SonicWall vs. Fortinet: Compare Top Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) Products

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SonicWall and Fortinet are two leaders in the next-generation firewall (NGFW) space, offering network security for customers.

See below to learn all about how SonicWall and Fortinet compare against each other in the NGFW market:

SonicWall vs. Fortinet: NGFW

SonicWall vs. Fortinet: NGFW portfolio

SonicWall NGFW solution is great from small and medium-scale businesses’ perspectives, and its economical pricing acts in its favor. It offers greater flexibility with its pay-for-only-what-you-use high availability (HA) licensing.

SonicWall NGFW is purpose-built to protect industries and offers enterprise-built security that can protect any business environment — traditional, cloud, or hybrid. The solution meets the highest compliance and certification standards. Features like real-time deep memory inspection (RTDMI) and reassembly-free deep packet inspection help block more attacks. Besides, SonicWall NGFW offers options like multi-instance architectures and unified policy creation that can effectively defend business environments.

It has multiple configuration options to save businesses from threats and delivers up-to-date world-class intelligence for efficient decision-making. With the explosion of devices and users, connection requirements and resource utilization grow. It demands high-speed performance to process millions of encrypted and unencrypted connections. SonicWall NGFW can address these needs with multiple interfaces featuring high port density and unparalleled threat prevention technology.

Being a pioneer of secure networking, Fortinet also provides deep visibility and security with its next-generation firewall solution. FortiGate NGFW is easy to use and offers 360-degree advanced threat detection that can analyze and spot the trends of attacks and other risky scenarios. It can better serve businesses looking to expand or diversify quickly; thus, large companies prefer FortiGate NGFW.

It can scale to any location, like remote offices, cloud environments, and data centers, delivering seamless user experience and operational efficiency. Segmentation and coordinated security powered by advanced technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) help minimize ransomware and cyberattacks to prevent business disruptions. Also, as the point products are eliminated, the cost reduces, making it an affordable security solution.

FortiGate NGFW can support overburdened IT teams and build operational efficiencies with features that scale to any environment. Its fully integrated networking capabilities help it connect and protect any edge at any scale for delivering optimal and secure experiences. To ensure effective operations and maintenance of Fortinet capabilities, Fortinet experts deliver per-device support services.

SonicWall Fortinet
Breadth
Depth
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See more: 5 Top Firewall Trends

SonicWall vs. Fortinet: Partners

SonicWall’s rapidly growing ecosystem is supported by its technology alliance and integration partners. It has collaborated with global technology leaders that help solve customer security challenges with superior products and solutions.

The list of feature partners for SonicWall includes SentinelOne, ConnectWise, Microsoft, Stellar Cyber, and Perimeter 81. It has also integrated with leading companies like Alibaba, AWS, Azure, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, and Dropbox to deliver powerful, integrated end-to-end cybersecurity solutions.

Fortinet has an open-ecosystem approach and has collaborated with leading organizations to provide integrated end-to-end security solutions to its clients. Fortinet Open Ecosystem extends the benefits of Security Fabric to its Fabric-ready technology alliance partners.

It is one of the largest cybersecurity ecosystems that combines different companies to enable powerful complementary solutions. The alliance partners avail the benefits of Fortinet-developed fabric connectors, application programming interfaces (APIs) and DevOps tools, and other resources to integrate easily with the Security Fabric.

Leading companies like Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Amdocs, Centrify, Elastic, Equinix, Ericsson, Google Cloud, Intel, Lenovo, McAfee, Oracle, and VMware have partnered through the Fortinet Fabric-Ready technology Alliance Partner Program.

SonicWall Fortinet
Breadth
Depth
Specialization
Global Reach
Overall

SonicWall vs. Fortinet: Use cases

SonicWall’s NGFW solution offers advanced threat protection through robot on-box technology and cloud-based updates. It can stop zero-day and unknown malware in its tracks and offers security without compromise.

The firewall solution is designed for large distributed enterprises, data centers, government agencies, schools, and other industry verticals with a modern approach. Its unified policy reduces configuration errors and deployment time, allowing administrators to combine Layer 3 and Layer 7 access and security rules. This also improves the overall security posture through intuitive policy creation and visual workflow.

SonicWall use cases cover educational institutions as well as state and local government networks. As the education sector increasingly relies on cloud-based technology, SonicWall helps it fill compliance and security gaps through a new digitally driven approach. It takes care of different functions like content filtering and powering PoE (Power over Ethernet) devices, along with advanced protection benefits. SonicWall NGFW also meets the stringent compliance requirements of state and local governments and protects them from increasingly sophisticated threat attacks.

Similarly, FortiGate can weave security into hybrid and multicloud business environments to manage vulnerabilities and stop threats. The Fortinet Security Fabric Integration prevents the lateral spread and manages internal risks, enforcing security for any segmentation.

Without impacting the performance, it offers full visibility to detect and remediate different threats in the HTTPS traffic. Fortinet delivers secure hyperscale architectures that can meet the escalating market demands without affecting network performance. Another firewall solution, FortiGate Rugged NGFWs can secure industrial and operational technology (OT) environments.

To deliver optimal security experiences, FortiGate integrates key functions like TLS 1.3 decryption, IPsec, and intrusion detection and intrusion prevention systems (IDS/IPS) into its security processor units. It helps businesses with consistent, coordinated, and automated security at any location, making it safe to work from anywhere.

SonicWall Fortinet
Breadth
Depth
Specialization
Overall


See more: How Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) are Used by Softworx, PenChecks Trust, Flex, CNA, and Blackstone: Case Studies

SonicWall vs. Fortinet: User reviews

Gartner Peer Insights rates SonicWall with a 4.5-star rating. It is widely popular among small and medium-sized organizations and saves them time and money, as a single device performs most unified threat management (UTM) functions. It also offers businesses administrative and functional advantages and helps them safely conduct internal activities.

Fortinet gets 4.6 stars out of 5 on Gartner Peer Insights. Users feel that Fortinet has a simple and easy-to-use admin console and employs innovative security engine technology, ensuring top network speed and security. However, there are still scopes of improvement as users expect a more dependable and exact reporting of their system as well as better customer support.

In G2, SonicWall scores 4 stars, whereas FortiGate gets 4.5. As per TrustRadius, SonicWall scores 9.1 out of 10, and Capterra rated it 4.3 stars out of 5. Reviewers feel it offers excellent traffic inspection and highly configurable network access rules. It can still work on providing detailed reporting. And also improve its interface as well as admin controls.

FortiGate is one of the top-rated NGFW solutions in TrustRadius, scoring 8.7 out of 10. In Capterra, it has secured 4.8 stars. Being an established vendor, it receives frequent feedback and high ratings. It has clear and straightforward pricing and offers excellent results for properly configured firewalls.

However, some users feel that they experience an increased number of annoying bugs with firmware upgrades. Also, it has a less intuitive setup and should work on its traffic-setting rules.

SonicWall Fortinet
Gartner Peer Insights 4.5 out of 5 4.6 out of 5
G2 4 out of 5 4.5 out of 5
Capterra 4.3 out of 5 4.8 out of 5
TrustRadius 9.1 out of 10 8.7 out of 10
Overall      ✅ 

SonicWall vs. Fortinet: Industry recognition

SonicWall has recently been awarded the Preferred Vendor Award for Security in the Channel Partner Excellence Awards. In the 2021 CyberSecurity Global Excellence Awards, SonicWall was declared the Silver, Gold, and Grand winner. It was recognized in the 2021 CRN’s list of top 100 security companies.

In the 2021 Gartner Magic Quadrant, Fortinet has been recognized as a leader for Network Firewalls. As per the 2022 Critical Capabilities report, it secured the top rankings in the Enterprise Data Center, Distributed Enterprise, and SMB use cases.

SonicWall Fortinet
Volume
Variety
Significance
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SonicWall vs. Fortinet: Overall

SonicWall offers comprehensive firewall management that can identify and remedy security risks through detailed analysis. It has custom configuration templates that help quickly and easily deploy new firewalls. Moreover, its RTDMI technology has discovered more than 270,000 never-before-seen malware variants. Overall, SonicWall NGFW solutions have been widely appreciated in the global market.

Similarly, Fortinet offers top NGFW solutions by combining modern networking technologies with AI-powered security. These solutions are capable of defending highly-dynamic business environments and enabling better productivity. It has more than 580,000 global customers spread across different industries.

Both SonicWall and Fortinet are highly trusted vendors for next-generation firewall solutions. You can choose any one based on your business security requirements to strengthen your network infrastructure.

SonicWall Fortinet
Portfolio
Partners
Use Cases
Ratings
Recognition
Overall


See more: 5 Top Next-Generation Firewall Software

Kashyap Vyas
Kashyap Vyas
Kashyap Vyas is a contributing writer to Enterprise Storage Forum. He covers a range of technical topics, including managed services, cloud computing, security, storage, business management, and product design and development. Kashyap holds a Master's Degree in Engineering and finds joy in traveling, exploring new cultures, and immersing himself in Indian classical and Sufi music. uns a consulting agency.

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