SonicWall NSa Reviews

My company uses SonicWall NSa as the primary firewall and the SonicWall TZ series as a backup firewall. I have no idea why the company needs to support two firewalls. Still, sometimes, SonicWall NSa has an issue, so the company removes the memory card from it, then replaces it with the memory card from the backup firewall.

I like that SonicWall NSa is a stable product. It's also a scalable product.

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 product speed also has room for improvement.

SonicWall NSa also uses old technology compared to other firewalls, so it needs to upgrade some of its functionalities, such as the VPN.

We've been using SonicWall NSa since 2018.

SonicWall NSa is stable, and it has no issues, stability-wise, so it's an eight on a scale of one to ten.

The scalability for SonicWall NSa is fine, so it's a seven out of ten.

The technical support for SonicWall NSa is a two on a scale of one to ten. It isn't good because SonicWall support will only call you if they have time.

Negative

I'm looking for a different solution so my company can switch to it from SonicWall NSa. I worked with CyberDome and then Fortinet.

Compared to SonicWall NSa, I noticed that the interface is easier than the SonicWall NSa interface. However, I'm describing non-enterprise solutions. 

Support is also excellent versus the support SonicWall NSa provides. If you email or call the support team of Fortinet or CyberDome, you'll get a call. In contrast, the SonicWall NSa technical support team rarely calls, even when I could not configure the product, and my team could only see the logs. However, SonicWall NSa has strong endpoint visibility, which lets my company identify where the issue lies on the network or the infected system.

Fortinet offers a free VPN feature, while SonicWall NSa charges you for that.

The initial setup for SonicWall NSa was complex. The product took a lot of work to configure. That was critical because you had to configure rules, ports, and other parts. I'm describing new setups because, in terms of SonicWall NSa deployment for my company, I wasn't there during the deployment as I recently joined the company.

I don't deal with pricing for SonicWall NSa, so I have no information on that.

Right now, my company uses SonicWall NSa.

I work for a large enterprise using the SonicWall TZ series and SonicWall NSa.

My company uses version 600 of SonicWall NSa.

The SonicWall TZ series is horrible because whenever you remove the hardware, for example, the power supply, it will take five to ten minutes before it powers on. The last time, it didn't respond, so I had to remove the firewall and reboot SonicWall TZ, which took half an hour. The firewall was entirely down, and that time was critical, so SonicWall has to fix the reboot time issue on SonicWall TZ. That was a very, very bad experience.

The company has eleven locations with a total of one thousand SonicWall NSa users.

One non-technical staff maintains SonicWall NSa. The product doesn't require much maintenance.

My rating for SonicWall NSa is four out of ten.

I'd advise others not to go with SonicWall NSa because the interface has many issues. Another issue I have with the product is the reboot time. In particular, the hard reboot is very slow in SonicWall NSa.

My company is a SonicWall customer.

Our company uses the solution as a firewall that provides different levels of protection for our office and factory. We currently have 500 users. 

The solution is very user friendly.

The performance and stability are two key features.

We have not found any vulnerabilities since implementing the solution.

The security standards for space and point of view should be improved so that the solution deploys in critical areas. Normally, the solution wants to deploy in our office or other noncritical areas. 

I have been using the solution for three years. 

The solution is very stable with no issues. 

We have not tried to scale or add new devices. Our load has remained stable since implementation with no increases or decreases.

I contacted technical support for issues related to firmware operations. 

Support is the best so I rate them a nine out of ten. 

Positive

The setup is easy. 

We worked with one of our partners for deployment. 

The solution is very easy to maintain. 

The solution is based on a yearly licensing model that is reasonable compared to other options. We have a viral license and a UTM license. 

At the base level for data central testing, we use Check Point. The solution offers more security and sensitivity levels than Check Point. 

We use the solution and Fortinet for the office and factory locations. We prefer the solution over Fortinet. 

I rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

Our use cases for SonicWall NSa are the Global VPN and the SSL VPN, because nowadays, everyone prefers to work from home, and prefers to connect from mobile applications to our organization.

What's valuable in SonicWall NSa is the ATP (advanced threat protection). It can protect users from malicious links, e.g. those sent to the end user email and is clicked by the end user, who'll be led to a bad website. SonicWall NSa has a Sandboxing service that is very helpful for us, especially when end users accidentally click on malicious links.

Another valuable feature of this solution is that it is very useful for site-to-site VPN connectivity issues.

SonicWall NSa also has very good hardware, e.g. from 2013 to 2021, only one product had a hardware failure, and within 24 hours, they were able to replace that product.

I also love that SonicWall has very good technical support, who are very knowledgeable, provides good suggestions, and they're easy to reach.

An area for improvement in SonicWall NSa is that sometimes, we experience bugs when upgrading, so we have to contact their technical support to fix issues.

It would be much easier if this improvement was in place: if the one-time password which is built-in, was provided as an OTP for the administrator logging into the console, so that we'll have a quicker awareness of it, rather than needing to check emails for it. Having a Telegram or WhatsApp bot integrated with the device, for example, will be very helpful for us, so we can instantly take action, without us needing to log into and check our emails, meaning we'll be able to put things right faster.

This may not be possible in SonicWall NSa, but I'm also looking for any kind of controller or device for the Windows server or client, e.g. Windows 11 and Windows 10 from SonicWall NSa itself, so that a security domain or the gateway of the organization would be able to identify the latest update for a product, whether that product is installed or not. This feature would be very helpful, and it's what I'd like to see in the next release.

I've been using SonicWall NSa since 2013.

SonicWall NSa performs well, but sometimes, there are bugs, so I have to call their support when this happens, and I elaborate on the problem we're facing. Support then takes the diagnostic data, fixes it, then sends back to me the firmware or the setting so I can restore my SonicWall NSa.

SonicWall NSa is easy to scale.

The technical support team for this solution is very knowledgeable. They are able to fix issues. They understand what we are facing and they suggest very good options. They provide us very good support, and on a scale of one to five, I'm giving them a four to a five for technical support.

I previously used different solutions, e.g. Sophos and Fortinet, but what I noticed is that I either couldn't find how to contact their technical support, or if I was able to call their technical support, I either get a busy tone, or it takes a long time to speak to someone. As for SonicWall support, I only had to wait 10 minutes to speak to someone, and if they accidentally drop my call, they'll immediately call me, no matter which part of the world I'm in, so I switched to SonicWall NSa.

I deployed SonicWall NSa myself. Deployment was very easy.

Last January 14th, one of my firewalls went down, so we had to replace it, but it was unfortunate that we didn't enable the local backup. At the time, what we had was the factory set up option for the device, so it took me six hours to fix, e.g. applying for the policy site to the site VPN, creating the users, etc. All those processes took a minimum of five to six hours.

I didn't use a vendor or a third party for the deployment of this solution. I only had to call their support if there was something I couldn't understand, e.g. why the traffic wasn't working, etc. For some of the processes, I took notes from their support, while for the rest of the processes, we can do it by ourselves.

SonicWall NSa has two types of license, so the cost would depend on the license.

The advanced license is a bit expensive when compared to the comprehensive license, but when you compare the advanced license to the licensing cost of other brands or competitors, it is expensive.

One good point about the more expensive license for this product it 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. You can easily have your device directly replaced if it's having issues with the firewall, software, or hardware, etc. You can get this done as an end user, or as a customer. You just have to fill in and send back the application form for device replacement, provide the serial number and the model number, and that's it. They will replace your device. It's also easy for them to transfer your license to another device. SonicWall NSa is worth the money.

I evaluated Sophos and Fortinet solutions.

The firewall products I'm using are SonicWall NSa 3600 and 2400.

We are using the latest version of this solution.

We are using a local backup, and we also enabled for my SonicWall NSa a cloud backup for all devices. We are using six firewalls, so we enabled the flow backup, with the goal of being able to restore immediately, in case of emergency.

This product doesn't require much maintenance. Our company operates 24/7, and we deal with ready-mix concrete. It depends on the production, but SonicWall NSa continuously runs 24/7. Maintenance is done monthly, particularly for upgrading the firmware, or for restarting SonicWall server patches. Maintenance of this product only takes one hour on a monthly basis.

We have 200 end users of SonicWall NSa.

I always recommend this product to my friends and colleagues. My supplier also recommends it. I suggest to them to go for SonicWall NSa, depending on the user, e.g. if you have 100 end users. We pay for the license, for example, 2,200 dirhams, so I can get the license, and also get the SonicWall SOHO device, which is the smaller one.

My rating for SonicWall NSa is seven out of ten.

I use the solution to filter the IPs. Our users also use it for connectivity purposes.

The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites. The tool blocks some IP addresses.

The dashboard must be improved. The product should enable alerts. When hackers compromise our websites and applications, it will help us alert our staff and network administrators.

I have been using the solution for two to three years.

I rate the tool’s stability a seven out of ten. We face glitches sometimes.

I rate the tool’s scalability an eight out of ten. We have approximately 1200 users in our organization.

My colleagues are happy with the response time and quality of support.

Positive

The setup is simple.

The solution is cheaper than others. It has a reasonable price.

I will recommend the tool to others. Overall, I rate the product an eight out of ten.

We use the solution to provide edge security. We provide edge policies and protection. We use a very old version.

I rate the performance an eight out of ten. The product is simple to manage. It is a good solution.

The scope of management must be improved. The scope of what users can do with the product must be improved. The product must enable integration with endpoint protection tools.

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

I rate the tool’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the tool’s scalability a five out of ten. We don’t need to scale. However, if we need scalability, we will have to change the solution.

The price is reasonable. The tool is cheap.

We did not see much improvement in our organization after using SonicWall NSa. We are evaluating other tools.

Overall, I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

I'm using SonicWall NSa as an external firewall.

For me, the most valuable feature of SonicWall NSa is the UTM.

A room for improvement in SonicWall NSa is the log server because it could be more user-friendly compared to Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks.

Another area for improvement is the UI of SonicWall NSa, mainly because the rule set is challenging to review, and you always have to export the rule set for review. My company has many rule sets up for review, so sometimes, my team needs to use Excel for filtering, but the UI cannot support the Excel function.

In the next release of SonicWall NSa, I want the solution to be more user-friendly.

I've been working with SonicWall NSa for more than ten years.

SonicWall NSa is a stable solution.

I am still determining how scalable SonicWall NSa is.

SonicWall NSa support is fine overall. My company always gets help from the local vendor.

My company used Check Point ten years ago, but its pricing was higher than SonicWall NSa. The cost to maintain Check Point was also higher, so now the company uses SonicWall NSa.

SonicWall NSa is relatively easy to set up because my company always partners with local support.

It took one month to implement the solution because the company had to migrate from the old to the new, including checking the rule sets. I'm referring to upgrades because the deployment from scratch happened ten years ago, so I don't remember the details.

An in-house team implemented SonicWall NSa together with a local support team.

My company has yet to evaluate any ROI from SonicWall NSa.

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.

I believe I'm using the latest SonicWall NSa version, 2700, though I'm not sure.

My whole company in Hong Kong uses SonicWall NSa, so that's about one hundred people. Mainly two people maintain the solution.

A few people took care of the deployment of SonicWall NSa.

I rate SonicWall NSa as nine on a scale of one to ten.

I'm a SonicWall NSa user.

I use SonicWall NSa for bandwidth monitoring and aggregation. I also use it to control browsing.

What I like best about SonicWall NSa is the security it offers compared to other solutions in the market. Its reduction rate is also better than others.

SonicWall NSa has multiple areas for improvement.

One is that it doesn't have a proxy. It also doesn't have the quota management feature required in specific scenarios where you need to limit user bandwidth for a particular day, so one user isn't using up too much bandwidth compared to other users.

Active/Active HA is also missing in the product.

What I want to be added to SonicWall NSa in the future is the bandwidth optimization feature.

I've been using SonicWall NSa for fifteen years.

SonicWall NSa is a stable product.

To scale SonicWall NSa, you need to keep changing the model of the box, but this is the case in any other solution, so you go for hardware appliances, such as Fortinet, Sophos, Palo Alto Networks, and Check Point because after reaching a specific capacity, you need to change the model.

SonicWall NSa has good technical support, so support-wise, I'm giving it a ten out of ten.

Positive

My company chose SonicWall NSa over other products because it was good. It was better than others.

SonicWall NSa is easy to implement. It took two hours to deploy the product completely.

We implemented SonicWall NSa as we're SonicWall resellers.

There's ROI from SonicWall NSa, and its reduction rate is the best.

There are different pricing models for SonicWall NSa.

My company uses a next-generation firewall from SonicWall, SonicWall NSa.

I'm using version 2650 of SonicWall NSa.

My company is a SonicWall NSa reseller.

In the company, everyone uses SonicWall NSa, particularly fifty people.

My advice to people looking into implementing SonicWall NSa is that it depends on the setup. What my company does is first understand the setup and why the customer wants to deploy the product. Based on the customer's answers, my company presents solutions that would work. For example, if you require a proxy or a quota management feature, SonicWall NSa will not be a complete solution. If you need Active/Active HA, SonicWall NSa won't be the right match. You need to understand what you require from the product. If you need browsing and management turnovers, then SonicWall NSa will be good enough. Overall, the product still has some areas for improvement.

My rating for SonicWall NSa is seven out of ten. For me to give it a higher rating, it should have more features. Right now, I'm unable to market it well because it doesn't score very well in Gartner. I can only position SonicWall NSa as having the best reduction rate. The product is relatively good and stable but still needs certain features.

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.