Cisco Firepower 1000 Series vs. SonicWall NSA Series

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
The Cisco Firepower® 1000 Series for small to medium-size businesses and branch offices is a family of four threat-focused Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) security platforms designed to deliver business resiliency through superior threat defense. The vendor provides that they offers exceptional sustained performance when advanced threat functions are enabled. The 1000 Series’ throughput range addresses use cases from the small office, home office, remote branch office to the Internet edge. The…N/A
SonicWall NSA Series
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
The SonicWall NSA Series is the company's mid-range next generation firewall (NGFW).N/A
Pricing
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Editions & Modules
Firepower 1000
1,000-5,000
per appliance
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
Cisco Firepower 1000 Series
8.3
33 Ratings
2% below category average
SonicWall NSA Series
7.1
4 Ratings
18% below category average
Identification Technologies8.031 Ratings5.04 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.130 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Content Inspection8.230 Ratings6.03 Ratings
Policy-based Controls8.633 Ratings8.04 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP8.629 Ratings4.03 Ratings
Firewall Management Console7.032 Ratings9.04 Ratings
Reporting and Logging8.033 Ratings7.04 Ratings
VPN9.228 Ratings9.04 Ratings
High Availability9.332 Ratings7.04 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.928 Ratings8.03 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Small Businesses
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Likelihood to Recommend
7.4
(34 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.3
(29 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.5
(34 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
8.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Firepower 1000 SeriesSonicWall NSA Series
Likelihood to Recommend
Cisco
I think it is well suited for smaller companies or (as in our case) extension to a central system with higher performance. My personal guess is, that it can be quite annoying with those delays in bigger environments, when 20 or more devices needed to be managed. From the point of security, support and updates it works quite good and seem to have no downsides.
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SonicWall
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.
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Pros
Cisco
  • My organization is all Cisco and wants to stay in the Cisco life cycle, Firepower 1000 series is great for small to medium-size office.
  • Very robust enterprise-grade security solution with updated threat features to handle any current and upcoming threats. The solution is backed by Cisco to ensure constant security updates. Integrated AnyConnect remote client VPN is a big plus to allow for secure remote workers access. Easier to set up a site to site VPN due to the large user base and case studies published on integrating to other manufacturer solutions.
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SonicWall
  • 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.
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Cons
Cisco
  • ACLS in gui are PIA cant see object details
  • Objects in ACLs dont show IP addresses
  • Have to renames every object to name+ip to make acl GUI useable
  • Speed to data can use improvement.
  • Health warnings should allow you to resolve you have to dig n search in some cases.
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SonicWall
  • Ideal with smaller businesses. Would have to examine for more complex needs of larger businesses.
  • Scalability might be an issue for super large organizations.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cisco
It is quite good, robust and reliable but not always so easy to manage and configure. The tools could be improved and the price is not low for an entry level firewall
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SonicWall
No answers on this topic
Usability
Cisco
Firepowers are secure, reliable, central management and configuration is easy and they fit in well with our existing Cisco infrastructure. Good feature set and support. Good management and control with chassis manager and central control with additional Firepower Management Centre.
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SonicWall
No answers on this topic
Reliability and Availability
Cisco
Has not let me down yet.
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SonicWall
No answers on this topic
Performance
Cisco
Great performance even on the lower end model of the series. You can push a lot of traffic through these devices without much performance impact. If you decide you want to inspect encrypted traffic however, you may take a big hit on the cpu and memory of the box, but they still manage to keep up even with all the bells and whistles turned on.
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SonicWall
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Cisco
I have had troubles with Firepower Management Center and the FTD's in the past. Sticking to a Gold Star image and upgrading when the "bugs" are fixed is great. That still doesn't mean you are left vulnerable though. The extra features are just not enabled yet. Great product and calling support is readily available for any issue.
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SonicWall
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.
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Implementation Rating
Cisco
Utilize the new FMC cloud which is available in Cisco Defense Orchestrator.
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SonicWall
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Cisco
Cisco Meraki MX is much more simple to configure it if you compare to Cisco Firepower 1000, but it is more limited to pur some complex configurations. The Cisco Firepower 1000 Series is typically deployed as a physical appliance, while the Meraki MX can be deployed as a physical or virtual appliance.The Firepower 1000 Series has a more complex user interface, with a steeper learning curve, but offers more customization and configuration options. The Meraki MX has a simpler, more intuitive interface,
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SonicWall
We compared the FortiGate to Sonicwall and continued with Sonicwall as we were a mid-size school where the Sonicwall was performing adequately, and the learning curve was steep to switch platforms. The Sonicwall offered everything the FortiGate did, and was not as costly, both in the appliance and in licensing.
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Return on Investment
Cisco
  • We have seen improved throughput on our internet.
  • It took several attempts with Cisco engineers to configure the device; it requires a deep set of knowledge to set up in a more complicated environment.
  • This will allow us to move forward with a more stable and configurable environment with security available we didn't have before.
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SonicWall
  • Was affordable, allowing for advanced routing and security.
  • Enabled us to build VPNs without purchasing additional services
  • Was simple enough to manage in house without external support.
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ScreenShots