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Fortinet FortiClient vs SonicWall Netextender comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiClient
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
102
Ranking in other categories
Endpoint Protection Platform (EPP) (9th), Endpoint Compliance (1st)
SonicWall Netextender
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
12th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiClient is 4.5%, down from 10.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Netextender is 2.2%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiClient4.5%
SonicWall Netextender2.2%
Other93.3%
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

KL
Senior Technical Manager at Flexaccel
Remote access has become seamless and secure while deployment remains simple for our users
Performance could be improved today. People are now moving toward SASE, which stands for Secure Access, Secure Edge Solution. Fortinet also has that offering, which would be easier since it operates through the cloud, acting as a first line of defense. When the user connects to the internet, they connect to the cloud first for posture assessment and monitoring before connecting to the outside world. The impact is significant because nowadays people are adopting SASE. During COVID time, many users were trying to connect back to their office, causing the performance or CPU utilization of the firewall to increase tremendously, which slowed down performance. I have not worked with endpoint telemetry in Fortinet FortiClient that could have been helpful for threat mitigation.
Rich Darress - PeerSpot reviewer
Chief Operating Officer at Darress Tech
Has provided secure remote access to multiple client networks with consistent performance
When buying the appliance itself, there is one downside that isn't exclusive to SonicWall. When you apply all the security settings, many people have one gig connections for internet ISP. If you're bringing in a one gig connection, you have to have a more robust SonicWall to handle that throughput with all your security settings turned on. It gets pretty pricey upfront if you're bringing in a one gig connection. If the customer starts with a two, three, four, or 500 meg connection and has a small unit, they have to replace the whole box when upgrading to a gig, so scalability there is atrocious. However, this issue exists with pretty much any appliance.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"If having a fancy system is not important to the person, but he is simply looking for a workable and stable solution, then FortiGate is the way to go."
"It's very easy to use, it's nice and much easier to use than other solutions we've seen in action."
"I think the solution is highly scalable."
"It has a very easy-to-use interface. It has ease of management, and all the modules are there. SKUs are also easily identifiable. Whatever is required in the firewall is already there in it. It's very advanced, and analytics reporting is very good. They also have cloud reporting. You get all the services that are available for your device in the cloud. You just have to subscribe. It's very easy. There's a lot of demand for this solution because it's an all-in-one solution. The throughput is very high."
"It is a fantastic product; its overall security is valuable, and we are very impressed with the web filtering and the application firewall it provides."
"The integration of VPN services with endpoint security is valuable."
"It supports securely connections for VPN users from outside our environment during the lockdown."
"The centralized management dashboard is also a good feature."
"The product has two-factor authentication."
"It allows us to work remotely."
"Overall, it's a really good product."
"The product is very cost-effective; for the price-sensitive market, this is a very good product for an SSL VPN solution."
"The initial setup is pretty easy."
"It's a stable tool that does what it is supposed to do."
"The best features of the SonicWall Netextender were its ease of use."
"NetExtender works very well; I have never had an issue with it, and it has been working well for me."
 

Cons

"The solution requires skillful users."
"Occasionally, the solution may provide a slow connection. In addition, there may be initialization and authorization issues that one may need to take care of while using the solution."
"There are compatibility issues, and sometimes, especially with macOS, it's difficult to set up properly."
"One area for improvement in FortiClient is the speed of connectivity."
"There isn't much to improve in terms of features and comparison with other vendors. It just needs to stay more up to date in catching the malware. The user interface may be improved, which would be a minor enhancement. Unlike central management, in endpoint security, the end users don't need to keep looking at the endpoint user interface. The technology is the most important thing in endpoint security."
"The endpoint side of FortiClient needs improvement, specifically the agent-based endpoint, which requires enhancements in detection and additional features to reduce bugs."
"I'm hoping they change the management system."
"Their support is very bad. The product is good, but the support is very bad."
"Right now, you have to load each license on to an appliance. You can't pool across multiple appliances. So, you end up having to do a lot of administrative work to recover if an internet provider goes down, and you cannot leverage it as easily into a DR solution."
"Right now, you have to load each license on to an appliance. You can't pool across multiple appliances."
"Sometimes you can get bounced around through the departments until you find the right one. Sometimes if you don't have the most current support contract or your license is out of date, they won't even talk to you."
"The solution takes up a lot of bandwidth."
"The initial setup of SonicWall Netextender is straightforward. The only issue we encountered was with relocating the VPN appliance. If we needed to move it from an on-premise to an on-cloud architecture, we had to start over and redeploy it from scratch. Unfortunately, it is not portable and any changes to its physical location often result in the need for a fresh deployment to ensure everything functions properly."
"NetExtender did nothing to improve my organization - in fact, it was quite the opposite. Users constantly complained of lag and unbearable sluggishness (with a max speed of 10-30kbps) through the VPN, even though we have relatively high bandwidth for a small office (400mbps)."
"The solution takes more bandwidth these days and it would be helpful if that was reduced."
"From my experience with using it, we do have problems sometimes with the credentialing-saving parts of it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive. We need more discounted rates in Pakistan. The price of the solution could be reduced to be more affordable for the solution."
"I don't have the licensing schema for the VPN solution because we just purchased the VPN gateway."
"It is not that expensive. It was within the range. A dollar per user per month is nothing."
"It is a yearly subscription license. I don't see a problem with the pricing. Resellers add their markup and then give it to us, but I don't see that as a major challenge. It is fine."
"The pricing is reasonable."
"We are using the free version of this product."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten."
"If we pay for the yearly package that includes the FortiGate firewall, then the FortiClient VPN license is included with it."
"Compared to others, it is cheaper. When we compare it with Palo Alto, Check Point, or Fortinet, it is a little cheaper."
"The solution has a pretty good price."
"You have to pay for its license. There are some other companies that provide a VPN client for free. When you buy NetExtender, its license is available for one, three, or five years."
"After a certain number of users, you require extra licensing."
"The solution is cheap itself, not too costly."
"Cost wise, it would be a few hundred dollars for the base appliance with the first five clients. Then from there, your cost per seat depends on how many you're getting. It's a one-time cost, and then you have a few hundred dollars a year for the maintenance contract once you get the one-time seat costs out of the way."
"The price of SonicWall Netextender is reasonable. Whether it's a small shop with only five users or a larger operation with 130 users, we have received no complaints or objections regarding cost from any of the clients we are looking to deploy it with."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business59
Midsize Enterprise23
Large Enterprise25
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise2
 

Questions from the Community

How does Fortinet FortiClient compare with Open VPN Access Server?
Fortinet FortiClient is a feature-rich solution that is easy to use and deploy without sacrificing safety and security. It has a very fast connection rate and has a built-in VPN. With this solution...
What's the difference between Fortinet's FortiEDR and FortiClient?
I suggest Fortinet’s FortiEDR over FortiClient for several reasons. For starters, FortiEDR guarantees solid protection because it continually scans servers for emerging vulnerabilities, which gives...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiClient?
The solution is not cloud-based; it comes from the firewall itself.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall Netextender?
The pricing for my experience with the setup cost and licensing of SonicWall Netextender is fair. The Netextender itself has no cost. It's the SSL licensing that is attached to the SonicWall. It us...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Netextender?
SonicWall Netextender has not helped with compliance, as it is not applicable for what I'm doing. I've put several feature requests in over the years and they've implemented them all, so it current...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Netextender?
Getting to local resources on a customer's network is my main use case with SonicWall Netextender or SonicWall SSL-VPN. As a managed service provider, all my customers have SonicWalls and I get int...
 

Also Known As

FortiClient
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Black Gold Regional Schools, Amadeus Hospitality, Jefferson County, Chunghwa Telecom, City of Boroondara, Dimension Data
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiClient vs. SonicWall Netextender and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
917,433 professionals have used our research since 2012.