SonicWall NSA Series vs. Sophos UTM

SonicWall NSA is best suited for small to mid-size companies or small to medium K-12 school districts. It's less appropriate for larger businesses and schools. This is due to their ease of use and well-rounded feature set but lacks in advanced configuration, performance, and reliability.

Incentivized

Sophos is a very powerful anti-virus program that can be used in small and big businesses. Sophos has multiple features that can be customized to fit IT and business needs. Sophos would be less appropriate for IT personnel that do not have the time or knowledge of implementing the problem. The setup of its policies can be very complex.

Incentivized

• Relatively inexpensive compared to some of the higher-end products, like Palo Alto Networks.
• Easy to set up, as the SonicWall NSA interface is consistent across all models.

Incentivized

• Firewall Protection. The protection is unmatched, setup it a little daunting, but once set up it pretty much runs itself.
• Site-to-site VPN. Super easy to deploy so we are able to network all our sites together.
• The DHCP server function is actually really nice, I prefer using it over the traditional way of using a DC for DHCP.

Incentivized

• Ideal with smaller businesses. Would have to examine for more complex needs of larger businesses.
• Scalability might be an issue for super large organizations.

• Better standard support, it used to be great, now, not so much (for paying customers, that only aquired the Hardware)
• Better wireless solution, there is always room for that, now that everybody needs robust wifi, even at home!
• Faster and more robust wireless Access Points, or different vendor-like compatibility.

Incentivized

The usability takes a bit of training, like any firewall, but I've found that showing even Tier 1 helpdesk how to do basic things has been easy. We have entry-level IT technicians performing white-listing, IP entries, VPN access and LDAP functions, to name a few tasks. The menus in the GUI are pretty straight forward.

Incentivized

The interface is no non-sense and easy to understand. No need for any consultants to help implement this solution. The performance is consistent and solid. Paired with a good amount of firmware and definitions, it's hard to find any fault in this product. It's interoperability with other Sophos products make a compelling argument to invest in more Sophos products.

Incentivized

Most of the time, calling SonicWall NSA Support, you get an expert who can help resolve your issues. RMAs are pretty easy once they determine there is an issue with the hardware. Support is available 24x7, which makes emergency calls easy. The only downside is the support engineers may have thick accents; however, their expertise more than makes up for any language barriers.

Incentivized

I find the support fair. The wait can be frustrating when dealing with fire. The pandemic has not helped with this. Although the wait can be long, the support reps are knowledgeable and was able to resolve the issues I was facing.

Incentivized

The SonicWall NSA is a lot more fluid and much less clunky than a Watchguard firewall. The Watchguard is ok for a small business-- you can buy them at retail outlets. But as you can see above, this model of Watchguard Firebox has been discontinued. The NSA classes are a more high-end and functional business-class firewall.

Incentivized

The Linksys was a router, so the comparison isn't quite the same, but I previously worked on a SonicWall firewall. The setup is by far easier on the Sophos UTM device. That alone makes it enticing, but thrown multiple services options such as email and web filtering, endpoint support, seamless WAP and RED device integration and it wasn't a very hard decision to make.

Incentivized

• It is a firewall appliance at an affordable price compared to other firewall vendors.
• It is reliable and thus, allows our business to operate without any hiccups.

Incentivized

• Sophos has provided a secure Firewall for us.
• Integration with Sophos Central makes it easier to manage both.
• Site to site VPN Failover groups has caused more trouble than it's worth.
• High availability doesn't recognize when you are restarting for an update.

Incentivized