SonicWall NSSP Reviews

The solution is used to detect intrusion, web filtering, and network monitoring.

The service we received from SonicWall NSSP and their distributors has been excellent. Every time I have had a concern, they have resolved it in a single call. The interface of SonicWall NSSP console is user-friendly with comprehensive features. The web filtering and access control policy are top priorities for me.

It is very effective because it prevents any indecent behaviors in the network or from outside the network. Half of the task is completed by the intelligence based on the behavior.

Installation was easy because our infrastructure has minimal requirements. For expanded infrastructure, support from a SonicWall NSSP technical team may be required. We have implemented it on our own.

For improvement, they should have events specifically focused on firmware or patch updates released for the firewalls. This would help end-user customers understand the impact when those firmwares are pushed into the live environment.

I have been using the solution for nearly eight to nine years now.

Everything is perfectly streamlined, and I receive responses very quickly. The stability rating is 10 out of 10.

If we expand in the future, we may need to upgrade to higher versions of the product. The scalability rating is nine out of 10.

The service received from SonicWall NSSP and their distributors has been excellent. Every time I had a concern, they resolved it in a single call. It is very effective because it prevents any indecent behaviors in the network or from outside the network.

Positive

SonicWall NSSP is the only product we have engaged with. I have not evaluated other firewalls when comparing features, which I will do based on business needs. I will evaluate the features available for this model as well as other products to have a clear understanding of features not available in SonicWall NSSP compared to other products. Currently, I am comfortable and satisfied with the features available in the model I am using.

Installation was easy because our infrastructure has minimal requirements.

We have implemented it on our own.

The product we are using is worth it for our infrastructure.

The cost is affordable.

I have not evaluated other firewalls when comparing features with SonicWall NSSP, which I will do based on business needs.

We are still working with SonicWall NSSP. When considering the technical support, product features, and price, I would rate it nine out of ten. My overall rating for this solution is 9 out of 10.

I have experience with SonicWall NSSP Firewall, having dealt with NSA firewalls throughout the last 30 years. We're still selling SonicWall NSSP solutions here in Brazil. It's complicated right now because the exchange rate and government made some very bad decisions. The market is not a very nice place today and it's not a good time here in Brazil.

Normally, the solutions we develop here are for medium to small companies, 10 to 100 users. Local offices typically have 50 to 90 desktops, a few servers, VPN solutions, and inbound connections for remote access. This is the scenario where we use SonicWall NSSP 90% of the time today.

The best features with the SonicWall NSSP firewall are safety and stability. The most defining aspect I can share is that if you try to find firmware, a pirate firmware for Fortinet on the internet, you're going to find it in Russia or elsewhere. However, try to find SonicWall NSSP firmware and you will never find it anywhere. Nobody shares it. I have my internal library for old and deactivated firewalls, but we don't share with anyone. This is very significant because anyone claiming to have hacked SonicWall NSSP firmware is incorrect. With Fortinet, it's different. It's a very nice product.

For the customers and clients, it's transparent. We have rules, and they are very strict. Any bad sites or blocklist sites are blocked, and users don't complain. They are used to our controls. We have a standard package for our customers that's the same in every company. When customers buy it, they must accept it. If they don't accept the package we offer as a consulting company, we don't sell. It's a yes or no situation with no options. All our customers have the same scenario and configuration, with very minor exceptions.

They need to conduct more marketing campaigns because here in Brazil, when people mention firewalls, Fortinet has massive propaganda, massive marketing, and better prices. When people hear about SonicWall NSSP, they think of it as just another firewall rather than the premier solution.

A massive marketing campaign is needed to establish their presence in the market. As mentioned before, while other companies' firmware can be found online, in my 30 years working with SonicWall NSSP, I have never found their firmware anywhere.

We have been using SonicWall NSSP since 1998.

We use SonicWall NSSP specifically as a firewall with site control, block sites, and IDS and IPS solutions.

We are still using physical boxes. We're testing virtualized boxes with some customers in trial versions, but it's still not feasible for us. Price-wise, the solution and infrastructure aren't working here. Brazil is a different market where people and users are accustomed to physical equipment. They need to see tangible hardware.

My assessment of SonicWall NSSP stability is that it is 200% stable. Looking at statistics: today we have both new and used boxes. In 30 years, only three to four boxes out of 1,000 to 2,000 boxes have had issues. In our market, we handle around 2,000 boxes, and only three to four have been defective. It's a very trustworthy and stable product. It doesn't experience power supply failures or unexpected issues. The firmware also creates fewer problems after updates compared to other vendors.

Throughout the years, many companies start with small appliances such as SOHO on TZ series. When companies grow, we migrate them to NSA solutions multiple times.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate SonicWall NSSP's customer service and technical support a 10. They are consistently sharp and fast in their responses.

Positive

We have been with SonicWall NSSP since 1998. At that time, it was the primary firewall solution. Fortinet didn't exist then, with only Cisco PIX and Check Point available. However, Check Point and Cisco were only accessible to very large American companies that could afford the licensing. For the small to medium consumer market, SonicWall NSSP was the best solution until 2009 or 2010.

After that period, other vendors emerged and started taking market share from SonicWall NSSP. It's important to note that SonicWall NSSP was sold to Dell and then to another company before becoming independent again around 2017-2019. This series of ownership changes made the company appear somewhat untrustworthy to the market.

The initial setup of SonicWall NSSP is absolutely easy and straightforward.

The pricing and licensing of the SonicWall NSSP firewall is not too expensive, being comparable to competitors. The challenge here is the exchange rate. Currently, $1 equals approximately 6 reais. When purchasing through local distributors such as ScanSource or Tech Data, they incur around 100% in taxes just for import procedures. This makes the price significantly different from the US or other countries. It becomes absurdly expensive, affecting not just SonicWall NSSP but all other solutions. This pricing situation causes companies to delay upgrades. While small offices in the US can implement very new solutions, here we're still using Generation 6 and only beginning to move to Generation 7, but not implementing it extensively.

When comparing with Cisco, they no longer maintain a strong position in the firewall market. Check Point has declined. Currently, the only real competitor is Fortinet. They are the sole company competing directly with SonicWall NSSP. If SonicWall NSSP creates a campaign emphasizing their 30-year presence and security track record, particularly highlighting that their firmware isn't available on the dark web, they could potentially regain market share.

We only implement on-premises solutions. I use SonicWall NSSP at my home as well. I am still the owner of my company. Based on my experience, I rate SonicWall NSSP a 10 out of 10.

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.

The features I find most valuable in SonicWall NSSP include the entire solution, not only the firewall, but all products such as SonicWall firewall, SonicWall Aventail, and dedicated SSL VPN solutions, along with the access point.

The effectiveness of SonicWall NSSP real-time threat intelligence can be assessed by its ability to ingest data related to malicious activities such as IPs, URLs, files, payload behavior, botnets, and zero-day attack indicators. SonicWall uses this information in real-time to enhance security functions such as firewall, DPI-SSL, ATP, and IPS to block threats at the network edge before they reach users.

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 believe these problems may be alleviated in Gen 8 devices now that they are available.

The issues I have experienced are not hardware-related but firmware-related, as Gen 7 has new hardware, while the firmware contains some issues that could be resolved but may take considerable time, leaving customers waiting too long for resolutions.

The only issue I have seen with SonicWall NSSP is with the firmware.

I have been working with SonicWall NSSP for almost ten years in my job.

I think deep packet inspection of SonicWall NSSP is essential, as I require all features, including deep packet inspection, which I can enable and suggest to clients. However, enabling DPI-SSL may result in some performance degradation.

To bring SonicWall NSSP closer to a perfect score, I would like to see additional features, though currently it fulfills most requirements and is a sufficient solution. 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. These capabilities are supported by high performance and scalability with multiple interfaces including 100GB, 40GB, 2.5GB, 10GB, and 25GB.

I rate the technical support provided by SonicWall a perfect ten out of ten.

Positive

I am not a partner of FortiGate, but I sell FortiGate firewalls, and I also sell Sophos firewalls as I am a platinum partner of the Sophos product line, which includes Sophos firewall, Sophos endpoint, Sophos Email Security, and Sophos MDM solutions. I sell products from SonicWall, Sophos, FortiGate, and Palo Alto.

Currently, I am selling Sophos and FortiGate firewalls based on customer requirements, as I adapt my offerings to meet their needs.

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.

We serve as an integrator for SonicWall, deploying this solution for customers in the media and entertainment, banking, and finance sectors. We use SonicWall to protect their environments against digital attacks.

SonicWall has helped us deliver security solutions effectively, particularly in threat prevention and content filtering.

The most valuable features of SonicWall are the user interface, support, and ransomware protection. Its advanced threat protection and content filtering options are effective as well.

The EDR and XDR capabilities of SonicWall need to be improved. When compared to a brand like SentinelOne, SonicWall seems to fall behind. They should enhance these features to make them stronger.

We have been working with SonicWall for more than one year.

The stability of SonicWall is generally satisfactory, rated eight out of ten. However, some minor improvements could be made. One challenge is copying rules from old boxes and transferring them to new advanced boxes.

SonicWall is quite scalable, scoring ten out of ten in scalability. This scalability positively impacts our customers' overall security posture.

The technical support for SonicWall is very good, rated nine out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup of SonicWall NSSP was relatively easy, with a rating of eight to nine out of ten.

SonicWall is a rather expensive solution with a rating of eight out of ten regarding its pricing. Despite being expensive, its features and support are valuable and well-regarded.

For those looking into using SonicWall NSSP, ensure to read the terms and conditions thoroughly before proceeding with installation. Users should not proceed blindly by clicking next without understanding the product.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use the platform to provide essential protections such as load balancing, IPS, antivirus, and web filtering.

The solution effectively provided necessary protections and maintained simplicity in our operations. It works well in the background without causing disruptions, which benefits our setup.

The product's most valuable features are simplicity and comprehensive protection capabilities, including load balancing, IPS, antivirus, and web filtering. These features contribute to a seamless operation without significant disruptions.

The platform could benefit from an improved marketing strategy. Despite its quality, it often gets overshadowed by other vendors like Palo Alto or Check Point in the large enterprise segment.

We have been working with SonicWall for 24 years.

The product stability is commendable. They perform reliably and provide consistent protection.

The product is scalable and suitable for SMBs. 

The technical support team is reliable and addresses issues effectively.

Positive

The platform is easy to set up, even when transitioning from other solutions.

I rate the process an eight out of ten. 

We implement the solution with the help of our in-house team. 

The setup costs and licensing are reasonable, and the solution provides good value for its features.

We evaluate other options, such as Palo Alto and Fortinet, for larger enterprises, but SonicWall remains a preferred choice for SMBs.

SonicWall is highly regarded in the SMB market. For larger enterprises, vendors like Palo Alto or Fortinet are preferred.

Overall, I rate it a seven out of ten. 

We use this firewall as a UPM where we run most of the services like web filtering, IDS, IPS, and the firewall functionality.

The solution's pricing is good. 

SonicWall has an NSM tool where all of the firewalls are managed in a single console. However, that NSM is very poor. The solution does not have many features and the performance is not great.

Previously, we had generation six and six point five. Generation seven has a lot of bugs and the quality isn't great. When the new firmware comes in, there are a lot of bugs and malfunctions. This includes malfunctions of the firewall and network outages.

The solution should be made more robust and the bugs should be removed for proper performance.

The solution's stability and scalability also need improvement. 

I have been using SonicWall NSSP since 2021. 

The stability is also not satisfactory as there are bugs. I rate the stability a five out of ten. 

SonicWall needs to improve its scalability. Approximately ten thousand users are using the solution across twenty-one offices. I rate the scalability a three out of ten. 

SonicWall's technical support team is not good. They never respond or provide any solution. 

Neutral

I would say the initial setup is simple. It's a mini GUI through which anyone can configure it as long as the right people are there. 

It is a cheap solution.

Palo Alto has many more advanced features with respect to the new edge security. They also have multiple integrations within the market with various other products. Their analytics feature is also better. It is a stable platform in the industry. They have a great firewall that you should look at when you want to protect your perimeter.

I rate the overall solution a five out of ten. 

I like the filtering feature, which provides easy access. The SSL certification feature is also nice. The solution enhanced our security posture. 

The product needs improvement for phishing emails. 

I have been using the product for six months. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. 

I rate the tool's scalability a ten out of ten. My company has 100 users. 

Before implementing SonicWall NSSP, we used CyberArk. However, switching to SonicWall NSSP was beneficial due to its ease of use.

I rate SonicWall NSSP's ease of deployment an eight out of ten. The tool's setup happened within a few hours. However, assigning policies to users took more than three days. We completed the entire deployment in three days.

I rate the solution's pricing a six out of ten. 

I rate the overall solution a ten out of ten.

Our clients mainly use it for their firewall protection.

The VPN functionality is really good. Overall, the whole device is very easy to manage. The software that comes with it is also good. 

Its reporting functions can be improved. It has decent reporting, but you got to pay a lot more money for it. That's where it begins to fall apart. It comes with minimal zero reporting unless you buy some extra modules. With those extra modules, you can get all the data, but it takes a while to put together what you need for your customer. It is for technical people, but there is no executive summary of the reporting.

I have been using this solution for probably three years.

It has been stable. I haven't had any issues.

As compared to other vendors, it isn't better or worse. However, if you need an upgrade, it seems like you got to make a couple of jumps. Something should be in the middle so that you don't have to go to a much higher piece of hardware. If I need 50% more capacity, I almost have to buy two to three times more capacity. It seems like it has a bigger jump than other vendors, but this is just my opinion. I don't have any data to base that on.

Their technical support is very good. 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. Cisco is very good, but SonicWall has very good support.

Its initial setup is absolutely easy. In general, SonicWall is overall very easy.

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.

It is definitely a good fit for small to mid-size companies. I am always a little hesitant to say large companies because they may have a few different requirements because they're large enough. That's where you begin to differentiate between the firewalls or some of those features that are there in one but might not be there in other ones, but I would always consider it. I would even consider it for a large company, but when you compare it with Fortinet or some of the other firewalls that are geared towards big companies, you can start seeing where they might be lacking a feature or two. I am not even sure if those features are the key critical requirements, but that's where it starts to fall down.

I would rate SonicWall NSSP a nine out of ten. I am not implementing it for a large company, but it meets all of our needs very well.

We use it for the data center to protect the server and prevent internal attacks and also external attacks, if they can pass through the first tier-one firewall.

The sandbox and the DPI-SSL are two main key features that I find valuable.

SonicWall NSSP is stable and scalable too.

You also get more value for money compared to that of other solutions.

The user interface, the GUI, could be improved.

If they decide to simplify the GUI, it would be good because there is no point in being so different from others. If you do that, you may be sacrificing the strengths of the product.

I've been using SonicWall NSSP for two or three years.

It is a stable solution.

SonicWall NSSP is sufficient and quick enough to be scalable. There are no issues with supporting the data center. So, there are no problems with scalability. We plan to increase usage as well.

Previously we used Fortinet. We switched to SonicWall NSSP because the newer prices for Fortinet were quite expensive when it came to subscriptions.

Then, when it came to HA, high availability, we would have had to pay for two licenses for Fortinet. With regard to active/passive, we would still have had to pay for two licenses.

When I deployed SonicWall NSSP high availability, active/passive, I didn't need to buy two licenses; I just needed to buy one license. So, when it comes to total cost of ownership, for me SonicWall NSSP gives much more value for money.

The initial setup is quite complex because we have to get a lot of policies.

For SonicWall NSSP high availability, active/passive, you need to buy one license, and so you get much more value for money.

If I were to rate this solution on a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at ten.

It has been delivering results efficiently. Its configurations and updates have been easy. It is also user-friendly.

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.

I have been using this solution for the last three years.

It is stable.

I have not tried scaling it.

Its initial setup is slightly complex, but it is much easier than other solutions.

I would recommend this solution. I would advise others to look at the sizing they want and choose accordingly.

I would rate SonicWall NSSP an eight out of ten.