer service. Netgate pfSense is easier to deploy, with SonicWall NSSP users appreciating responsive and helpful vendor support.

Pricing and ROI: Netgate pfSense offers cost-effective solutions with lower setup costs and favorable ROI. SonicWall NSSP, though more expensive, is seen as worth the investment for its advanced features and strong security. Budget-conscious users prefer Netgate pfSense, while those willing to invest more find value in SonicWall NSSP's capabilities.

To learn more, read our detailed Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSSP Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSSP

June 2025

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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 June 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netgate pfSense is 12.7%, down from 21.7% 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

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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Vincent Hamm

CIO and President at Aim High! Inc.

I appreciate the depth of what the solution can do and the simplicity of the initial setup

We do a lot of managed services and are currently trying to get people off of L2TP VPN. Apparently, we can download a mobile config file from a configured NetGate device, and we're primarily Apple. We've experimented with it on a device that's not a production device, and we can't seem to get the phase one IPSec set correctly so that the Apple config will accept it. We've tried looking at the documentation but haven't found anything. While it's not the highest priority, it is rather frustrating. We'd like to do this, and the feature is right there, but we can't get it configured. We certainly don't want to try it on a production machine because it will break the current VPN. I would like to download the Apple mobile config so that I can tell it to configure my VPN connection to do that. We have some cross-platform things. So there's also a Windows VPN. You can download a script or a PowerShell, put it on a Windows machine, and it can connect to the VPN. It would be nice if I could say I want Mac only, Windows only, or both. I wish it could configure the IPSec phase one and phase two, or at least give me solid instructions on how to configure that. It doesn't supply out-of-the-box visibility to drive decisions. You get 75 log lines, so if you're trying to troubleshoot something, you have to look at one log and then another. It integrates with SysLog systems, but our customers are not at the level where they want to pay for some third-party SysLog system. Usually, we can get things taken care of fairly quickly. I would like to have the ability to control all my devices from one place. With Ubiquiti, you can get a controller that allows you to control all of your Wi-Fi devices, switches, and routers. From one area, you can switch to that customer and see what's happening in their environment. That's not part of pfSense. I understand why it's not because pfSense is open source and community supported. That's something that someone in the community needs to pick up and run with. It's not something the pfSense can easily implement. If they could, that'd be great.

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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…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."

"The wireless control is helpful."

"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."

"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."

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

"The CLI is robust and powerful, enabling rapid, consistent changes via SSH."

"We were looking for the VPN feature and controlling the inflow and outflow of all the traffic within the site and across the sites. We are also using it for the VPN and VLANs."

"Fortinet FortiGate positively provides my clients' organizations with a high return on investment."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"They're very affordable for what they offer."

"The tools' most valuable feature is load balancing."

"I find the overall amount of configuration flexibility to be valuable."

"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."

"The initial setup is straightforward."

"The VPN is my favorite feature."

"The documentation is very good."

"The most valuable features of Netgate pfSense are the ease of use and GUI."

More Netgate pfSense pros

"SonicWall NSSP is stable and scalable too."

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

"The solution's pricing is good."

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

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

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

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

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."

"The WAF is extremely limited."

"I want some additional features. For example, I want something to ensure that when we are using Google email or Microsoft email, or Google Workspace, emails can only be accessed on designated machines given to our employees. I would like them to access data from designated machines, not from any machine. It should work for designated mobiles and laptops. I don't know if Fortinet provides something like that out of the box."

"Scalability is one of the disadvantages. When it comes to scalability, you have to actually change the box. If you want to upgrade it, you need to actually change the existing box and probably you take the system off to other sites."

"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 price and deployment part of Fortinet FortiGate is good, but it can always be better."

"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."

"It would be ideal if they had some sort of GUI interface for troubleshooting and diagnostics."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"One or two of the plugins didn't do what I wanted them to do. Maybe that was a misunderstanding or it's not quite ready yet. Sometimes, it's hard to wrap my head around the way the firewall rules work."

"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."

"The router monitoring needs improvement when compared with Sonicwall."

"Reporting and real-time monitoring, since I'm used to Watchguard's reporting features, it would be nice to have an embedded solution for reporting."

"I'd like to see it become more of a next-gen firewall or deep packet inspection, however, I'm very happy with the way it is as of now."

"If I had to change internal providers, I might have some difficult times."

"They could do better with their licensing in the home use space. For me, that has been a struggle."

"Maybe in their package manager, it would be nice to see which packages are officially from pfSense and which are community driven."

More Netgate pfSense cons

"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."

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

"The product needs improvement for phishing emails."

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

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

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

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If the price of the license in Fortinet FortiGate was less expensive it would be better."

"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."

"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is quite good. I don't have a public site, such as in Azure, where I can see the pricing. I always have to go through the distributor, and that could take some time to get the real price for each appliance."

"The Indian market is different than the European and American markets. When you compare they need to be a bit more aggressive on pricing."

"By default, they give SD-WAN along with the firewall. They don't have separate licensing for the SD-WAN functionality. However, they have security licenses that are sold separately on a subscription basis. Customers can consume these security features to protect their users from internet traffic."

"Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost."

"Its price is good."

"Here in Brazil, we're going through difficult economic times and the tax on the dollar is high. All the solutions from minor competitors are growing in the market. The prices have come more competitive."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"There is no licensing fee except for the enterprise support, if you want it."

"The price point is highly competitive."

"I buy the appliance and accept whatever comes with it, but I am not bought into paid support. When it comes to the pricing of the appliances, they are pretty competitive. The price is pretty competitive."

"pfSense offers a surprisingly affordable enterprise-grade solution for small businesses."

"Looking at what it does, I think that it is fairly priced."

"I think Netgate pfSense's pricing or licensing models are fair enough...Overall, what I pay for the product is very reasonable."

"There is no license. You don't have to pay anything. It's completely free."

"I would say pfSense is competitively priced. It isn't the cheapest hardware, but I've never had a problem with it. It is far cheaper than big brand names like FortiGate and Cisco while delivering a feature set that's nearly the same across the entire list. The only places it falls short are esoteric features that almost nobody needs."

More Netgate pfSense pricing and cost advice

"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."

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

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

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

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

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

12%

Educational Organization

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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What do you like most about SonicWall NSSP?

The solution's pricing is good.

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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...

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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...

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Comparisons

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Compared 20% of the time

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Compared 11% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

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OPNsense vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 34% of the time

Sophos XG vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 9% of the time

KerioControl vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 3% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 3% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Netgate pfSense

Compared 2% of the time

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SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall NSSP

Compared 46% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

June 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Netgate pfSense

June 2025

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Firewalls

May 2025

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Also Known As

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

No data available

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

Netgate pfSense is widely leveraged by organizations for its comprehensive capabilities in firewalls, VPN servers, and bandwidth management. It suits LAN, WAN, and DMZ networks, offering secure, scalable, and efficient networking solutions.

Netgate pfSense stands out in diverse environments with its enterprise-grade features and cost-effective operations compared to competitors like Cisco. Deployed as an edge device, it optimizes routing, ad-blocking, content filtering, and traffic shaping. Users benefit from its versatile configurations, robust firewall protection, VPN functionality, and ISP load balancing. The open-source nature allows for extensive customization, integrating plugins like Snort and pfBlockerNG, and compatibility with third-party tools enhances its utility. The intuitive GUI combined with detailed logging and centralized management fortifies network security.

What features define Netgate pfSense?

Firewall: Provides robust network security through advanced filtering and stateful packet inspections.
VPN: Ensures secure remote access with high-performing VPN capabilities.
Load Balancing: Efficiently distributes traffic across multiple ISPs, ensuring uptime and performance.
Customization: Supports various plugins for enhanced functionality, tailor-made to specific needs.
Scalability: Adapts easily to varying network demands, providing high availability and flexibility.

What benefits should be considered for ROI?

Cost-Effectiveness: Delivers premium features at a fraction of the cost of traditional network appliances.
Flexibility: Offers a customizable solution that integrates well with existing infrastructure.
Community Support: Backed by a strong user community offering insights and troubleshooting resources.
Security: Supports VLAN segmentation, enhancing protection and management of network traffic.

Organizations in industries such as finance, healthcare, and education find Netgate pfSense integral due to its advanced security features and cost benefits. Its scalable architecture and strong VPN support are crucial for industries requiring stringent data protection and reliable remote access. The adaptability of pfSense makes it suitable for dynamic environments seeking comprehensive, secure networking solutions.

Netgate

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

Nerds On Site Inc., RKC Development Inc., Expertech, Fisher's Technology, Ncisive, Consulting, CPURX, Vaughn's Computer House Calls, Imeretech LLC, Digital Crisis, Carolina Digital Phone, Technigogo Technology Services, The Simple Solution, SwiftecITInc, Rocky Mountain Tech Team, Free Range Geeks, Alaska Computer Geeks, Lark Information Technology, Renaissance Systems Inc., Cutting Edge Computers, Caretech LLC, GoVanguard, Network Touch Ltd, P.C. Solutions.Net, Vision Voice and Data Systems LLC, Montgomery Technologies, Techforce, Concero Networks, ASONInc, CPS Electronics and Consulting, Darkwire.net LLC, IT Specialists, MBS-Net Inc., VOICE1 LLC, Advantage Networking Inc., Powerhouse Systems, Doxa Multimedia Inc., Pro Computer Service, Virtual IT Services, A&J Computers Inc., Envision IT LLC, CommunicaONE Inc., Bone Computer Inc., Amax Engineering Corporation, QPG Ltd. Co., IT 101 Inc., Perfect Cloud Solutions, Applied Technology Group Inc., The Digital Sun Group LLC, Firespring

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Buyer's Guide

Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSSP

June 2025

Free Report: Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSSP

Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall NSSP and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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