SonicWall TZ Reviews

In some cases SonicWall is used to outfit a company, replacing existing infrastructure and getting site-to-site VPN set up for easier management. It provides ease of use for VPN setups. We are customers of SonicWall and I'm a senior system analyst. 

The solution offers the right amount of control without being incredibly convoluted and frustrating, or without being too dumbed down where you don't have options to do certain things. It's very to the point with the controls and simplifies things for us. It's great value for money. 

The solution has a lot of robust options and it's easy to use. NSM is a good feature, a single pane of glass security center where you can monitor SonicWall for different clients and troubleshoot without it requiring individual access. The product has good integration with their SMA solution, which we deployed for one of our financial firms, and we've also provided a remote access solution for people with PCs at home who want secure access. It offers good content filtering.

I would probably say their GSM or their Sonic Analyzer could be improved. I have always found it difficult to manage and not very intuitive. I'd like to have better visibility of what each endpoint is doing. That's something Meraki has that is very easy to use.

I've been using this solution for over seven years. 

The solution is stable. We're an MSP, so if our clients have any dated hardware, we'll make a plan to switch to SonicWall, otherwise there can be issues with the internet or configuration where we can't get in and troubleshoot. We need to know we can get into the firewalls and make sure that they're online, as opposed to having to schedule someone to come in and deal with the basic physical connections or troubleshoot.

The scalability is very good because if you know how to work the base model, the old solution or the TZ 105, all the way up to the NSAs, they just scale up in terms of features and functionality and you don't change a whole lot. They have good terminology that sticks throughout, so if you work with one, you can work with them all. It means upgrading and scaling is very easy. We manage about 1300 users or so across about 100 different clients. For the most part, maybe 80% of them are on SonicWall, and we try to push that just because it makes our lives a lot easier.

We don't use the technical support very often, but the last call I had with them, everything was resolved within the hour. I spent more time on hold than I did with the person. It was 15 minutes on hold, for 10 minutes to resolve the issue. Otherwise, it's great. 

The initial setup was very straightforward. Deployment time depends on the client but if we're starting from scratch, you can have it updated and deployed within an afternoon without issue. We have our own techs with experience who can get things set up to the best of our ability. Implementation takes one person who knows what they're doing, but we have a team that can help out and troubleshoot if we run into issues. 

I'm not sure of licensing costs, but the price point isn't bad. In addition, you need to buy the hardware. There is also a standard support license, and they offer an advanced security gateway with other intrusion detection, prevention, content filtering, etc. There are some additional options we usually go with, but things like content filtering are hit and miss, and depend on what the client wants.

I've tried Meraki, but their price points are ridiculous and feature functionality is somewhat lacking. After Dell sold SonicWall, things improved a lot, and they've come a long way. There were some things about Meraki that I liked such as endpoint visibility. You can see the list of connected devices and apply a policy. You can get very low network so that bandwidth is not eaten up if someone is watching Netflix all day but they can still receive emails. Those kinds of things are what's missing in SonicWall. I've never been able to do something like that easily on the firewall side. Unfortunately, the cost of Meraki is really prohibitive. We tried a few other solutions and they just didn't pan out. If you want a good firewall, you have to pay thousands of dollars for what SonicWall does in a way that's easier to manage.

I would recommend trying the product, it's not too difficult, whether it's the setup or the cost. If you're looking for a really low-cost solution, you'll probably end up using something like pfSense which doesn't really compare to SonicWall. There are probably better solutions out there, but there are things that SonicWall does better, it just depends on your budget.

I rate the solution eight out of 10. 

We work based on a client's requirements. We don't maintain any segmentation information. We sell all types of solutions from SonicWall, such as their next-generation firewall, cloud solutions, and switching and routing solutions. 

Deployment is based on a client's requirements. If a client gives us the requirement for the cloud, then we do the cloud deployment. 

Its user interface and simplicity are the most favorite parts for our clients. They find it stable and easy to use. Its performance is also good. 

Our clients feel comfortable using SonicWall. It has all the facilities to block the threats.

The marketing of SonicWall has to be increased. Currently, when it comes to firewalls, most people go for Cisco and Palo Alto. SonicWall should improve its marketing and branding policies to increase sales. Other than that, it is good. 

We have been selling this solution for about two years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. The entry-level companies are taking TZ 300, TZ 400, and TZ 600 from us, and they have 100 to 150 users. The bigger companies ask for the next-generation firewall such as NSA 2650 and NSA 3650.

We have about 50 customers who are using SonicWall. They include government organizations and corporates. We have lots of clients who have already taken SonicWall. They have the license, support, and subscription for two years. 

They are good enough.

We are selling solutions for most of the brands such as Cisco, Sophos, SonicWall, Fortinet, and Palo Alto. For email security, we are selling Barracuda. For those clients who have the financial capability, we recommend Palo Alto. 

The deployment duration depends on the transportation. If the installation site is far from our office, it takes time to transport it. In terms of installation, if a client's site is ready to deploy the firewall, then we don't need much time. We can do it instantly.

Sometimes, the licensing part can take some time. If someone wants a renewal, it can take some time to complete the procedure and receive the license via email, but it is bearable and not the problem.

For the setup, we have a good team, and there is no problem. We have five people in our technical team. We also get help from SonicWall's England team.

It has a yearly subscription.

I would recommend this solution to others. In every sector, SonicWall is doing good. Our clients do not have any complaints. They feel comfortable using it. It has all the facilities to block the threats, and it is quite good. 

SonicWall is able to provide a solution for the requirements of our clients. Only because of the lack of marketing and branding, SonicWall is not able to reach customer premises, and that's the reason why its sale is not much.

I would rate SonicWall TZ a seven out of 10.

The web security and IPsec VPN are both valuable aspects of the solution.

The NAT policies and port forwarding are great. 

We were initially actually using very basic features for my organization's requirements. It is a very simple model. There isn't much complexity to it.

It's been very easy to implement and deploy.

The solution is stable. 

Technical support is perfect.

We've found the pricing to be pretty good overall.

It would be nice if it was more user-friendly. The user interface is a bit difficult to navigate.

The technology in this particular version is very old. 

They have to improve their assistant client application.

In this particular SonicWall has a challenge with the SSL client. It provided NetExtender, a client application that is very challenging and is difficult to manage.

I've been working with the solution for about six years or so. 

I would say that it is 100% stable. Sometimes there's an issue, and we have to log a ticket, however, they will have it resolved. Rarely are there bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

Sometimes support is delayed, and sometimes we get items resolved within hours. Overall, it is okay. Overall it is okay. They are very helpful and responsive most of the time and we are quite satisfied with their level of attention.

We previously used a solution called AnexGATE. However, we had issues with port following and needed to switch.

The initial setup is very straightforward. It's not overly complex. A company shouldn't have too much trouble implementing it. This is especially true if you have a bit of a technical person implementing it.

For the most part, the solution is very economical.

Although we have been using it for the last six or seven years, it is now expired and we want to upgrade it with either Fortinet or Sophos, and so, we are looking into those.

We are a customer and an end-user.

We are using the TZ300 model at this time. We haven't used the latest version of the solution just yet.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

Once we moved the units up to the Gen 6 platform, they could support SSL-DPI. We are huge fans of the DPI. That piece is incredibly easy to implement. I'd say probably the most powerful thing about the solution is that coupled with the captured functionality. 

We've turned the SSL inspection on, and it is a nightmare. It doesn't mean it doesn't work, but it will turn your world upside down for weeks until you tune it and get it right. That's an across the board problem. It's not just TZ. That's TZ's, NSA's, etc. Wherever you're using their implementation of SSL, where you've got to implement a certificate on every machine. Once you even get past that it's still going to be particular and finicky. Banking sites are driven crazy by it every time we turn it on.

It is trying to lock down outbound traffic so tightly that you get to sites that are already very security conscious. It's just a battle to get the traffic through. Intentional traffic, the traffic you want to get through, seems to be a problem. It will stop almost everything. Too much in fact. I understand the concept. It's just a little threatening. We just had a client sign off on a 6650. Then we send them a scope of work for implementing it. We specifically put a note in there in enormous bold type: "Note does not include SSL-DPI implementation". That is additional. The client responded that  "That's the one piece I wanted you guys to do. I'm scared of it."

He said, "We're scared of it," and I told him, "We're scared of it too." I said, "I don't know how long it's going to take. And it's going to turn your universe upside down for a week to 10 days to maybe two weeks." He said that he heard that this would be the case. 

My fear is that the client thinks that we'll say it will take four hours and then, when it turns into 40, try to make us give them the submission for free. 

Even tiny environments, for example, 10 user environments, once you turn it on, you will spend days tuning it. The last one we did took us 22 hours to get it perfect. We learned our lesson. We slotted in four to eight hours to do it and it took us 16 to 20.

From a support perspective, if we're talking tech support I think Silver Partners, Gold Partners, Platinum, whatever level, should have a different number to call. End users can call tech support over at SonicWall if they've paid for support as part of their AGSS or whatever services they bought. The end-user can call, or we can call, however, I don't want to be calling the same line that an end user's calling. I don't want the same response time. I need a different level of expertise.

We've been a SonicWall dealer for 21 years approximately. We've been handling the solution since 1999. I personally didn't start using the solution until 2004.

Once you get past all the configuration issues, If you are on a rock-solid GA (Generally Available firmware), I don't know if I want to say it's bulletproof, however, the stability is really, really good. I don't sit and worry, thinking, "Oh, God. We know another one's going to fail today." We never think that way about that type of stuff. It's the odd time where we might get hardware failures or random reboots. We've had a couple of SMA units go sideways. Even SonicWall couldn't solve the problem. However, that said, it's rare.

There's a couple of different ways to answer the question of scalability. They've built the TZ line wide enough so that we've got enough of a selection to be able to fit most bandwidth and user count situations. It's never going to fit everybody and it's not meant to. It shouldn't. It is a little challenging to try to get one of the boxes to do full wire speed. I'm not so sure inside that box, at the price point, you're going to solve that problem.

That's why we sold the 6650. One client has got a one gig fiber line and they're in a school. On an NSA 3600, he can't get over 400 on it. I told him he never would. Some days I'd be surprised to get 400, depending on the user count. The TZ lineup is pretty good, however, I'm not so sure I'd use the word scalable. 

If what we mean by scalable is, "oh, well, I buy a 300 and I buy it for 10 users, but I can scale up to 30 users with that box," the answer to that is no you can't. If you ask "could I scale up to 25 users and move to 200 or 300 or 400 meg?" You can't. We've got somebody in that situation right now and we're quoting a box replacement because it just can't scale that way.

You can't necessarily scale on the appliance. You've got to get the right size. That's the easiest way to scale. If it's the right-sized appliance for the environment with some headroom then I think most situations users are going to be fine. There's going to be some issues where somebody cheaps out. For example, we worked with a law firm. They bought a TZ 300 because they didn't want to spend the money for the 500. Now they're going to have to spend the money for the 500 anyway because they need to scale up. 

I don't think they really separate support from line to line. Maybe if you get all the way up into supermassive issues they do. Between NSA and TZ, it's the same level of service that you get on the other end of the phone. To be quite honest, level one support is not sparkling. Level two is usually really good. Level three is usually a combination. You get to level three, and you're almost talking to development or a combination of a crew that's dealing with development and senior technical expertise. Those guys rarely fail us.

That's a typical support story. The level one guys will read the scripts and don't necessarily fix anything. We've already run through level one through three on our end with my staff. If they can't fix it, talking to a level one script reader is definitely not going to get it fixed. You should be able to bypass those guys if you're a reseller and a long-standing Silver Partner, like we are.

We've also used Cisco previously. A while back, we used to have Cisco as our primary choice, with SonicWall being our second. That changed when I came to the company in 2004, where SonicWall became our solution of choice. We've got 400 or 500 firewalls out there and we don't plan on changing over to anything else.

We're a Silver Partner.

I'm not an engineer. I was a field engineer for nine years a long, long time ago. However, I'm not typically the one that gets my fingers into stuff, and it would be my engineering and senior engineering staff that do that. That said, I can say that I don't think any of our guys have touched the virtual platform yet.

We use TZ and traditional NSA tech every day. That's our bread and butter.

The current version we're using right now is the 600 series, although we do still have some 350 series. 90% of what we use are Gen 6. They're either TZ 300, 400, 500, 600 or NSA 2600, 3600, 4600. 

We've got a smattering of 2650s that we've rolled out, which have been really, really good. Those are powerful units.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. It doesn't warrant more than that. There's plenty of products I'd give a five to out there, however, for the quality of the product offering, I think an eight is a fair mark.

We use the solution to control and protect access between our various locations.

With this solution, our facilities are able to act as one, easily sharing resources. 

It protects against intrusion while allowing needed access. 

It needs more robust self-help documentation along with examples and things to watch out for. 

We have been using the solution for more than ten years.

The stability is great.

The solution works well.

Positive

Nothing is as robust and complete as SonicWall devices.

The initial setup was fairly straightforward and is particularly straightforward when upgrading.

Our implementation was done in a combination due to locations.

We have seen a 100% ROI. There are no intrusions. 

It was chosen by an IT support company.

Try it, you'll be glad you did, as you'll find a new peace of mind.

The solution is used for firewall protection with our customers.

Stability is the most valuable feature of the solution.

The cost of the solution has room for improvement.

I have been using the solution for ten years.

The solution is stable.

The solution can be used for small, and medium companies as long as the organization has the budget for it. I recommend Cisco Meraki for enterprise companies because it works on the cloud and is more scalable.

The solution is expensive.

I give the solution an eight out of ten.

I recommend the solution.

The primary use case for this solution is as a Network Firewall.

This solution protects the network. It lets me monitor in live time if someone is 'hogging' bandwidth. It lets me block websites, and the list goes on.

It is a very nice tool to have on the school network.

The most valuable features are for the protection of data, and IE Intrusion on the network.

I would like to see lower antivirus pricing.  So far I haven't found any situation that I needed anything else added/included.

I have been using this solution for five years.

The stability is good.

The scalability is good.

The customer service is always very good!

I did not use any other solutions. I only ever used SonicWall.

The setup was straightforward.  We had an existing SonicWall.

We implemented the solution in house.

This solution has an easy setup, good support, and reasonable pricing.

I did not evaluate any other options.

I am very satisfied with the solution.

SonicWall TZ is used for network security.

SonicWall TZ can improve the UI application and when you create any net policies or any new policy, it will not sync or work properly.

I have been using SonicWall TZ for approximately three months.

SonicWall TZ is stable. However, sometimes we have some issues.

The scalability of SonicWall TZ is good and easy to add users. 

I have contacted the technical support from SonicWall TZ and their support is good.

I have previously used UiPath and FortiGate firewalls and FortiGate is my favorite because it is consistent and has a good configuration. UiPath has a good interface and is user-friendly.

The price of SonicWall TZ is good for medium-sized companies.

My advice to others is this is a good solution but sometimes it is not working properly. I would recommend this solution for a home setup and I would recommend FortiGate firewalls for companies.

I rate SonicWall TZ a six out of ten.

I was a technical consultant, and I was helping clients out. I've had two clients. Both of them have had SonicWall, and both of them have gone through upgrades.

It does what it says it is going to do.

The user support could be improved because you have to go outside to get that kind of support.

I have been using this solution for five years.

We haven't used it. We've had to go outside and get technical support through a third party.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

The purpose of SonicWall is as a unified threat management appliance. We use SonicWall to protect our customers from cyber threat.

We have SonicWall in customer's on-premises environment and we have SonicWall in cloud data centers.

We like the central interface and we like the security features. Additionally, we use SonicWall with VPN connectivity and we have had no problems with SonicWall all these years.

In the next release, I would like to see a SonicWall integration with the DLP tool, this would be interesting. Data Loss Prevention integration.

I have been using SonicWall TZ for about 10 years.

SonicWall TZ is a stable solution.

In terms of scalability, we have to choose the right model according to the customer, their company's size, and according to the internet link capacity. Also according to the quantity of user parameters and the user quantity. The number of users and the link capacity are two parameters to define which SonicWall model is appropriate for that company.

They have a good technical support. I have no problem with them.

It is easy to set up SonicWall. It just depends on the scope of the project.

To set up for initial use takes about two hours. We start with the basic configuration and that is enough to start using SonicWall. After that, we do the more complex and detailed configuration of the security features.

Since we can deploy SonicWall in two hours with the basic configuration, we do a fast start because my users are starting to use the web and receive emails. After that, we do the next steps of the complex config for the more detailed secured configurations.

I would recommend SonicWall to other companies for their security, for the end customer and for security companies, to use as a UTM appliance. 

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate SonicWall TZ a nine.