Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs SonicWall NSSP comparison

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120,425 views|88,209 comparisons
90% willing to recommend
Palo Alto Networks Logo
25,488 views|16,293 comparisons
96% willing to recommend
SonicWall Logo
212 views|143 comparisons
66% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and SonicWall NSSP based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls.
To learn more, read our detailed Firewalls Report (Updated: April 2024).
769,630 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The IPS is good. It protect my network from attackers.""The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is the simple configuration.""I am "headache free" that I don't have to categorize all the websites and that security has been pre categorized by the people, and that the services are getting updated. At least one part of my problem is over.""The virtual firewall feature is the most valuable. We have around 1,500 firewalls. We did not buy individual hardware, and the virtual firewalls made sense because we don't have to keep on buying the hardware. FortiGate is easier to use as compared to Checkpoint devices. It is user friendly and has a good UI. You don't need much expertise to work on this firewall. You don't need to worry much about DCLA, commands, and things like that.""Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers.""It's very good and very stable for businesses. It works very well.""Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable.""It's quite comfortable to handle the FortiGate firewall."

More Fortinet FortiGate Pros →

"They have a good system operator in the firewalls and it provides many tools that they can use to protect their networks.""I like to install Palo Alto mainly on the data center side to have visibility into all VLANs. That gives full visibility into the core.""One of the simple features I like about Palo Alto firewalls is that it's extremely easy to find out what's happening in the network. The reporting is phenomenal, and it's easy to find which threats have been detected and what traffic is going through the box. When a customer notices something is wrong, you can quickly check the amount of traffic going through the firewall around that time. If there is anything out of the ordinary, you can decide it needs to be investigated further.""One of the most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is application symmetries.""I like the remote access and URL filtering features that are available on global products.""It is pretty important to have embedded machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention, because all these different attacks and threats are constantly evolving. So, you want to have something beyond just hard pass rules. You want it to learn as it is going along. Its machine learning seems pretty good. It seems like it is catching quite a few things.""The most important thing is that it's really user-friendly. I have almost stopped using the CLI because I like the graphical interface. You can do whatever you want on a single screen, including all the configuration and implementation, using Panorama. You don't have to switch from one place to another.""I like the navigation of the general Panorama solution. I can easily navigate around and get to the thing I need. I'm not wasting time trying to find something."

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"It has been delivering results efficiently. Its configurations and updates have been easy. It is also user-friendly.""SonicWall NSSP is stable and scalable too.""The solution's pricing is good.""The VPN functionality is really good. Overall, the whole device is very easy to manage. The software that comes with it is also good."

More SonicWall NSSP Pros →

Cons
"Fortinet FortiGate can improve by integrating the web application firewall and the DDoS protection part of the solution. Having a WAF feature, web application firewall, and proxy together would be a good benefit.""I could not configure sFlow from the FortiGate graphical user interface. I realized that the sFlow configuration is available only from the CLI, and discovered that sFlow is not supported on virtual interfaces, such as VDOM links, IPsec, or GRE.""I don't really have anything negative to say as far as Fortinet firewalls are concerned. If anything, they can support a user a little bit better. They can stop being so time-sensitive about how much time the support call has taken, and they can help you do it yourself.""They should offer special pricing to premium partners and customers.""Bandwidth usage in reporting could be improved for Fortinet FortiGate.""Compared to some other products, the DLP is not at par for the moment.""The graphical user interface of Fortinet's FortiGate product does not function well with text-based interfaces.""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."

More Fortinet FortiGate Cons →

"The stability, scalability for enterprise-level organizations, and technical documentation have room for improvement.""Palo Alto is like Microsoft. It has varied features, but it's too technical. A lot of the features could be simplified. The procedure, process, features, and usability could be more simple.""Need improvement with their logs, especially the command line interface.""PA-220 Next-Generation Firewall would be perfect if it has spam filtering.""Palo Alto has introduced new features in their next-generation firewall, such as SD-WAN. However, the technique of SD-WAN implementation is not easy to understand. It is not easy to deploy at this moment. Maybe, in the future, they can improve the process and how the administrators, partners, or support team can easily deploy this SD-WAN solution on their next-generation firewall. The SD-WAN solution from Fortinet is easy to do. It does not take more than five or 10 minutes. When we talk about Palo Alto, it takes extra effort to implement SD-WAN.""It's too expensive.""Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls do not provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities.""In Mexico, Palo Alto's discounts are significantly lower than Cisco's. They are also more expensive – about 15% or 20% – than Cisco, but their platforms are very similar."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Cons →

"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 solution's stability and scalability also need improvement.""The user interface, the GUI, could be improved.""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."

More SonicWall NSSP Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."
  • "These boxes are not that expensive compared to what they can do, their functionality, and the reporting you receive. Fortinet licensing is straightforward and less confusing compared to Cisco."
  • "Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
  • "Work through partners for the best pricing."
  • "The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."
  • "Easy to understand licensing requirements."
  • "​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
  • "The cost is too high... They have to focus on more features with less cost for the customer. If you see the market, where it's going, there are a lot of players offering more features for less cost."
  • More Fortinet FortiGate Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "Annually, the licensing costs are too much."
  • "Pricing is yearly, but it depends. You could pay on a yearly basis, or every three years. If you want to add a device or two, there would be an additional cost. Also, if you want to do an assessment, or other similar add-on, you have to pay accordingly for the additional service."
  • "It will be worth your time to hire a contractor to set it up and configure it for you, especially if you are not very knowledgeable with PA firewalls."
  • "Don't buy a device with more power than you really need, because licensing depends on the cost of the box you have."
  • "The licensing is annual, and there aren't any additional fees on top of that."
  • "The price of this product should be reduced."
  • "The pricing is competitive in the market."
  • "This is an expensive product, which is why some of our customers don't adopt it."
  • More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls 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."
  • "The pricing is cheap, and that's where, you know, the some of the organization goes for the SonicWall."
  • More SonicWall NSSP Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate
    Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall
    SonicWall Network Security Services Platform
    Learn More
    Overview

    Fortinet FortiGate enhances network security, prevents unauthorized access, and offers robust firewall protection. Valued features include advanced threat protection, reliable performance, and a user-friendly interface. It improves efficiency, streamlines processes, and boosts collaboration, providing valuable insights for informed decision-making and growth.

    Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are next-generation firewalls used for security to protect networks from threats and attacks. It is used for perimeter security, data center protection, and managing secure access to environments. Users highlight the NGFW's effectiveness in providing comprehensive security without impacting network performance. Users appreciate its ease of use, particularly in setup and ongoing management, making it a favored choice for businesses looking to secure their cloud environments.

    The firewall provides application control, malware protection, scalability, stability, user-friendly interface, threat hunt capabilities, application visibility and awareness, URL filtering, traffic monitoring, machine learning for attack prevention, a unified platform for all security capabilities, DNS security, VPN, and embedded machine learning. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is easy to manage, reliable, and balances security and network performance well. It also provides complete visibility through logs and alerting.

    Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Features

    Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Secure Application Enablement (App-ID, User-ID, Content-ID)
    • Malware Detection and Prevention (threat prevention service, buffer overflows and port scans, anti-malware capabilities, command-and-control protection, and WildFire)
    • DNS Security (URL filtering, predict and block malicious domains, signature-based protection, extensible cloud-based architecture)
    • Panorama Security Management (including graphical views and analytics, manage rules and dynamic updates, customizable application command center (ACC), log collection mode, physical or virtual appliance)
    • Threat Intelligence (high-fidelity threat intelligence, priority alerts, automatic extraction and sharing of prevention indicators, native integration with Palo Alto Networks products)

    Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Dedicated management interface for managing and initial configuration of the device
    • Regular threat signatures and updates
    • Import addresses and URL objects from the external server
    • Configure and manage with REST API integration
    • Great throughput and connection speed is fair even in high traffic load
    • Deep visibility into the network activity through Application and Command Control
    • Easy to manage and very user friendly

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls users.

    A Solutions Architect at a communications service provider says, “The product stability and level of security are second to none in the industry. We value the security of our client's infrastructure so these features are valuable to us. An example of a very valuable feature behind Palo Alto is the application-aware identifiers that help the firewall know what its users are trying to do. It can block specific activities instead of just blocking categories. For example, you can block an application, or all unknown applications.”

    PeerSpot user Gerry H., CyberSecurity Network Engineer at a university, mentions that the solution has a “Nice user interface, good support, is stable, and has extensive logging capabilities.” He also adds, “Wildfire has been a very good feature. This solution provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities, which is 100% important to us. This is a great feature.”

    Eric S., Network Analyst at a recreational facilities/services company, states, "With its single pane of glass, it makes monitoring and troubleshooting a bit more homogeneous. We are not looking at multiple platforms and monitoring management tools. It is more efficient from that perspective. It is more of a common monitoring and control system for multiple aspects of what used to be different systems. It provides efficiency and time savings."

    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.

    Sample Customers
    1. Amazon Web Services 2. Microsoft 3. IBM 4. Cisco 5. Dell 6. HP 7. Oracle 8. Verizon 9. AT&T 10. T-Mobile 11. Sprint 12. Vodafone 13. Orange 14. BT Group 15. Telstra 16. Deutsche Telekom 17. Comcast 18. Time Warner Cable 19. CenturyLink 20. NTT Communications 21. Tata Communications 22. SoftBank 23. China Mobile 24. Singtel 25. Telus 26. Rogers Communications 27. Bell Canada 28. Telkom Indonesia 29. Telkom South Africa 30. Telmex 31. Telia Company 32. Telkom Kenya
    SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments
    Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider16%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization20%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Comms Service Provider8%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider15%
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Computer Software Company13%
    Educational Organization9%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    Government7%
    No Data Available
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business48%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise30%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business27%
    Midsize Enterprise32%
    Large Enterprise41%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business36%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business25%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise58%
    No Data Available
    Buyer's Guide
    Firewalls
    April 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Netgate, Fortinet, OPNsense and others in Firewalls. Updated: April 2024.
    769,630 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 reviews while SonicWall NSSP is ranked 38th in Firewalls with 4 reviews. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6, while SonicWall NSSP is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall NSSP writes "Good VPN functionality, very good support, easy to manage, and meets all of our needs". Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense, whereas SonicWall NSSP is most compared with SonicWall NSa.

    See our list of best Firewalls vendors.

    We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.