SonicWall NSa Reviews

We use this firewall to protect our perimeter. We create NAT policies and have a DMZ set up.

It is also used to filter the internet for all of our users.

The most valuable feature is the sandbox.

The content filter needs to be improved. I would also like to see better application filtering.

When we are troubleshooting problems, we find that the logs we see are not sufficient. It makes it difficult to find out what the main issue is. It means that we have to search further or perform another test to see what happened.

Technical support is in need of improvement.

We have been using SonicWall for approximately 15 years, and more specifically, SonicWall NSA for the past 10.

The stability is fine and we don't have any issues. We have never needed to report a problem.

We have about 20 people in the company who are protected by this product, and I think that the scalability is fine. However, I would say that it is best for small to medium-sized organizations.

When we have gone to the vendor for support, I don't think that the quality was very good. I would rate the vendor support a six out of ten.

I used to work with Check Point, and they are very good when it comes to application filtering.

The initial setup is easy and the deployment can be completed in between two and four hours. This includes installation and adjustments that need to be made.

We have an in-house SonicWall specialist.

When implemented properly, the total cost of operation is very low.

My advice for anybody who is looking into implementing SonicWall NSA is that they have to be very clear about what it is that they're looking for. It is a good solution for small and medium-sized businesses, and when you are very clear about what you need, you can implement a lot of other security services with a total cost of operation that is very low.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

I am using the SonicWall NSA as a perimeter firewall to control the traffic flowing in and out of my system. It is also a wireless gateway, it used for traffic shaping, mapping, and publishing certain web tables on the internet.

The scalability is something that should be improved.

I have been using the SonicWall NSA firewall for five years.

This is a stable product.

This solution is not scalable. We have approximately 2,000 users.

The technical support is very good.

We also use the Cyberoam 320AI. 

The initial setup is straightforward. It took seven or eight days to complete the installation.

The vendor's team completed the initial deployment for us.

We have a team of three engineers who manage the firewalls.

UTM boxes are now obsolete and next-generation firewalls are the things that need to be put into place. Within the next three months, we are going to upgrade to a next-generation firewall.

For an enterprise, I think that I can recommend a SonicWall next-generation firewall. This is a discussion that we are already having with them. For small segments, such as a small office or home office environment, SonicWall is perfect.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Mainly our customers use this solution as a general firewall. 

Currently, our most popular firewall is Fortinet FortiGate 40F. We do have all the way up to 100's, but most of our customers are small, medium-sized businesses.

We have a FortiAnalyzer that resides on Azure and we're getting a FortiManager because of the new capability to roll them out based on the serial number

With FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer, you have many more capabilities than you do with SonicWall.

I wouldn't say that. If it has no impact on them, it's doing its job correctly.

There are no specific features that you can say are better than anything else. It's very flexible and it meets our customer's needs.

The Fortinet Firewall is not the easiest firewall to maintain, nor is to set up and configure. Checkpoint and Sonos are much easier.

SonicWall, from my point of view is the same category as Fortinet. Checkpoint and Sonos are easier to use, but they don't have as many features as SonicWall.

You can do zero-trust networking with SonicWall, but it's not easy. Also, their desktop anti-virus sucks.

I have been using SonicWall since it was Netscreen — which was years ago.

When you buy it based on the load that you expect to use, there are no scalability issues, unless you swap them out.

SonicWall has exceptional tech support. I would rate checkpoint support best, SonicWall next, and Fortinet would be third. I would give SonicWall's tech support a rating of 7.5 to eight.

The structure of dealing with them is good. Once you get through to a support person, the support is very good. But getting through, getting to the point where you have someone on the line can be difficult. 

Overall, they're good at their job and they speak English.

The level of tech support varies: sometimes you get lucky and they're exceptional, and sometimes it's somebody that isn't that good.

If you don't set it up correctly, you are putting your customer's network at risk. They still haven't fixed a lot of the little issues that Dell introduced into the product line, but they're trying.

There are settings that if you don't set them correctly, you could potentially jeopardize your customer's network. 

SonicWall is probably easier to set up than Fortinet.

The pricing of SonicWall is still in line with Fortinet and Checkpoint. Personally, if I were presented with a decision between SonicWall, Checkpoint, or Fortinet, it would be a no-brainer.

If you're interested in SonicWall, consider checkpoint or Fortinet first.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give this solution a rating of seven.

They don't have independent testing. They haven't been independently rated — or another way to put it: Gardner rates them poorly. Because of this, we can't sell SonicWall to customers as easily as we can sell Fortinet or Checkpoint.

I am a consultant. I work with a software dealer in the IT security business.

I deployed SonicWall for a customer just last month.

It's very simple to use and the support is great. I am in India and they have a support office here. As a company product, SonicWall firewalls and their support has been excellent.

It's a simple, rugged product. When I say rugged, mechanically, it's a very rugged box. The same thing applies to Sophos also, it's also a very rugged box. It's rugged technology, it can take a beating and still be operational. 

One of the greatest strengths of the SonicWall system is that they have multiple portals for multiple tasks, whereas all the other solutions have no single tool for doing multiple tasks. That has been one major advantage of SonicWall. Regarding the SonicWall box, you need to be capable of taking multiple loads compared to the competition. That's a very unique feature of the SonicWall system. They also have an antivirus solution that is tied to their system which is called SentinelOne.

The support is very good. The product is also very reliable. There are always new, frequent updates — nothing more or less. It's very flexible; it's ready to go right out of the box, unlike some other solutions which require a lot of training. The GUI is very user-friendly. Even if you've never touched a firewall in your life, with a bit of time and practice, you'll get the hang of it.

In terms of improvement, they should consider changing the logic of how the rules are created. Everything is spread out into multiple pockets, so to speak; it should be more condensed. The technology is sound; I am not saying that it's brilliant, but it is very sound for most mid-range uses — it does a fantastic job.

They should consider upgrading the capabilities within the GUI. The way the GUI is configured for creating rules, I would say they should consider making that a bit more flexible. That would really help a lot.

I have used SonicWall NSA for three years.

SonicWall NSA is very stable. I ran my last box for 10 years before I switched it off. 10 years is a long time for anything. If it can run for 10 years, it's stable. It's money made twice over. It might not be technologically up to speed and it may not be upgradeable, but that's a different matter.

These boxes are well-known for the amount of mechanics and users they can handle.

The initial setup is very easy.

The basic setup takes roughly half an hour. After that, when it comes to configuring the rules and dependencies, with ideal conditions, I would say that it takes roughly a week. Overall, within two to three weeks, we were in production.

Roughly 90% (50% in the worst-case scenario) of the customer's settings are ready within a couple of days from the time the box is powered up. When you power up the box, you have to set the rules. So, I implement it, engage the rules, and then ask somebody to test some of the connections and give me some feedback. That takes a bit of time, but otherwise, it only takes a couple of days until the box is ready. If you want to push it, within a week it's possible to reach roughly 90% to 95% production — the rules and the performance have to be fine-tuned which takes a little bit of time.

 I would definitely recommend SonicWall for their simplicity of use, but if you can configure SonicWall, have a look at Sophos also. Sophos has put a lot of hard work into their connections and the GUI. SonicWall's GUI is slightly lacking compared to Sophos' GUI; however, capabilities-wise, Sophos doesn't have a lead over SonicWall.

If I had to make a recommendation to a customer, I would tell them to look at both products. I would push the Sophos box because it has certain advantages, technologically, compared to SonicWall. For example, they have their own antivirus solution — the Sophos antivirus solution. It's a firewall as well and the tool will communicate with the central cloud. From the cloud instance, you can control the system.

The Sophos gateway has got allied products, like SD run connectors. You can manage the same rules between multiple firewalls because they're all connected to the same account. Overall, Sophos is superior to SonicWall.

The first requirement of a paying customer, independent of their choice of product, is to check if the technical support of the product is locally available. That's the first requirement I would give to any customer. The product may be great but if the support in your geographical region is not there, then it's not worth it.

Take Trend Micro for example. If you're a customer of Trend Micro but you're not in the immediate support region, then what happens? You will have to raise a ticket and wait, but you don't have anybody on the ground to come to your office and do an emergency scan and raise your ticket, so it's a bit of a dangerous issue. I would recommend a product that has both local technical and physical support.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give SonicWall a rating of eight.

This product is the firewall that protects us from attacks from the internet.

This product has kept us safe and we haven't had any breaches.

The most valuable feature for us at the moment is the VPN, given that everybody has moved to home offices.

It is easy to integrate.

Initially, it may be difficult for some people to learn and become acquainted with it. I have been using it for a long time and find it straightforward to use.

I have been using SonicWall NSA for about 20 years.

SonicWall NSA is very stable. It is refined and well-tested, and it has been around for almost 30 years. It's a proven technology.

Each model scales to a certain point. If you outgrow it, then you buy another version.

Nobody specifically uses this product but every day, all of the company traffic goes through it.

The technical support is great.

At this site, SonicWall NSA is the only firewall that has been used.

I found the initial setup to be straightforward.

The price is reasonable for what it does.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to get some training if it is your first time. It can be a little complex for new users.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

SonicWall suits our business, also cost-wise, and commercial-wise. It is in a feasible range for our organization.

We like the features, but the main thing is from a commercial and cost perspective it is very good.

The interface is user-friendly.

Vendor support needs improvement. The frequency of time and support should be increased.

From a vendor perspective, we were expecting more support.

When we experience a technical issue, it should be rectified immediately. We are facing a delay with response and resolution.

I have been using SonicWall NSA for approximately eight years.

SonicWall is stable.

This is a scalable solution.

We have approximately 2,000 users.

We are facing some issues with compatibility. We have moved to the latest version.

 Previously, we were using another version and the 5000 model of NSA.

It is fine. It is user-friendly.

It took a month and a half to deploy

We have a dedicated team here. They handle all of our deployment and troubleshooting.

We have a team of six to seven administrators to deploy and maintain this solution.

SonicWall is not an expensive solution.

I would recommend this version of SonicWall to others who are interested in implementing this solution. This latest version is quite fine.

I would rate SonicWall NSA an eight out of ten.

We are a reseller who provides products for our customer.

The most valuable features are flexibility, ease of setup, and it's a good product cost-wise.

There are a few areas that need improvement including the VPN, user management, and reporting.

It's a stable solution, we have not had any issues.

There are no issues with scaling this solution. It's a scalable product.

Technical support is excellent.

The initial setup is definitely user-friendly, it's easy.

It only takes an hour to deploy, which includes the configuration.

The pricing is good and we are satisfied with the cost of this solution. They provide good value for the price.

I would recommend this solution. The support is good, the product is good, it's easy to deploy and it can be done manually with no assistance from support.

Other than the hardware related issues that can be experienced, it's a good solution.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We use SonicWall NSA as part of our overall security solution.

This product handles what we're expecting in a box like this.

This product is user-friendly and easy to configure.

The logging is very good, as long as it is configured properly.

It would help us a lot of SonicWall sent us more information about the latest updates and things that are changing.

I would like to have the capability for full active-active mode.

I have been working with SonicWall for about 14 years, since 2007.

This is a stable product.

SonicWall is scalable. Depending on the size of the box that I have, if the demands increase then I can upscale it. These demands are based on the users and their activities. We have between 2,000 and 2,500 users.

The support that I get from SonicWall is good. They have supported us for more than ten years and we haven't faced any issues with them to this point.

I have not worked on any other platforms.

SonicWall NSA is easy to install. I have not personally completed an installation lately, but it used to take me no more than half an hour to move from one box to another. The box can be configured offline and then moved online afterward, which makes it easier.

I used to work on SonicWall regularly. Now, I am working as an IT analyst and my job is to check the SonicWall configuration and test it. For example, I have to check the policy and then audit which ports are open.

The pricing and value are good.

SonicWall fulfills our requirements and it does it well. My advice for anybody who is considering this product is to properly understand their requirements. As long as SonicWall meets the needs, I can recommend it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.