SonicWall NSv vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

SonicWall and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. SonicWall is ranked #36 with an average rating of 7.8, while Zscaler is ranked #25 with an average rating of 8.3. SonicWall holds a 0.2% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 85% of SonicWall users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Zscaler Cloud Firewall and SonicWall NSv are two competing network security solutions. Based on user reviews, Zscaler Cloud Firewall is preferred for support and deployment, while SonicWall NSv is seen as superior for its robust features and perceived value.

Features: Zscaler Cloud Firewall is noted for its scalability, ease of use, and consistent performance. SonicWall NSv stands out with its advanced security features, comprehensive monitoring, and high configurability.

Room for Improvement: Zscaler Cloud Firewall users highlight the need for better reporting tools, enhanced flexibility in policy management, and occasional issues with integration. SonicWall NSv users mention the need for improved documentation, better user training, and a more intuitive interface.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zscaler Cloud Firewall is praised for its straightforward deployment process and proactive customer service. SonicWall NSv, while offering powerful features, sometimes presents deployment challenges due to its complexity, and users note varying experiences with support quality.

Pricing and ROI: Zscaler Cloud Firewall is seen as reasonably priced with good cost-functionality balance and satisfactory ROI. SonicWall NSv, although more expensive, is viewed as worth the investment due to its comprehensive features and significant ROI over time.

To learn more, read our detailed SonicWall NSv vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall Report (Updated: June 2025).

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall NSv vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

June 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 July 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.2%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSv is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% 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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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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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues

The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

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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

"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."

"The solution is very, very easy to use."

"There are lots of features and most of them are deployed for internet security. Users are protected if they accidentally go to some malicious sites."

"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."

"FortiGate is more feature-rich and has a broader range of hardware. T"

"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."

"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is load balancing. It can provide central management and VPNA. Additionally, it has enhanced our security environment."

"SSL-VPN is very useful for us and has been very reliable."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

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

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

"We are very impressed with it."

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

"The product helps improve our security."

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

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

"We purchased the AGSS Bundle (Advanced Gateway Security Suite) for the security services, such as antivirus, intrusion prevention system, and anti-spyware botnet GUI."

More SonicWall NSv pros

"Once you have Zscaler running you have access to configure it however you want."

"The scalability is okay. We have around 2200 people using this solution."

"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."

"If malicious traffic attacks our on-premises servers, then it gets blocked by Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

"Zscaler is still a very good product."

"The solution offers good sandboxing."

"I like the ease of deployment and its flexibility. We don't need to deal with license, quotes, procurement, delivery, and installation. Everything is software-based, and it's very easy to operate."

"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"The firmware needs improvement because there are bugs when a new release comes through. Sometimes, the configuration changes, and it's a bit harder to see where the fail is. The first time that you have the firmware, it tends to have some issues, and it's better to wait a bit to update the equipment."

"In the next release, I would like to see the interface simplified to be more user-friendly."

"There are some tiny bugs that sometimes affect the operations. In the past revision of it, there was a bug. Because of the bug, we had to downgrade the version. It happened only with the last revision."

"They could simplify their deployment process, especially when customers have existing devices."

"Some of the filtering is not robust, you can escape it with a VPN. Some of the users bypass some of the filters. It catches some but it also misses some, that area could be improved. It's functioning reasonably but there's room for improvement in that area."

"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."

"At the moment, if you don't integrate any third-party solution with a simple Fortinet FortiGate box, the box would not function as expected for superb protection."

"We called them for a geolocation issue and we didn't get any proper assistance."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"There are limitations to bandwidth management."

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

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

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

"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."

"We face some challenges when we upgrade the solution."

"Currently, we are getting challenges with user-wise reports and other reporting details. At present, they do not provide detailed reports compared to other products."

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

More SonicWall NSv cons

"Data Leak Prevention is only for web filtering and there is no protection for email."

"There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, the GUI is outdated, with noticeable lags and delays, especially when generating reports for past transactions."

"It would be nice to have some sort of a form factor, a physical form factor perhaps, or virtual machine that you could install on devices or on a cloud, and have some cloud computing."

"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."

"I don't have the visibility of a control dashboard or a network management system."

"Pricing is a challenge."

"If I can get rid of Jetscaler, I will use Twingate for sure."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate when compared to other solutions is high. However, my knowledge of the price is from third parties and I am not sure how accurate it is. I typically work in the technical area of my organization."

"The Indian market is different than the European and American markets. When you compare they need to be a bit more aggressive on pricing."

"Fortinet has more device options that are affordable for small businesses than Palo Alto, and its enterprise-level models are also cheaper. Palo Alto also has a separate license for VPN connections and SD-WAN, but FortiGate offers these features standard."

"Fortinet FortiGate allows you to purchase licenses for hardware and software."

"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."

"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."

"It is a good product from a price perspective versus functionality."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The tool is moderately priced."

"SonicWall NSV is not very costly."

"We are currently using the trial version."

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

"There are different subscription models available."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

"The product is a bit expensive compared to the solutions offered by its competitors, like Palo Alto. There is a need to make yearly payments towards the license in charges associated with the product."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

"There are licensing costs, and I would not say that it's a cheap vendor."

"Zscaler is priced too high compared to the cost of Fortinet."

"There is an annual license required for the use of the Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

15%

Educational Organization

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Retailer

Real Estate/Law Firm

Educational Organization

Computer Software Company

13%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

Retailer

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?

When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?

From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?

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

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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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Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?

Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...

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What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?

Zscaler Cloud Firewall is quite expensive compared to competitors. However, it offered moderate value for money.

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 12% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 28% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 28% of the time

Stormshield Network Security vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 21% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 13% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs SonicWall NSv

Compared 10% of the time

More SonicWall NSv Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 14% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 10% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

June 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

May 2025

Download SonicWall NSv product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

June 2025

Download Zscaler Cloud Firewall product report

Also Known As

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

SonicWall Network Security Virtual

No data available

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

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

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100% cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances or hybrid solutions are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates the world’s largest cloud security platform, protecting thousands of enterprises and government agencies from cyberattacks and data loss.

Check more details: https://www.zscaler.com/produc...

Zscaler

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

Comlogic, Depaul, Hutt City Council

Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group

Buyer's Guide

SonicWall NSv vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

June 2025

Free Report: SonicWall NSv vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about SonicWall NSv vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.

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