# SonicWall: how AI models rank it, September 2026

IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition. Named in 17 judge labels across 2 categories by 12 of 12 models. Page: https://it-ai-index.com/vendors/sonicwall/

## Standing by category

| Category | Share | Rank | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Next-generation firewalls | 2% | 14 | 50% | 16 |
| Email security | 0% | 59 | 100% | 1 |

## What the models said for it

- "The best next-generation firewall for a company with a limited budget is the SonicWall (Gen 7 / TZ & NSa) or the Untangle NG Firewall (Arista)." (Llama 4 Maverick, Firewalls)
- "SonicWALL offers competitive pricing, making it a cost-effective solution for small to medium-sized businesses" (Claude Haiku 4.5, Firewalls)
- "with SonicWall as a strong alternative if you want simpler management and possibly a lower upfront spend" (GPT-5.4 mini, Firewalls)
- "SonicWall if you want a mid-tier solution with solid features at a lower cost" (Perplexity Sonar, Firewalls)

## And against it

- "Critical SSL-VPN vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-40766, CVE-2024-53704) with CVSS scores up to 9.3 ... Consider disabling SSL-VPN if not essential" (Kimi K2, Firewalls)
- "Verdict: Avoid (or patch immediately)" (GLM 4.7 FlashX, Firewalls)
- "Multiple critical vulnerabilities (CVE-2022-22274, CVE-2023-0656) ... over 178,000 SonicWall firewalls publicly exploitable" (MiniMax M2.5, Firewalls)
- "some legacy firmware and VPN appliances (such as the SMA series) have suffered from highly publicized exploits" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, Firewalls)

## Record

- Method: https://it-ai-index.com/methodology/
- Raw judge labels and full responses: https://it-ai-index.com/data/
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as IT AI Recommendation Index, September 2026 Edition, it-ai-index.com.