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ShieldX vs SonicWall NSSP comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

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

ShieldX
Average Rating
9.2
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Microsegmentation Software (11th)
SonicWall NSSP
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (25th)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Network Security Systems solutions, they serve different purposes. ShieldX is designed for Microsegmentation Software and holds a mindshare of 2.7%, up 0.6% compared to last year.
SonicWall NSSP, on the other hand, focuses on Firewalls, holds 0.6% mindshare, up 0.1% since last year.
Microsegmentation Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
ShieldX2.7%
Illumio Segmentation21.9%
Akamai Guardicore Segmentation18.3%
Other57.1%
Microsegmentation Software
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
SonicWall NSSP0.6%
Fortinet FortiGate12.9%
Cisco Secure Firewall8.1%
Other78.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

MP
IT Director at park holidays uk
Proactively monitors, blocks, and reports what it has blocked; and self-updates meaning there is zero maintenance
The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput. The traffic through our website depends on holiday bookings. It's very quiet in November through January, and then our traffic picks up quite rapidly and, at our peak, we will take in excess of a million pounds of business a day through our website. The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides. Uptime on the system has been 648 days and we do very little to it because it self-updates and alerts. It does everything that we need it to do, so the administration side of it is zero. One of the beauties about ShieldX is that it's such a good "fire-and-forget" product.
NP
Pre Sales at ITCG SOlutions Pvt Ltd
Comprehensive threat detection has protected diverse clients and supports flexible network design
I cannot fully assess the Secure SD-WAN capabilities of SonicWall NSSP as I have recently implemented SonicWall SD-WAN on a recent project for better performance, reliability, and cost efficiency. SonicWall NSSP Zero Trust model is important as it requires user authentication, authorization, and continuous verification, which is why the Zero Trust model is necessary. I use metrics such as Capture Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and RTDMI technology to evaluate SonicWall NSSP Advanced Breach Detection, along with encrypted traffic inspection using DPI-SSL and TLS inspections for malware and exploit detection for IPS anti-malware. Unknown and zero-day detection utilizes the Capture ATP Sandbox, and memory-level threat analysis uses RTDMI, with cross-layer visibility supported by Capture Client and XDR. Regarding pricing of SonicWall NSSP, I find it reasonable and average, though pricing varies among different models. While it may not be an issue for SMB cases, enterprise customers are more concerned about prices, especially when purchasing higher-end boxes. I rate this review a nine out of ten.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX."
"Once you install it you can virtually forget about it; it's very low-maintenance and high-protection."
"The most valuable feature is the automatic scaling. With its microservices, it scales both up and down, depending on traffic and throughput."
"The Adaptive Intention Engine is fantastic. It allows us to develop security policies using the language of our internal customers. It's machine-learning applied to security workflows. That allows us to much more easily construct the policies that will protect those workflows."
"Very often, when new challengers come in, what they do is they end up coming in at a lower cost with more functionality."
"We were able to see what devices are talking to each other, giving us more visibility."
"The UI was also one of the huge selling points. My web development manager was blown away with the detail and the granularity that you can get out of the UI. It is a very strong and informative UI, with the amount of data it provides."
"...It takes the exact same policies that you would apply to your on-premise environment and enables you to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."
"SonicWall NSSP is stable and scalable too."
"If I had to pick between the top three firewalls with all things being equal, I would go with SonicWall just for the support and ease of management."
"SonicWall has helped us deliver security solutions effectively, particularly in threat prevention and content filtering."
"It has been delivering results efficiently. Its configurations and updates have been easy. It is also user-friendly."
"I like the filtering feature, which provides easy access. The SSL certification feature is also nice. The solution enhanced our security posture."
"The VPN functionality is really good. Overall, the whole device is very easy to manage. The software that comes with it is also good."
"SonicWall NSSP offers features such as stateful firewall, deep packet inspections, IPS, application intelligence, user-based policies, centralized visibility from the management console, advanced protection with RFDPI, high-speed scanning, RTDMI technology, Capture ATP, cloud sandboxing, and encrypted traffic inspection with DPI-SSL and TLS."
"The product's most valuable features are simplicity and comprehensive protection capabilities, including load balancing, IPS, antivirus, and web filtering."
 

Cons

"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so."
"They need to be consistent in performance and capabilities over time, given the fact that this is new and I want to see where this goes in the next year or so. As the vendor continues to evolve and add future functionality, we want to make sure that we are still keeping up with the integrations, etc. Time will be the key factor here. The proper support for some of the latest technologies, Docker containers, etc. They need to keep up with threat landscape, so we will see how the security get layered. This is what we are going to be keeping an eye on."
"There should be a bit more customer care, with regular review meetings on it or regular reports. It would be nice to have a quarterly or biannual review of what ShieldX has blocked."
"I would like better reports and in-depth reporting."
"We are having some issues with their LDAP and integrating it with the Active Directory. We can't seem to set it up."
"With any kind of tool like ShieldX, where you're in the cloud instead of a traditional firewall, you're using CPU resources in those environments to provide the protection. So there's a cost associated with CPU resources. I'm pressing upon them to make the product much more efficient and use less CPUs to do the same thing."
"No security product is foolproof against hackers, intruders, and other such things. As a security product, they have to keep pace in terms of protection from new hackers and intruders."
"Its reporting functions can be improved. It has decent reporting, but you got to pay a lot more money for it."
"In my opinion, SonicWall NSSP needs improvements, particularly in Gen 7 devices, where I face high data plane and management plane issues, especially when enabling User Level Authentication."
"For improvement, they should have events specifically focused on firmware or patch updates released for the firewalls."
"The solution's stability and scalability also need improvement."
"This series of ownership changes made the company appear somewhat untrustworthy to the market."
"The user interface, the GUI, could be improved."
"The product needs improvement for phishing emails."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We are very happy with the pricing and licensing. It's about getting a site-wide license. One of the challenges that we've had with our previous vendor had been the cost of licensing."
"We are actually expecting our costs to drop in the coming year, but it is just a matter of the licensing expiring. That is going to happen in the next six months or so. Then, we will start to see a decrease in overall spend."
"ShieldX ensures that we can have the separation needed for our environment to avoid drastically increasing the cost on the licensing side. From this perspective, it's been very positive and helpful."
"ShieldX also enables us to migrate to cloud environments faster. That is an important part of it for sure because it takes the exact same policies that we would apply to our on-premise environment and enables us to simply apply them to the cloud. It becomes one policy for both on-prem and for the cloud."
"For other security professions who are looking for something which is low in cost that does microsegmentation, they should look at ShieldX. It might not be the big name out there, but it does everything that you are looking for in microsegmentation at a very low price."
"Security policies are now applied as applications are going up. Because it's automated, we don't have the three to four week delay. The insertion of applications in the cloud for us dropped from an average of three to four weeks to a couple of days."
"For a three-year deal we paid £55,000 plus tax... But, and this is a big "but," this was over two years ago. ShieldX had only just hit the market. We were the first company in Europe to buy ShieldX."
"You got to buy some VPN licenses, and there might be a $40 to $50 one-time license fee per current user. There are different layers. They have several different levels of event security software and depending on the model, it seems to come out to be $1 to $2 a day. So, if you bought a three-year license, it is going to be anywhere from $900 to $1800 depending on the bundle and model that you buy."
"The setup costs and licensing are reasonable, and the solution provides good value for its features."
"The pricing is cheap, and that's where, you know, the some of the organization goes for the SonicWall."
"For SonicWall NSSP high availability, active/passive, you need to buy one license, and so you get much more value for money."
"I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
21%
Government
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Insurance Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
18%
Construction Company
18%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSSP?
In my opinion, SonicWall NSSP needs improvements, particularly in Gen 7 devices, where I face high data plane and management plane issues, especially when enabling User Level Authentication. I beli...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall NSSP?
I recommend SonicWall NSSP for multiple clients, including manufacturers and pharmaceutical clients, and based on the requirement, I perform proper sizing and suggest the appropriate model.
 

Also Known As

APEIRO, ShieldX APEIRO
SonicWall Network Security Services Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Iowa State University
Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council
Find out what your peers are saying about Illumio, Akamai, Broadcom and others in Microsegmentation Software. Updated: October 2026.
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