SonicWall NSa Reviews

Our primary use case for SonicWall NSa is as a public firewall, as an interface between our private network and the public network.

The product is working okay. The product is working feature-wise.

I would rate SonicWall NSa as an average product, not a very highly recommended one. It is an average product.

The stability is not there. The features are there, but they are not stable. They need to improve on this product because I feel that they have launched this product without much R&D.

We are using SonicWall NSa for quite a long time, around 10 to 12 years, but that includes the the older model, which was the 5500. Now we have been using the 5600 model for the last two, three years.

Performance wise, they are good - not very good, but they're okay, just good.

They are not stable. It is a very unstable product.

For maintenance, we require one engineer from the support partner, one from the tech side, and one from our side, so three engineers and one manager.

At any point in time we have more than 600 users.

We do not have plans to increase the number of users.

Tech support is okay, but the product needs much improvement.

We were not using a different solution before. We have always been using SonicWall, just the older model, which was 5500. We upgraded to 5600.

The installation part of the initial setup was a painful experience. I felt at the time that it was not a finished product. They have to do more R&D on this product to improve it.

It took a very long time to set it up, to be honest. It took very long because they had some bugs and fixes. After so many fixes, it took them very long to install this product.

Obviously, no OEM deals directly with them. We have their channel partners who did the installation.

To be very honest, we are not satisfied with the 5600 product.

On a personal level, I would not recommend SonicWall NSa.

On a scale of one to ten, you can rate SonicWall NSa a six.

The license and the hardware both need to be renewed. The annual maintenance contract is there. So they have to renew the licenses.

Our primary use case for SonicWall NSa is a firewall and for analytics. I use SonicWall NSa to follow the users. Some users manage to bypass the firewall sometimes and install certain software. I track all of this "bad" behavior and block it.

SonicWall NS has a lot of valuable features. One of the best SonicWall NSa features is the ability to collect mini routers and get only one user connection.

Overall, I'm satisfied with SonicWall NSa, but it would be better if they could add a small terminal to each device. This would help me deal with certain issues by running a small bot onto any PC. This terminal could control technical configuration from a centralized configuration with the SonicWall appliance. 

I have been using this solution since last February. However, I have worked with SonicWall since 2007.

We have about 150 users. Each employee configures up to three connections: one on a PC and one or two on mobiles.

We are happy with SonicWall NSa's tech support. We have an account manager and whenever I run into any issues, I email him directly and he calls me within the hour. This is sufficiently fast for our needs. 

We previously ran MicroTech and FortiGate. We switched because we wanted to try something new. We change the technology we use each year.

The initial setup is easy for me because I am a specialist. I previously worked for a Dell and SonicWall partner before, so I'd configured SonicWall NSa many times before. However, now as a customer, I had a SonicWall consultant deploy it.  

We used a SonicWall NSa consultant for the deployment. 

I can't speak to any ROI we've had in terms of numbers but all technology of this type will give you a return on investment because it's secure and makes your business run smoothly.

For example, as I am in the desert and there is no fiber connection here, I was using SIM cards that gave me seven GB a day. Before we deployed SonicWall NSa, I was running seven SIM cards for a total of about 50 GB per day. Right now, I use only one seven-GB SIM card.

We use the product for a lot of things, so it's hard to talk about an individual use case.

The solution seems to help with any intrusion.

I like all the features. The global filtering and the content filtering are great. It's not always intuitive, however, you can usually figure it out. It's really handling all of our firewall needs.

It's stable.

The solution can scale. 

The user interface could be better. 

I've been at the company for about two years and have used the solution since my arrival.

The solution is very stable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable. As long as we maintain patching, we're good.

The solution has been scalable.

About 150 people are using it in our organization. 

I'm not sure if we have plans to increase usage at this time. 

We have been very satisfied with the technical support. 

Positive

I did not previously use a different solution. this product was in place when I arrived at the company. 

The product was already set up when I got here, so I can't speak to the implementation process.

You only need one person to handle deployment and maintenance tasks. 

We've had it for quite a while and therefore must find it to be quite cost-effective. 

I'm not familiar with the licensing aspects of the solution. 

I'm a technical person. I don't care about the cost.

We have a very old SonicWall NSa. That's why we're looking to upgrade.

I'd advise new users to just learn how to work around the interface. That's my one complaint. It's sometimes a little cumbersome to use the UI.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We're using the solution as a gateway-level device.

It's good for firewall and gateway-level security. The VPN service is quite good, including the site-to-site VPN.

It works well for the corporate sector. 

Sometimes I have some queries, and the SonicWall support team resolves my queries.

It offers a very straightforward setup. 

I do not see any specific areas that need improvement. 

The solution can be a bit expensive. 

I've been using the solution for more than ten years. 

It's stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. 

SonicWall is scalable. Currently, I have two NSa 4600s and they are good for my users.

We have around 400 people using the solution. 

At this time, there is no plan to increase usage. 

Technical support has been good. 

Positive

I previously used Sophos.

The solution is easy to set up. It is also easy to deploy. How long it takes to deploy depends on your work culture and how you want to use it. 

For my organization, I deployed it with my support partner, and it has been working fine over the last few years.

There is a good ROI.

For some services, we have to pay for a license. We need to renew for either one or three years.

It can be quite expensive compared to other products with the same features. 

I have the on-premise model, and I have the TZ270. There are more than 20 devices.

I can recommend it to people who are somewhat technical. They would have no trouble with SonicWall products.

I'd rate the solution nine out of ten. 

SonicWall NSa can be used as a perimeter and ELAN firewall.

The solution has many useful features, such as content management, user management, user filtering, and domain controller connectivity mapping.

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.

I have been using SonicWall NSa for approximately seven years.

I have found SonicWall NSa to be stable.

The solution is scalable.

We have approximately 180 users using this solution.

The support of the solution has been good. We normally go through our partner support but if anything is outside the limits of their knowledge then it gets passed onto the SonicWall support.

The installation is not easy, you should have a basic understanding of your network and what your requirements are. Generally, the implementation is done by the vendor. We have an external party who used to do the basic configuration. However, the new generation firewalls do not take much time and are easier.

We used an outsourced vendor for the implementation of the solution. 

We have approximately two individuals that do the maintenance of the solution.

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.

I have evaluated Palo Alto firewalls.

I would recommend this solution.

I rate SonicWall NSa a seven out of ten.

We have installed this firewall appliance across cloud and on-premises environments, our clients primarily use the VPN functionality.

If a customer wants to use the firewall, they have to pay more money for the cloud. By having a firewall solution, they can configure the VPN through the firewall, enabling them to avoid the high costs. Once you deploy the firewall in the cloud solution, then you will get protection for the gateway as well.

We are a service-based company and have implemented over 200 appliances for our customers.

The VPN functionality and intrusion prevention service (IPS) are the most valuable features.

I am a technical engineer, I have complete knowledge of SonicWall. I can do all of the configurations for the firewall. We are a service-based company and I handle the different solutions. If they need any requirement or they any action on the firewall then I can do that myself. 

The only thing that needs improvement is the VPN because we need to pay to connect the points.

I have been using SonicWall for 5 years.

We have found the NSa appliance to be stable and is comparable to FortiGate.

We have expanded the solution with several of our customers and this worked great. We have over 200 customers who use SonicWall.

Level 1 and 2 support issues are handled by our in-house team, but for more complex, level 3 issues we utilise the vendor. The call response is great.

The initial setup was straightforward.

We are a service-based provider and implement in-house.

We also implement similar appliances from Fortinet and Sophos.

I would rate it a ten out of ten. It's a good security product, so I wouldn’t give it a lower rating.

We use SonicWall NSA for IDS, IPS, Intrusion detection, and intrusion protection.

The most valuable features of this solution are intrusion detection, intrusion prevention, and the advanced capture client, which provides live traffic analysis.

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.

They could add some more features.

The current version does not have a duo power interface. It only has a single power interface, which has limitations in terms of high availability. Duo Power is a good feature to have.

The interface is an area that can be improved.

We acquired it in 2017. We have been using SonicWall NSA for four years.

We are using NSA 6600.

SonicWall NSA has been very reliable, mainly because of the ATP Capture Client and the IDS and IPS.

The scalability of SonicWall NSA is good.

We have regular contact with technical support.

When we send a support ticket, they respond to us within the day and resolve the issue.

They have a good response time.

We purchase the license on a yearly basis. 

They do have the option to purchase yearly, or two years, and three years of renewal. 

I believe the pricing is reasonable. There are some competitors that offer more features but are more expensive. 

For organizations and small businesses should choose SonicWall.

I would recommend the solution to others who are at an enterprise level.

With the features that are offered such as IDS, IPS, and ATP Capture Client, SonicWall is a bit higher than the average firewall.

I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for the VPN and to give permissions for on-premises access.

We're using the latest update.

The solution is deployed on-premises. There are two people using this solution in my organization.

SD-WAN is a good feature.

We also use the Sophos Firewall for web configuration, which we don't have in SonicWall. Only Sophos has those options. If SonicWall included that feature, that would be a benefit for us.

We have configured radius configuration. I would like to see an in-built authentication feature that would authenticate results and directly communicate to the cloud. Right now, we have a third party server for that. We are manually configuring it.

If anything goes wrong, sometimes we are unable to bring up that MPS configuration immediately. Our main VPN connection is always authenticated with the MFA option itself. When that happens, we have to revert those changes back as LDAP authentication. That isn't a good recommendation for our organization for VPN purposes. Anybody can connect directly, so they won't get two-factor authentication. It would be great for us if that was an in-built feature included in the Azure authentication.

I have used this solution for more than six years.

It's straightforward. There wasn't any kind of complexity. Deployment took one hour.

I would rate the setup as 4.5 out of 5.

We do the maintenance ourselves. Whenever there's any kind of patch release or upgrade release, we do the maintenance from our side. We have a dedicated team for maintenance.

Deployment was done in-house, but we did take some help from SonicWall.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

I would recommend that product. If those small features were included, it would be a good, all-in-one product.