SonicWall NSa Reviews

SonicWall is for general security purposes.

SonicWall has all the usual functions, like LAN configurations, security features, word filters, etc., but it also has the CFS agent, which isn't available in any other firewall. Reporting port support is also there.

I also like the ability to manage all the firewalls from a single location. We can support all those things from this application. It's a cloud-based solution.

The thing main thing is that there's no user admin and in other firewalls, we can enable the scalable features, but SonicWall doesn't have that feature. 

I've used SonicWall for about seven years.

SonicWall NSa is reliable.

It's cloud-based, so the scalability is good, and it's suitable for any size of customer.

SonicWall support is good. I rate it 10 out of 10.

Positive

SonicWall NSa is easy to understand. The initial setup for any firewall is straightforward. Having a single console is also good. The deployment time can vary depending on the client's requirements, like VPNs, routing, policies, load balancing, etc. At most, it will take one hour. I rate it 10 out of 10 for ease of setup. After deployment, SonicWall doesn't require specific maintenance. 

We are resellers, so the clients who purchase the firewall deploy it themselves. We provide support, too.

I rate SonicWall NSa nine out of 10. 

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.

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 primarily use the solution for security. It's used as a firewall.

The solution is very stable.

It's an excellent product for an SMB.

The filtering is excellent.

The solution is quite stable.

We found the initial setup to be straightforward.

You can scale the solution to a certain extent.

The product likely isn't a good fit for a large organization.

They need to elaborate on their business from a technical point of view. 

I've been working with the solution for about four or more years at this point. It's been a while. 

The product scales quite well. There are no bugs. It's not glitchy. It doesn't crash or freeze. I find it to be reliable. 

You can scale the solution. We haven't used it beyond 1,000 to 1,500 users. Beyond that, I'm not sure what it can handle. I haven't really tried to scale it too much.

I've also used Palo Alto. I used it at my previous organization.

We found the initial setup to be very straightforward. It's not overly complex or difficult. A company should have any problem with the process.

We're a customer and an end-user. We don't have a business relationship with SonicWall.

I'd rate the solution at a seven out of ten. While we've been mostly happy with it, it's more for SMBs as opposed to larger organizations.

I'd recommend the product to small organizations for sure.

We primarily use the solution just for IPsec tunnels. It's two routers between locations with IPsec tunnels, nothing more. We don't use their firewall capabilities.

The functionality is the same whether it is on hardware or a virtual appliance. The interface is the same. It's nice that it's standardized.

The solution is a good product with a good value for money.

The security capabilities and policies are good. They can do a lot of tasks with ease. 

The product is very useful for organizations with many locations. If you've got a lot of locations, the product can save you money as you don't need a physical box at each location.  

The scalability is very good as it really can cover multiple locations.

SonicWall offers NG capabilities in virtual appliances.

It's not as easy to use, as, for example, Palo Alto.

Some of the configurations could be better.

The solution is stable. We haven't had any issues so far.

The scalability is quite good. You can scale well across locations very well for not too much cost. If a company needs to expand, it can do so relatively easily.

Also, cost-wise, it's very affordable to scale up. It's not expensive to add hardware and licenses as needed. They make upgrading very cheap.

We have 200 people on the solution. That said, they are using with IPsec tunnel. They don't use all of the capabilities of the hardware. They are using it just to encrypt tunneling between the sites.

We may not continue to sue the solution as we have found a solution that is better and that can help us get faster than IPsec can. We're looking instead at MACsec.

I've never opened up a technical support case with the product. It's worked quite well, and we haven't run into trouble that would require us to reach out. I can't really speak to how helpful or responsive they are due to the fact that I have no experience with them.

We've also worked with Palo Alto, Barracuda, and Sophos.

Palo Alto is more expensive to use and to scale. Sophos is very easy to set up. Barracuda also has NG capabilities, like SonicWall, and has the same limitations in terms of security policies. It also can take a bit longer to set up.

I have ten years of IT experience, and therefore, for me, the entire implementation process was not overly difficult. They have good manuals that you can read through at the start. It's not a difficult process, especially if you are already comfortable with the technology.

Of course, it's not quite as straightforward as something like Sophos, which you can just plug in and have the vendor configure for you. However, that said, it's not too difficult.

SonicWall still is only a dollar or Euro per gigabit. This means, of the IPsec, it's the cheapest solution. 

Due to the fact that we've got some projects now, we might abandon IPsec, as we had two Blade fibers with separate paths to a secondary location and we will start using MACsec. It's a layer 2 security. Therefore, we don't need IPsec anymore.

Originally, actually, we bought it without any licenses, just boxes with IPsec capabilities.

The pricing, in comparison to some solutions, such as Palo Alto, is much better.

We're just a customer and an end-user.

I'd recommend the solution to other organizations. I tell everybody, if your business is a lot of locations and not so many personal policies, to check the SonicWall portfolio. You can configure it with two boxes and if you need to you can scale it without any trouble into the tens or hundreds.

In general, I would rate the solution at a seven out of ten.

When it comes to securing VLANs, the primary use case for SonicWall NSa is VPNs. 

Compared to Cisco, SonicWall NSa is much easier to configure. Cisco tends to be cumbersome through the web interface. It's easy through the command line, but when you're troubleshooting something, you're usually not going through the command line. When you're digging through data trying to find if something happened, you're usually digging through the logs, through the web interface, because it should be much easier. In Cisco, the logs are odd and you have to be really particular on what you want. You have to look for specific details. 

This process is much easier SonicWall NSa. I want to know where the problem started and where it ended, that's it; and it's really clear in SonicWall NSa. Whereas in Cisco it's just not clear at all.

It would be amazing if all of the ports on the throughput devices were 10 gig or 100 gig. That would make it so much easier for me to designate 10 gigs throughout the whole network. Right now, with SonicWall NSa, I'm doing designations like "use 10 gigs through the whole network until you hit firewall." In that case, all of the traffic that has firewall enabled on it drops to one gig.

That causes issues with throughput, especially when you're talking about data stores and Ice Guzzy, or when you're splitting things out with VLANs. 

MAC address filtering on the VPN and on the firewall itself would be a good thing to add as well. If it's there, I don't know where it is.

Automation would also be good. 

The implementation for VLANs is a little bit cumbersome. It would be good to make that a little bit easier.

I've used SonicWall probably on and off for the last couple of years. It depends on which client I'm working with.

SonicWall NSa is stable. 

Just adding multiple sites is easy. Clustering them is pretty straightforward. But if I needed to expand them in series, that's a little bit more complicated.

I've never used SonicWall tech support. 

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

Hire a network guy or have a service that's going to monitor and manage SonicWall NSa for you.

It is a brilliant product. It is a Unified Threat Management (UTM) system. It has got about 11 security services that take care of your perimeter security. It takes care of any kind of cyber threats that could come in. 

It takes care of creating VPNs between two SonicWalls instantly and very easily. It has got spyware in it as well as a firewall. It has also got a gateway antivirus and an application firewall that can block things from outside.

It would be useful to have an application firewall that prevents the outside world from seeing your private IPs. You don't need to publicize your private IPs to the outside world, and you can create a barrier, like a proxy server.

I have been using this solution for four years. We are using SonicWall NSA 3600.

It is very stable.

The product that we have is not scalable. You'll have to buy a firewall model that suits your requirement with a certain amount of growth built into it. They have other products that are scalable, and they are the 9600 series ones.

Currently, we have about 300 users. We plan to keep using this solution.

I have contacted their technical support, and I have received good support.

Its initial setup is absolutely straightforward. It took less than an hour. There were no issues.

I did it myself. Currently, we are maintaining it ourselves. We are not getting it done from anyone outside, but we have the subscription for SonicWall so that the security areas are taken care of by them.

Normally, when we buy any product, we buy it with a five-year service built into it. Later on, depending on the growth of the organization, we go for a new one or an upgrade.

We've been using SonicWall since 2006. When we decided on SonicWall, I had tried another product for 15 days, but it was not serving the requirements that we had. Therefore, we decided on SonicWall.

I would very much recommend this solution to others. I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten.

We are using SonicWall NSA 2600 for firewall purposes. We have its latest version.

It is able to fulfill my requirements. It protects our network environment. It has control over IPS, signatures, and it can also manage bandwidth and mapping. It is also stable and has good support.

It doesn't require much improvement. The only improvement area is that cloud reporting, assessment reporting, and other reporting features should be available with the subscription. They should provide reporting features with the subscription base, which is currently not there. We bought the reporting tool, but there are some complications. They have made some changes to the application, and now the reporting management is completely on the cloud. 

I have been using this solution for four years.

It has been stable. There are no issues with its stability.

It is not scalable. We can upgrade to a new box depending on the subscription. We have a three-year subscription, so we will continue with it for three years. After that, we would look for an alternative tool based on our requirements. Currently, we have approximately 250 plus users.

We have a license for support. We can raise a ticket if we need any assistance from their support. They are good, and I am satisfied with their support. They always take care of customer satisfaction. There might be a delay or something, but at the end of the day, they resolve the issues.

I have used other solutions. Palo Alto and Sophos are good solutions. FortiGate is also good, and it allows you to see and manage everything from one control. Some of the features available in other solutions might not be available in SonicWall NSA, but it is fulfilling my requirements.

We don't really need any support with the installation. There are a lot of knowledge documents. We also have a license for support, and if required, we can get support.

We have only two people who have been managing it for the last three years or so. We didn't face any challenges.

Its price is okay.

I would recommend this solution to others. I am satisfied with this solution.

I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten.