SonicWall NSa Reviews

The tool is easy to manage with a friendly GUI.

SonicWall provides endpoint security with advanced protection. Moreover, SonicWall includes access points and additional features.

The product could expand its throughput capacity.

I have been using SonicWall NSa as a reseller for 19 years.

The SonicWall NSa is considered a high-end midrange firewall suitable for integrating small businesses and main offices. The range of NSa models can accommodate from as few as 250 users with the smallest model to 1,400 users with the NSa 6700 model.

All those features are the same, but NSa SonicWall is cheaper than other solutions. It has a Secure Upgrade Plus offering, with options for either one plus one or two plus one.

The initial setup is fair and quick. Deploying a certain firewall takes three or four hours, depending on the client's requirements.

We are also selling SonicWall products. We have a dedicated team that handles the deployment process. As a pre-sales engineer, I conduct presentations on the NSa and facilitate client discussions.

SonicWall is free for the first year and chargeable for the second year if you opt for two years.

The NSa is a model of SonicWall firewall. It encompasses firewall, content filtering, DNS filtering, antivirus scanning, and primary and advanced firewall requirements.

It helps with threat prevention up to the memory level.

I recommend the solution.

Overall, I rate the solution nine out of ten.

My primary use case is web filtering, VPN, and sometimes UTM. I can check a VPN for point-to-point connectivity with this solution.

The features I found most valuable are email security and web filtering.

The features I would like to see improve are the dashboard and the UI.

In the next release, I'd like to see APIs included.

I have been working with SonicWall for approximately two to three years.

I would rate the stability of this solution a nine, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would rate the scalability of this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

I would say the initial setup was easy. I'd rate it an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

When deploying, you first use a gateway, ISP terminated in the firewall, and then terminate to the user end. Usually, deployment takes two to three years.

The deployment was done by one or two engineers.

I have experience with Fortinet and I would say this solution is much better suited for SMB customers, while SonicWall is better for large enterprises.

I would recommend this solution to enterprise customers.

Overall, I would rate this solution an eight, on a scale from one to 10, with one being the worst and 10 being the best.

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.

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. 

The solution is a security system we install in our customer's office. It's a firewall. We have a control panel to manage and view some data and this control panel is in the cloud. However, the firewalls themselves are in the customer's office.

The security is great.

It has great performance.

The prices are similar to other vendors and the support is good.

The deployment process is simple. 

I can't speak to any missing features. They've recently released a new version and it's quite good. Right now, it's the best solution.

I'd like to see integration with Microsoft 365 for authentication.

We've been using the solution for a while. We've definitely used it over the past year.

The stability and performance are great. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. It's true that SonicWall had a lot of problems in the past, however, now it's very stable. It works perfectly.

It's very scalable. In some cases, it's necessary to change the firewall, however, it's easy to change as SonicWall has the ability to migrate the configuration from all firewalls to the new one.

Technical support is great. They are helpful and responsive. We are quite happy with their capabilities.

I'm also familiar with Fortinet. I find SonicWall more secure. It also offers better performance. 

Previously, we installed a firewall directly with Linux and we configured it all at once. It was very manual. 

Now, the implementation is easy. In the past it was difficult. Companies needed a specialist to deploy new firewalls. Now, they have a system that a normal technician can install.

It takes a few hours to install and deploy the product.

We have two people that handle deployment and maintenance. 

The pricing is on par with others on the market. It's not overly expensive.

The cheaper option is between €100 and €200. However, NSa has different models and the more expensive one is for around €10,000, more or less.

When we purchase our NSa, we buy the firewall and the security services. The security services are for a period of time from one year to three years. When we arrive at the end of the contract we need to renew the security services, however, the firewall will still work. We only need to renew the security services.

When we decide to change from Linux firewalls to an appliance we looked at different companies, like Cisco and Fortinet, and we compared these different companies and products. We decided on SonicWall due to the relationship between performance and security.

We are partners.

I'd rate the solution at a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution from our firewall endpoint VPN. It does have a spam filter, SSL, DPI, and numerous other security features. We've got the full license suite.

The DPI-SSL is the solution's most valuable aspect. It's handy. It's nice.

The scalability is okay.

The initial implementation isn't too bad, once you get used to the process.

We're not happy with the device itself. We're obviously moving away from it for a reason that they're a Swiss pocket-knife of devices and they do a lot. However, nothing is really done well. They don't specialize in one thing that they excel at. They try instead to do almost everything and end up failing.

We're not particularly fond of the way it generally performs. We are finding ourselves rebooting often. There are freeze-ups and that kind of thing. The stability needs to improve exponentially.

Technical support is pretty slow to respond and escalate matters.

The cost of the solution is quite high.

The solution could use an invisible DPI-SSL or something that doesn't require a certificate rewrite. Most of the other vendors are doing that now. 

The SSL VPN performance-wise is terrible.

We've been using the solution for about three years at this point.

The stability isn't the best. It freezes. We have to reboot a lot. The device just doesn't work very well.

The scalability is okay, It's marginal, however, it is possible.

We have about 300 people on-premises that use the solution.

We've been in touch with technical support, ad currently, we find them to be below average in their support capabilities. Firewall support is just adequate. Right now, with COVID and everything, you are looking at 45 minutes to an hour to get the first technician on the phone. Often it takes two or three days to get it escalated. It's slow.

I personally previously used Cisco devices at another company, and therefore I have some experience with them. 

We're currently migrating away from this solution at the moment. We do not like the way the device performs.

In terms of deployment, there is a bit of a learning curve right off the top, as I come from a Cisco ASA background. It's more object-based, a little bit different. Once you get the knack of it, it's actually pretty nice in some ways.

That said, operationally, I would recommend anybody that deploys one of these to make sure they develop their own SOP for naming conventions, for objects, object groups, object types, service groups, service objects, et cetera, so that it's easier to manage and understand what you're doing. Generally speaking, it's just a best practices kind of process for administrative work. If you've got multiple admins, it's important that everything is contiguous, meaning everybody understands and works under that same parameters. It's like any other operating environment.

In terms of maintenance, there are two of us that generally manage it and maintain it on a fairly regular basis. I'm a network engineer and the department manager, who's not a system engineer, (however, is well-versed), also can perform maintenance as needed.

We handled the implementation in-house. We did not need an integrator or consultant to assist us.

While I don't know the exact amount off the top of my head, I would estimate the licensing package was about $15,000 to $20,000 a year.

Your original purchase includes the purchase of the hardware, licensing, and support. It's not a cheap device. 

We are customers and end-users.

We are currently using the NSA 4600. It's a full security appliance. We're using the latest version of the solution.

It's our primary firewall/VPN endpoint. It's used 24/7, 365. Due to the nature of our work, uptime is critical.

Ultimately, if you were to ask me if I were to recommend this device, I would say no.

I'd rate the solution at a three out of ten, simple due to the fact that the stability isn't there, and it's an expensive solution.

We use it to activate firewalls, VPN, and traffic analyzer.

The firewall feature is most valuable since my work is to analyze if there is any potential attack. SonicWall NSa gives the perfect analysis.

They need to improve their product information and product highlights because, here in Thailand, customers need to recognize SonicWall NSa. Also, Fortinet’s datasheet has a lot of information, but for SonicWall NSa, that information needs to be included. SonicWall NSa needs to make their product more user-friendly.

Sometimes, customers ask about the configuration and integration of SonicWall. Then I have to download the manual, configuration, and integration guide to explain the procedure. But for other brands, the configuration and integration are more accessible, and they also have a sample for implementation, which is missing for SonicWall.

Another area for improvement is compatibility; sometimes, my customers use SonicWall, and the partner uses some other brand, and there is an issue with compatibility matching. So if SonicWall could give us information about the compatible model and the name of the vendor with whom it is available, that would be helpful.

I have been using SonicWall NSa for two years.

It is a stable solution. I rate it eight to nine out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. I would rate it a seven out of ten.

I have not contacted technical support. The partner has contacted the solution's technical support, as I am not a SonicWall expert.

The price is high. I would rate it four to five out of ten.

I would rate the overall solution a seven out of ten.

We are using SonicWall NSa as a network firewall and for segmentation on internal networks. We are using this firewall on the application level ID. We are using it for specific segmentation between production LANs and between technologies.

Overall SonicWall NSa is a good solution for our use case.

The solution's price could be reduced. It is expensive.

I have been using SonicWall NSa for approximately four years.

SonicWall NSa is highly stable.

The scalability of SonicWall NSa is good. We have approximately 2,000 users using it.

I did not use the support from SonicWall NSa.

We have used other solutions such as pfSense and Linux native firewalls. I prefer SonicWall NSa but if you are going to use something for an enterprise you need another solution.

We have been using the solution for many years which has made the initial setup easy for us.

SonicWall NSa is worth the money we paid.

The price of SonicWall NSa is expensive.

The solution does not require a lot of maintenance. We have a specific team now for all technology, all for all infrastructure technologies.

I rate SonicWall NSa a seven out of ten.