Ivanti Connect Secure vs SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 Series: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)

Short answer

Mid-market and enterprise teams building zero trust remote access will find Ivanti Connect Secure's per-application VPN with dynamic policies and real-time device verification more practical than traditional full-tunnel VPNs that grant blanket network access. The platform's strength in PR.AA (identity and access control) and DE.CM (continuous monitoring) means you get granular policy enforcement tied to device posture, not just user identity. Skip this if you need clientless web access as your primary use case; the clientless mode works but feels secondary to the unified client experience. Mid-market and enterprise teams managing hybrid infrastructure need SonicWall Secure Mobile Access (SMA) 1000 Series because it handles scale without forcing you to choose between on-premises control and cloud flexibility. The appliance supports up to 1 million remote users and 20,000 concurrent connections while maintaining NIST PR.AA compliance through native SSO and multi-factor authentication integration with RSA SecurID, Duo, and Azure. Skip this if your priority is zero-trust network segmentation for internal traffic; SMA 1000 Series excels at remote access but doesn't replace a dedicated microsegmentation platform.