pfSense vs. SonicWall TZ

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
pfSense is a firewall and load management product available through the open source pfSense Community Edition, as well as a the licensed edition, pfSense Plus (formerly known as pfSense Enterprise). The solution provides combined firewall, VPN, and router functionality, and can be deployed through the cloud (AWS or Azure), or on-premises with a Netgate appliance. It as scalable capacities, with functionality for SMBs. As a firewall, pfSense offers Stateful packet inspection, concurrent…
$179
per appliance
SonicWall TZ
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
SonicWall TZ is a NGFW for small to mid-sized companies. It is a Unified Threat Management solution, with additional native decryption and deep-packet inspection capabilities.
$414.04
per month
Pricing
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Editions & Modules
SG-1100
$179
per appliance
SG-2100
$229
per appliance
SG-3100
$399
per appliance
SG-5100
$699
per appliance
XG-7100-DT
$899
per appliance
XG-7100-1U
$999
per appliance
XG-1537
$1,949
per appliance
XG-1541
$2,649
per appliance
SonicWall TZ270 High Availability
$329.60
SonicWall TZ270 (hardware only)
$414.04
SonicWall TZ370 High Availability
$493.04
SonicWall TZ270 Wireless-AC (hardware only)
$502.57
SonicWall TZ370 (hardware only)
$618.34
SonicWall TZ270 TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$689.16
SonicWall TZ370 Wireless-AC (hardware only)
$708.23
SonicWall TZ270 TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$769.52
SonicWall TZ470 High Availability
$776.33
SonicWall TZ270 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$796.76
SonicWall TZ270 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$930.24
SonicWall TZ370 TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$973.82
SonicWall TZ470 (hardware only)
$973.82
SonicWall TZ570 High Availability (HA) Unit
$988.80
SonicWall TZ470 Wireless-AC (hardware only)
$1063.71
SonicWall TZ370 TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$1085.50
SonicWall TZ370 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$1107.29
SonicWall TZ370 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$1232.60
SonicWall TZ570
$1240.77
SonicWall TZ670 High Availability (HA) Unit
$1273.46
SonicWall TZ570 Wireless-AC
$1356.54
SonicWall TZ570 with 8x5 Support (1 Year)
$1450.51
SonicWall TZ570 Wireless-AC with 8x5 Support (1 Year)
$1588.07
SonicWall TZ470 TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$1596.25
SonicWall TZ670
$1596.25
SonicWall TZ470 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$1729.72
SonicWall TZ470 TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$1805.99
SonicWall TZ670 with 8x5 Support (1 Year)
$1867.28
SonicWall TZ470 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$1876.82
SonicWall TZ570 TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$2006.20
SonicWall TZ570 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$2192.80
SonicWall TZ570 TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$2200.97
SonicWall TZ570 Wireless-AC TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$2442.04
SonicWall TZ670 TotalSecure - Essential Edition (1 Year)
$2574.15
SonicWall TZ670 TotalSecure - Advanced Edition (1 Year)
$2868.34
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsSee pricing link for TZ Series (Gen6) editions. All prices have been converted from pounds. Conversion rates may change.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Considered Both Products
pfSense
Chose pfSense
pfSense is just a more flexible, lower-cost solution—it can be installed (if you wish) on just about any x86 hardware or even virtual machines - the community edition is free and so enables rapid prototyping and low-cost prototyping and lab build out—something that isn't …
Chose pfSense
I have not seen a single thing that these other products do that pfSense does not. In fact, the performance/throughput of pfSense is better in my opinion.
Chose pfSense
While you can get the performance out of other products, pfSense offers the unique ability to put other services on the same device. Products such as Untagle's NG Firewall and SonicWall's TZ series offer cost effective options for firewall and VPN services, having incoming load …
Chose pfSense
I've used a number of routers like Cisco, Sonicwall, Juniper, Home based routers, etc. pfSense is like most routers but with the benefit of load balancing and multi-wan. Well many support multi-wan but load balancing is usually a separate device like an BIGiP F5 or Cisco CSS.
SonicWall TZ
Chose SonicWall TZ
SonicWall TZ was a no brainer to choose over FortiGate or pfSense. We had used FortiGate units in the past and, in our experience, the interface is terrible, both on the device and the cloud side. There are constant updates that require you to jump through hoops to upgrade and …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Firewall
Comparison of Firewall features of Product A and Product B
pfSense
7.6
13 Ratings
12% below category average
SonicWall TZ
7.7
14 Ratings
11% below category average
Identification Technologies6.311 Ratings8.814 Ratings
Visualization Tools7.410 Ratings8.013 Ratings
Content Inspection5.712 Ratings8.214 Ratings
Policy-based Controls7.913 Ratings7.414 Ratings
Active Directory and LDAP5.511 Ratings6.312 Ratings
Firewall Management Console9.512 Ratings7.014 Ratings
Reporting and Logging7.413 Ratings7.313 Ratings
VPN8.813 Ratings8.214 Ratings
High Availability9.713 Ratings8.513 Ratings
Stateful Inspection8.312 Ratings7.813 Ratings
Proxy Server6.613 Ratings7.59 Ratings
Best Alternatives
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Small Businesses
Sophos UTM
Sophos UTM
Score 8.7 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
pfSense
pfSense
Score 9.4 out of 10
Enterprises
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Likelihood to Recommend
9.3
(26 ratings)
8.5
(21 ratings)
Usability
9.6
(3 ratings)
7.8
(5 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(9 ratings)
User Testimonials
pfSenseSonicWall TZ
Likelihood to Recommend
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
pfSense is incredibly budget friendly and capable for organizations of all sizes. My specific scenario, working for a non-profit organization, requires budget consciences decisions without compromising security and function. pfSense has helped tremendously in accomplishing this. It specifically tackles advanced routing, static routing, remote access, intrusion prevention, in a single platform, mostly available for free.
Read full review
SonicWall
Based on my experience, this is a solid platform for a small to mid sized company, especially when there is someone who has IT experience, or can get outsourced IT help. I would not recommend for someone who is a technology novice. Also, this is a competent device for someone who is looking to add VPN services for remote workers.
Read full review
Pros
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • Easy to use. Good user interface design! Easy to understand and easy to set up.
  • Lower hardware requirement. 3 years ago, we used an old PC to run it. Now, we have changed to a router device with Celeron CPU and 8GB RAM. It runs smoothly with a 1000G commercial broadband.
Read full review
SonicWall
  • If you have multiple sites and you want the connect the sites through secure medium this is best firewall for you.
  • There are very advanced features helps you to connect the device easily and securely.
  • Easy to connect the sites through advanced routing protocols.
Read full review
Cons
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • I did kind of mention a Con in the Pro section with OpenVPN.
  • When I create a config for an employee other employees are able to login to that config.
  • I could be doing something wrong when I am making it - I am not afraid to admit that as I am pretty new to all of this, but it seems like it builds a key and I would think the key would be unique in some way to each employee, but I could be wrong.
  • I actually do not have a lot of Con's for this software - I did not get to set this up on our work network so I am not sure of any downfalls when installing.
  • I installed this on my personal machine in a Hyper-V environment to get a feel for it before I started working on it at work and it seemed pretty smooth. I didn't run into any issues.
Read full review
SonicWall
  • management is confusing has many items that could be improved to facilitate the work to the network administrator
  • in the diagnostic tool I would improve the response times, that is, if a ping test is required, it should be quick, since in cases of failures it is sought to minimize the impact as much as possible.
  • each function has a different license item, I would place a single license package for all team functions
Read full review
Usability
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
The pfSense UI is easy to navigate and pretty go look at. It is much better than some high dollar firewalls that just throw menus you you. The pfSense UI is quick and responsive and makes sense 99% of the time. Changes are committed quickly and the hardware rarely requires a reboot. It just runs.
Read full review
SonicWall
Overall the new interface is very logical and easy to navigate. We did struggle at first coming from the older interface and finding our way around the new. But our new users found it very simple to find what they were looking for. One negative we do all struggle with is packet cpature not always being clear how its set/what is being monitored. this could do with more information on teh intial page instead of having to look for it
Read full review
Support Rating
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
No answers on this topic
SonicWall
Once you get to a competent technician the support experience is better. But I have found that the lower tiers of support are very slow to respond (like 1 email per day) and you typically have to re-explain yourself a couple times before they get it. I have not used Phone support, and that may be a better experience.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
Meraki has a unified management login for all devices, which is nice. It also has decent content filtering, both areas where pfSense is weaker. Where pfSense far ouclasses Meraki is in the ease of use and the other width of features. These include features such as better VPN interoperability, non-subscription based pricing, auditability, not relying on the infrastructure of a third party, more transparency of what's actually going on, easier to deploy replacements if hardware fails. Additionally, the NAT management for pfSense seems to be a bit better, as you can NAT between any network segment and not just the LAN segments out the WAN interfaces.
Read full review
SonicWall
SonicWall and WatchGuard are both fine appliances, but I am accustomed to the Barracuda NG. The Barracuda Control Center is so powerful and useful that it beats out the other two. SonicWall does a great job of dividing up firewall rules and NAT policies, but this is a preference among engineers.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Netgate (Rubicon Communications, LLC)
  • pfSense can be installed on commodity hardware with no licensing fees. With a simple less than 10 minute restore time, on most hardware, it's an extremely inexpensive way to achieve the same results that some of the more expensive vendors provide.
  • The easy to use interface has allowed configuration management to be preformed by lower level technicians with quick and easy training.
Read full review
SonicWall
  • We have three SonicWall TZ devices and they are very helpful in a VPN set up.
  • The subscription costs for the different features has a great return on investment. It is very well worth the money.
  • The antivirus component has been very effective on the computers and servers the SonicWall TZ device protects.
Read full review
ScreenShots