Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs SonicWall NSv comparison

Fortinet and SonicWall are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Fortinet is ranked #9 with an average rating of 8.5, while SonicWall is ranked #36 with an average rating of 7.8. Fortinet holds a 1.9% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to SonicWall’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 98% of Fortinet users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 85% of SonicWall users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Fortinet FortiGate-VM and SonicWall NSv are premium firewall solutions for diverse business needs. Fortinet FortiGate-VM has the upper hand with more advanced features, while SonicWall NSv is preferred for ease of use, making it suitable for users with less technical expertise.

Features: Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers robust security features, policy controls, and comprehensive protection. SonicWall NSv stands out for its seamless integration capabilities, efficient VPN performance, and easy configuration.

Room for Improvement: Fortinet FortiGate-VM can improve its documentation, simplify the configuration process, and enhance user guidance. SonicWall NSv needs more frequent updates, better scalability options, and improved adaptability.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Fortinet FortiGate-VM has a straightforward deployment process, but customer support is noted to be slow. SonicWall NSv features a quick and easy deployment process with responsive customer service.

Pricing and ROI: Fortinet FortiGate-VM has a higher setup cost but offers a better ROI due to its comprehensive features. SonicWall NSv is more budget-friendly with moderate returns.

To learn more, read our detailed Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSv Report (Updated: July 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSv

July 2025

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSv is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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Sitti Ridzma Salahuddin

System Engineer at Trends and Technologies, Inc

Integrates seamlessly and helps with real-time threat response

Since the solution we offered was a complete suite with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, it was easier for them to manage because they have FortiManager as well. The main reason they wanted to position FortiGate in the cloud was so that they could easily deploy through FortiManager. That was the selling point we had for them. Especially for their multiple branches, where they had approximately 60 sites, and some assets were in AWS, it was really a good deployment opportunity. FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer were also part of that solution.

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Sileesh Sivadasan

Director at Infosec Infra

Helps small businesses expand branches more easily

The price is a significant factor. Mostly in India, the customer service has many hurdles to get real support. If I want to talk to a customer executive, they ask many trivial questions. Even if I explain that I am asking for a Dell partner, they still ask specific questions, and they will explain many unnecessary questions.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"Valuable features include the Web Application Firewall, and it even has DLP (data leak prevention)."

"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."

"It is a one box solution, which covers most of the edge device’s requirements."

"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."

"Fortinet FortiGate is one of the most solid and secure firewalls as long as you keep it up to date. The price is right; it's not very expensive."

"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."

"The dynamic segmentation feature in Fortinet FortiGate is pretty good."

"The most valuable feature of FortiGate is FortiView which provides proactive monitoring."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are the servers, analyzer, and track protection."

"It is very versatile."

"There is an interesting possibility of building a tunnel to a firewall from access points. We use this feature for small branch offices with one to two employees with access to central RDP servers."

"Fortinet Security Fabric and real-time threat response capabilities are the main selling points."

"We work in the archiving domain where a secure environment is very important. We have some special requirements regarding the security of infrastructure."

"FortiGate integrates well."

"The product can scale."

"The solution is very secure, and its technical support is on point."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pros

"The product helps improve our security."

"One of the standout features of SonicWall is its simplicity in creating and managing rules."

"For my small NFB banking services, when they are expanding their branches, I could incorporate a little bit easier."

"The security of this system is fantastic, including the IPS and IDS."

"I would rate the overall product a nine out of ten."

"The customization of firewall rules provides great value to our customers as it allows them to lock things up in the way that they desire. When it is used for internal access, with a VPN in place for remote workers, the firewalling services provided by Azure, such as the default services that can be turned on, are applied. However, the use of a software-based virtual firewall gives us greater flexibility in introducing security controls for customers who are publishing applications that are publicly accessible from the public cloud. This virtual firewall provides an additional layer of security and more extensive security control options to ensure the protection of our customers' valuable information and assets."

"SonicWall NSV is easy to use, and you can use it to manage the logs easily."

"The solution has no additional charges and no restrictions on the number of users."

More SonicWall NSv pros

Cons

"MTBF: Hardware failure is more common when compared to SonicWall or Cisco ASA."

"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."

"Fortinet FortiGate can be integrated with different platforms. They have integrations in place, but I can't say they're 100%."

"Some configuration elements cannot be easily altered once created."

"The licensing could be improved as it is a little confusing and too granular for Fortinet FortiGate."

"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."

"The big license options have web filtering, IDS, and a lot of other things, but it's not like they are all good."

"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Interoperability could be improved. The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively."

"The price model is not transparent by any means and should be made more clear. What's included in the packages is often not very obvious."

"There is always room for improvement in any solutions, including Fortinet's FortiGate-VM. Although the solution claims to have a superior throughput compared to other OEMs, upon closer examination and comparison, there is potential for significant improvement in this area. In today's rapidly evolving technology world, it is important to continuously strive for enhancement and development, and I believe Fortinet can make significant strides in this direction for the FortiGate-VM."

"We have lost some information and we do not know how that happened through the solution. So that needs improvement."

"There should be more options to use lower-end models in a high availability configuration."

"In the next release, I would like to see integration capability with SIEM tools, such as QRadar, and LogRhythm."

"The block, the clarity, the quarantine command, is not very user-friendly. You would have to do everything through the command line and I would have preferred if it wasn't a CLI."

"The partner support is quite low, and the end-user support is delayed at levels L2 and L3. L1 support is quick."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM cons

"The engine provided initially was quite heavy, creating a trade-off between software and hardware-based threat management."

"It has been brought to our attention by a few customers that they are dissatisfied with the fact that our virtualized service is only offered as a subscription option on the cloud. However, it is worth noting that many other similar services are also offered through a subscription model on the cloud and not through perpetual licensing. It is unclear why these customers would have an issue with this subscription service when so many others are utilizing similar methods."

"An area that could be improved is the export and import settings functionality."

"The price is a significant factor. Mostly in India, the customer service has many hurdles to get real support."

"SonicWall NSV's SSL VPN could increase its number of users to 100-plus users."

"I would like to see the reporting opened up and have several more opportunities for automatic reports."

"The price is a significant factor."

"SonicWall NSV's initial setup is complicated and requires good knowledge."

More SonicWall NSv cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Easy to understand licensing requirements."

"The pricing is flexible."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable for an SME."

"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."

"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is quite good. I don't have a public site, such as in Azure, where I can see the pricing. I always have to go through the distributor, and that could take some time to get the real price for each appliance."

"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."

"There is no challenge in Fortinet FortiGate pricing."

"The price is really low. It's cheap in comparison to the cost of Cisco or CheckPoint, for example."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"With Fortinet FortiGate-VM you can bring your own licensing, or it can be paid on a yearly basis."

"Our license is yearly, but we're thinking of going monthly. I think it's somewhere around 100,000 for VM04. Nowadays, everyone wants to be a hacker, so we believe in security. That's why we also have third-party people that we involve to make sure that we're secure. I don't think the costs are too bad. You still want to get advice from people who worked in security for many years, so you add a third party. The third party also said they would give their share like 100K, or 200K or something like that, so I don't think it's too expensive for security. I think it just adds more trust."

"The pricing and licensing are not as expensive as its competitors."

"On a scale of one to ten, where ten is very expensive, I rate the solution around two or three. I think the solution's prices are okay, considering the services and features they offer."

"The price: It is a bit higher than the other competitors. This is why I started to look at other brands."

"I rate the product's pricing an eight out of ten."

"We are on an annual license for this solution and it could be cheaper."

"For large enterprises, price is not a problem because they need that solution. However, in the Philippine market, many of our clients are still small to medium businesses, so the price can be challenging. The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2."

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM pricing and cost advice

"Our initial purchase, which included a three-year term of support, was about $25,000 USD."

"The solution's pricing is good for the technology it offers."

"The tool is moderately priced."

"The solution’s pricing is less compared to other products."

"We are currently using the trial version."

"SonicWall NSV is not very costly."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

16%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

Government

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

28%

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

Performing Arts

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

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As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...

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Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls

In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

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Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?

Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...

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What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.

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What do you like most about SonicWall NSV?

The product helps improve our security.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSV?

I am somewhat satisfied with the price for SonicWall NSv, rating it as eight because, compared to other products, the...

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What needs improvement with SonicWall NSV?

Currently, we are getting challenges with user-wise reports and other reporting details. At present, they do not prov...

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Comparisons

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Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

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Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 23% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

Zyxel Unified Security Gateway vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 4% of the time

Sophos XGS vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 3% of the time

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Azure Firewall vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 25% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 24% of the time

Stormshield Network Security vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 20% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 10% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 9% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

August 2025

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Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

August 2025

Download SonicWall NSv product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

SonicWall Network Security Virtual

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

FortiGate Virtual Appliances allow you to mitigate blind spots by implementing critical security controls within your virtual infrastructure. They also allow you to rapidly provision security infrastructure whenever and wherever it is needed. FortiGate virtual appliances feature all of the security and networking services common to traditional hardware-based FortiGate appliances. With the addition of virtual appliances from Fortinet, you can deploy a mix of hardware and virtual appliances, operating together and managed from a common centralized management platform.

Fortinet

SonicWall NSV is a software-based virtual firewall that provides additional security for customers with public-facing servers or services on Microsoft Azure. The AGSS Bundle is considered the most valuable feature, providing security services such as antivirus, intrusion prevention system, and anti-spyware botnet GUI.

Additionally, customization of firewall rules provides great value to customers, allowing them to lock things up in the way they desire. SonicWall NSV offers extensive security control options to protect customers' valuable information and assets.

SonicWall

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSv

July 2025

Free Report: Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSv

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