We performed a comparison between pfSense and SonicWall TZ based on our users’ reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Features: pfSense offers valuable features such as IP address blocking, user-friendly dashboards, scanning and filtering capabilities, stability, customization abilities, and cost-effectiveness. SonicWall TZ provides unified threat management, VPN capabilities, web security, a user-friendly interface, simplicity, stability, performance, content filtering, and additional features.
pfSense users have suggested the need for instructional videos for beginners, a clearer web interface, improved stability, a mobile application, enhanced reporting, and better integration with other solutions. Users of SonicWall TZ have pointed out improvements that are needed in rated throughput, secondary DNS hosting, cloud management, user interface, integration and flexibility, marketing and branding, reporting and licensing, additional ports, affordability and competition, UI application and policy synchronization, technical support and VPN connections, and pricing.
Service and Support: Some users of pfSense have appreciated the technical support, while others have sought help from the online community. SonicWall TZ has garnered both positive and negative feedback. While some customers have found the support to be satisfactory, others have encountered delays and language barriers.
Ease of Deployment: Users generally find the initial setup of pfSense to be straightforward and easy, with a simple installation process. However, they express the need for clearer guidance or a configuration wizard. The initial setup for SonicWall TZ is considered intuitive and not overly complex, with a smooth out-of-the-box process.
Pricing: The cost of setting up pfSense is affordable and requires no extra charges for firmware updates. Opinions on SonicWall TZ's pricing are divided, with some deeming it cost-effective for medium-sized businesses, while others perceive it as pricey and lacking competitiveness.
ROI: pfSense provides a budget-friendly option with a low yearly cost and substantial hardware savings, leading to a considerable ROI. SonicWall TZ is suggested for improved efficacy and is seen as an essential element for safeguarding the network.
Comparison Results: pfSense is the preferred option when comparing it to SonicWall TZ. Users appreciate pfSense's easy-to-use dashboards, its open-source nature, and its capability to block IP addresses. They find it affordable, customizable, and effective in preventing attacks.
"The security features are about the best that I've seen anywhere."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and there are several operating systems that can include the hardware capacities. In the newer releases, the resources were more useful because they were included in the operating system."
"This solution made it very easy to manage our bandwidth."
"Good performance, stability, and virtual domain ability."
"Web filtering and two-factor authentication are great features."
"The management console is pretty simple, so anyone who understands networking can initially deploy the solution."
"I have found Fortinet FortiGate to be scalable."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"Its scalability is a strong point."
"It has a good web cache. I used to use a DHCP server and DNS server. For my company, I use pfSense as a load balancing application."
"Easy to deploy and easy to use."
"It is easy to use and has integrity with other systems, such as proxies and quality of service."
"We generally use it because it's cheap. When we need something more robust we use Barracuda and Sony Wireless Routers. For certain clients, we use pfSense because it's compatible with the VoIP platform."
"A free firewall that is a good network security appliance."
"The initial setup was straightforward, therefore I wanted to continue using the product."
"Some of the terminologies were more familiar to me than it was when I first encountered Cisco."
"The scalability of SonicWall TZ is good and easy to add users."
"It is very user-friendly, and there is no problem in using its interface."
"Ease of management and the VPN integration."
"It lets me monitor in live time if someone is 'hogging' bandwidth."
"The installation is straightforward and took approximately 30 minutes."
"SonicWall TZ is very user-friendly and has network MAC binding. Additionally, the firewall works well."
"It does what it says it is going to do."
"The general feature is the antivirus policy, followed by the ransomware protection, and these are the features I was looking at."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"The inability to scale the FortiAnalyzer to match our growth necessitates the purchase of new hardware."
"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."
"If they had better integration with security products, such as Cisco ISE or Rapid Threat Containment, then it would be an improvement."
"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."
"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"The main problem with pfSense is that it lacks adequate ransomware protection."
"I expect a better interface with more log analysis because I create my own interface."
"I believe improving integration with various antivirus vendors could be beneficial."
"Web interface could be enhanced and more user friendly."
"Lacks instructional videos."
"Needs services on additional features, such as managing inventory and generating reports."
"We are at the moment looking to use it as a proxy service so that we can limit what websites people go and view and that sort of thing. That's an area I've struggled with a little bit at the moment and it could be a bit easier to set up."
"The log sections could be done more clearly."
"Its reporting can be improved. Currently, we cannot directly get the user names. It only shows the IP, which makes it a bit confusing because we need to use the IP to find the user. If we could directly get the name of the user, it would be better."
"I would like them to make the interface a little bit easier to use so you can find out where in the heck you're going instead of having to go to 15 different places to get something installed."
"I'd like to have cloud management at no additional cost. Unfortunately, leveraging SonicWall's cloud management capabilities is cost-prohibitive, so we don't use it. They should have a reasonable subscription or offer it to us at no cost as an MSP."
"There can be an improvement in analysis and reporting. We need enhancement on the reporting side."
"There is still room for improvement, and it's not advisable even if the organization has grown."
"User interface could be improved."
"The solution's pricing could be made cheaper."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while SonicWall TZ is ranked 12th in Firewalls with 78 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while SonicWall TZ is rated 8.0. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SonicWall TZ writes "Has efficient user access control feature and good technical support services ". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Untangle NG Firewall, whereas SonicWall TZ is most compared with Sophos XG, Meraki MX, SonicWall NSa, WatchGuard Firebox and Cisco Secure Firewall. See our Netgate pfSense vs. SonicWall TZ report.
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Just purchase an anti-spam license and activate it at the SonicWall license portal.
I would like to recommend you SONICWALL HOSTED EMAIL SECURITY ADVANCED. It is more helpful and if you are using Office365 or GSuite, go for SonicWall Cloud App Security.
It is more powerful.
Hi, for SonicWall you buy a license and on the same firewall you can activate the antispam only in the ingress mode.
But there is a catch, at the moment they don't support TLS for SMTP so I would recommend their other solution, that has email security for appliance and virtualized on VMware or Hyper-V.