We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate-VM and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."I really like the captive portal feature for our guest network. It has nice VLAN features in terms of separating our network. The anti-virus is also good."
"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."
"The most valuable feature is the FortiManager for centralized management."
"With FortiClient, you can easily connect when you are home, check out what you want to do, and connect to your network when you are not at work. You can switch on servers and you can check what is wrong."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the APIs. They are the most widely known."
"It has very easy management and an amazing ETM configuration."
"The stability and scalability of this solution are satisfactory. Its SD-WAN, VPN, and URL filtering features are very useful."
"Customers want to load balance more than eight lines or six internet lines. FortiGate is the only solution that can accomplish this."
"The most valuable features we have found to be the VPN, ease of use, and overall simplicity."
"It is a complete package, and it has complete offerings. It fit the needs, and our customer is happy with it."
"I've found the UTM features and the SD-WAN to be most valuable."
"Initial setup is very straightforward with a wizard, if needed."
"Initial setup was quite straightforward, as we can simply head to the required sections to apply the planned network."
"It is very versatile."
"It gives all the features of a full-fledged firewall with great performance."
"Web filtering and the IPS functionality."
"The solution strengthens our IT posture."
"The main advantage of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series stems from the fact that you can access it with the help of cloud services."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series has everything centralized. You have the VPN solution, firewall, routing, UDR, flexibility, updates, and full visibility of your traffic."
"We have reduced the number of configuration lines by 90%. We need fewer number of admins right now because of it."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"The VM-Series reports how much bandwidth a particular IP is using. You don't need to regularly log into a website, like a Cisco command, to see what kind of ACL it's getting. There isn't an ACL use portal event. You can go there and see how much my ACL has been getting me."
"Palo Alto’s Panorama centralized management system simplifies our security posture based on our requirements. Instead of manually pulling logs, then generating them into readable formats, it gives us the console in a readable format to view."
"The Web-filter in this solution is not very good."
"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"NGN, reporting and controls."
"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."
"Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve to be on par with its competitors, such as Palo Alto and Sophos. They are the market leaders. Fortinet FortiGate needs to improve its capabilities. However, we are happy with Fortinet FortiGate."
"Maybe they could make some features more accessible, such as a way to translate directions between two networks that share the same subnets."
"The reports are very basic."
"The operating system isn't stable, so it goes to memory counters every night."
"The scalability feature of the solution has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"We encountered scalability issues in IPSec Module. The tunnels freeze sometimes."
"The product may not be as robust as Palo Alto. However, unless you are a big bank, you probably won't need it to be."
"In the next release, we would like to see full integration with VMware NSX virtualized networks."
"Right now, we have two data centers that are a thousand kilometers apart. It would be nice to be able to string them together."
"Improvements are needed for the responsive UI and JIT traffic reporting."
"Their offering for MFA isn't the cleanest."
"The product's AIOps process needs improvement."
"At the beginning of the implementation, we had some difficulties with the scripts, but Palo Alto Networks support together with a local partner finally fixed it."
"Palo Alto should update their documentation to make it more readable and provide easier-to-follow instructions through videos."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration between the endpoints and the firewalls."
"The solution needs to have more easily searchable details or documentation about it online, so it's easier to Google if you have queries."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"It can definitely improve on the performance."
"Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is ranked 9th in Firewalls with 113 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate-VM is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate-VM writes "An easy-to-manage and configure tool that provides ample documentation to help with the setup phase". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Fortinet FortiGate-VM is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiOS, OPNsense, Cisco Secure Firewall and Netgate pfSense, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Huawei NGFW. See our Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most.
PA is good at app control, web filtering and such like, they have always been top of the pile there. The GUI is very good, and their product is very user-focused.
Fortinet is good for scalability and predictable high throughput (ASICs in the hardware), and useful things like authentication flexibility, CLI config (if you have any networking/Cisco people, they always seem to prefer CLI over GUI) and have better OT features, maybe relevant to your manufacturing use?
Fortinet seem to have a broader integration offering with their security fabric than PA do, plus they can do Fortinet-based wifi, switching, etc. Depends if you are prepared to go all-in with a single vendor.
Hi,
Both FT and PA have compelling features for large Enterprises. I would like to add a few good points about Fortinetwhich might be helpful ( from my 13 years of engagement with them as Distributor and Partner)
Fortinet:
Have higher throughput; which comes with competitive rates
Wide range of models to select to meet your requirement, without spending heavliy
Outstanding customer support and very active customer care team
Easly available skilled resources from the channel for deployment and post-implementation support
Regards
Abhilash
Hello. The question is what you are going to have as a result of application