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SonicWall SMA vs Tailscale comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

SonicWall SMA
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
15th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.6
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Universal Access Gateways (2nd), SSL VPN (6th)
Tailscale
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of SonicWall SMA is 2.6%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Tailscale is 5.8%, down from 5.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Tailscale5.8%
SonicWall SMA2.6%
Other91.6%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

BA
Owner at ThinkEzIT
Security enhances through autonomous protection and strong support while multi-factor authentication secures access
I haven't utilized the high availability and scalability features of SonicWall SMA yet because I've never had a need to. I don't know where they can focus their energy on continuous improvements, as I haven't been looking at what they're releasing. We're a small shop, so we drop stuff in and manage it and do what we need to do to maintain it. If we run into an issue, we contact support. There's a learning curve, but it comes down to getting support to train you on the product, and then once you have the training you need, you're able to make the changes and updates that you need to.
Adeniyi Stephen - PeerSpot reviewer
DevOps Engineer at CloudKite.io
Secure access has simplified hybrid connectivity and has unified multi-cluster workflows
I would say that in terms of Tailscale, if I have so many tailnets I need to connect to, there are some issues in the login process that need a little bit of attention from the Tailscale team. Sometimes, you would probably need to restart your entire system for it to connect. As a DevOps as a Service engineer, I have so many clients that are using Tailscale, and I would need to connect to maybe five different tailnets because they are different clients. Client A might have a Tailscale, Client B, Client C, and so on. When changing between tailnets, sometimes it hangs. Sometimes you might need to restart your entire system. This is a bit of a headache in that aspect. However, I believe if you are just using a particular tailnet, just one, then it is quite easy and there won't be any headache. For me, I think it can be improved in the aspect of having multiple tailnets to connect to. A good refresh on the Tailscale side and the backend side to refresh the connection anytime there is a new connection to be made would be helpful. Instead of needing to restart the system, it should be able to refresh itself. The connection side and connecting to multiple Tailscale instances can be problematic, and sometimes you have to restart your system when switching between them. The ACL sometimes is like another language on its own entirely. It is fine, but they need to make it in a YAML format instead of the current format because it is quite new and something you have to go and study. If they can make it like a YAML format, that would be better. Aside from the switching which I mentioned and the fact that you have to relearn their ACL, if the ACL could be in a YAML format instead of JSON format, that would be beneficial. I don't think there is much they can do about the switching of tailnets, but if they can have a YAML format of the ACL, that would be good. Every other thing is a ten out of ten. The connection-wise is easy to set up and easy to install. It is good to have things connected all together from on-premises, from so many environments, and even exit nodes as well. It is good overall. The pricing, I think Tailscale can be a little bit on the higher side. It is not for teams with just small users. If you want to set it up for small users and a small startup, I don't think you can afford it and might need to go to other open-source alternatives. It is good for teams that have maybe fifty plus users or one hundred users. In terms of pricing, I would say it is on the higher side, but it is worth it. The price is worth the functionality. As a user, I would say it is more on the higher side, but based on its functionality, it is worth the price.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"SonicWall SMA has the most valuable feature of proprietary security technologies like Capture ATP."
"This solution has many options for remote desktop and access."
"The advanced threat protection and the endpoint control features of SonicWall SMA have helped improve security measures tremendously."
"The product is extremely flexible, the program is easy to use, the performance is good, and the solution is very stable."
"I think they ask for a fair price."
"I am very satisfied with the technical support."
"My advice to others is this solution is reliable, feature-rich, and reasonable-priced."
"Blocklisting and allowlisting are the most beneficial features for network security."
"Since implementing Tailscale, we have seen improved remote access reliability, reduced VPN maintenance overhead, faster onboarding for new users, and stronger security through identity-based access controls, all while significantly lowering the administrative workload."
"For my organization, we use Tailscale for our database as a secure way to access our VPC, and it is an easy, lightweight, and very useful way for everyone to connect and disconnect with a very nice UI."
"The security is valuable, as there are many providers available, but Tailscale fulfills the requirements that we had, allowing us to access and expose internal apps without exposing them to the general internet."
"Tailscale definitely saves me a lot of time securing our server because I can just install Tailscale, close many ports, and then share them with my teammates while benefiting from its very generous free tier."
"Tailscale has positively impacted my organization with shorter time for setting up connections and improved accessibility."
"Tailscale has positively impacted my organization and consulting work by making remote connections easy, significantly reducing the friction and making this very reliable, even behind difficult networks with CGNAT or other situations that make establishing connections difficult using other means."
"Tailscale is a very solid framework and is very useful for smaller companies if they want to start out or even bigger companies who want to have a robust network of devices that they want to manage."
"In my job, Tailscale has reduced the amount of work and headache of having a VPN between servers and cloud, so instead of following a longer and complex process of having a site-to-site VPN and a device with a fixed public IP to connect with the cloud and other spots in Morocco, especially in Tangier, Tailscale simplifies all of that."
 

Cons

"The problem is that when combined with what the client already has, there are two different logins and two different management systems, and these should be consolidated into a single interface."
"SonicWall's reporting isn't good. Reports should be part of a data plan. The login mechanism should be improved. It would be helpful if the client could use an agent to log in. An agent-server model would improve the performance of the RDB, which consumes a lot of bandwidth."
"The product itself is very good, but Dell needs to work on product visibility in their advertising."
"This is an expensive solution and I think that the price could be improved."
"The solution has 2FA, it will generate a token and send it to an email, but multifactor authentication is not available. I would suggest that there should be MFA integration and provided with the appliance."
"This solution is very slow, and the competitors have much higher speeds."
"Enhancing live tracking capabilities could improve the product, particularly in monitoring user activity and request statuses in real-time on the web interface."
"The user interface could be improved."
"One thing I want Tailscale to improve is their user interface for Arch Linux, which is one of the devices I have that I installed Tailscale on, but they do not have the native package with full features, a capability I really want them to develop."
"Sometimes you might need to restart your entire system for it to connect."
"The only improvement I see for Tailscale is that I would love to check out Headscale to fully host it on my own infrastructure."
"I think Tailscale can be improved by enhancing the free side of things."
"Another issue is that when I use Tailscale with other alternatives such as Radmin and ZeroTier, it takes high priority and takes all the incoming connections, even if the other alternative has a different IP scope."
"Regarding how Tailscale can be improved, I think for free users, there are some limited options."
"Regarding the supported emails, I understand it is strong authentication, so it has to be Apple, Gmail or others, but this creates certain limits for some clients who do not want to have that kind of email. We lose clients because of that, and we are forced to look at other solutions regarding the features of this tool."
"I choose a seven because it sells what it does honestly, but I believe some more flexibility might be needed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"All the costs are included in a bundled license."
"The cost of the licensing is based on the maximum number of concurrent users, and it costs a lot to add them."
"This solution is priced well and we currently have the maximum number of licenses allowed."
"Our licenses are stackable and can be anywhere from five users to a million users."
"The platform has medium pricing."
"I don't know about the pricing of the SSL-VPN box. I know the SSL-VPN software is free. Global VPN client, by comparison, is licensed for around $150 or something like that. But the SSL-VPN software is free. It is already built-in with the box."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
14%
University
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with SonicWall SMA?
I haven't utilized the high availability and scalability features of SonicWall SMA yet because I've never had a need to. I don't know where they can focus their energy on continuous improvements, a...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall SMA?
I have experience with the SonicWall SMA; we have rolled it back into our stack. We use SonicWall SMA for all of our clients that need VPNs, including doctor's offices and lawyer offices. Our clien...
What needs improvement with Tailscale?
At the moment, I don't know because it's been working very well for me, and I haven't been managing it much lately. I still use it because I connect from different phones, but everything is already...
What is your primary use case for Tailscale?
My main use case for Tailscale is for my homelab, where I have several services, including professional services. I use it to connect remotely from different places and access my services. I used t...
What advice do you have for others considering Tailscale?
There are several or many minutes of time saved, especially with WireGuard and in management, and in the mental management, it also has an impact because having to manage so many peer files with Wi...
 

Also Known As

SonicWall Aventail, SonicWall SMA SSL-VPN, SonicWall Secure Mobile Access
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

UnitedStack, Newport City Homes, Faith Lutheran College Redlands, PRIME aerostructures GmbH, Celtic Manor Resort
Bamboo Health, Duolingo, Shiguredo, Instacart, Corelight, Machinify, Bolt, Mercari, Cobalt, Yugabyte, Jasper, VersaBank, Zego, Gini and Finter
Find out what your peers are saying about SonicWall SMA vs. Tailscale and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.