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Check Point Quantum Force vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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 FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
591
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Check Point Quantum Force
Ranking in Firewalls
28th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
19th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
Abnet Tsegaye Belay - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has strengthened perimeter security through AI-driven protection and unified management
I have noticed some limitations with Check Point Quantum Force. There is a limitation in integrating with existing infrastructure, such as orchestration and logging, specifically with VPNs. VPNs are hard and sophisticated to deploy on this firewall. However, it is improving currently. Some performance aspects need higher resources. If you do not give it higher resources, it will slow down your network. It is a trade-off - if you have higher resources, you will have good performance. The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs. It has to be simpler to understand.
Rohit Ghorpade - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Identity-based perimeter control has improved security and supports reliable remote access
Currently, we are working with vendors such as Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, Cisco, Check Point, and Citrix. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is a better firewall. Deep packet inspection and threat prevention basically comply with whatever traffic is incoming and outgoing through the firewall. I do not think anything improvement is required. The thing is that Palo Alto Networks PA-Series works mostly on a license-based model. If you want to utilize any feature, you have to purchase the license. For example, URL filtering requires a license purchase. It simplifies the implementation because LDAP server profile can be integrated. Basically, that simplifies the implementation of access rule or security policy.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When you start looking at the cost of the license for all the things that you get, Fortinet is by far the best option."
"Fortinet FortiGate meets all the security demands of my industry. It covers endpoint security, including web interface, DNS security, and ELP. I'm currently using the latest version. The features that have most improved our network security are Web Control, filtering, application control, IDS, IPS policies, and Deep SSL inspection."
"Its interface is the most valuable. It is quite easy to manage."
"For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."
"If you need real and effective security for your network, do not hesitate to buy a Fortigate appliance."
"FortiGate protects and secures our clients' networks. The security is solid, and it performs well. I think they use some artificial intelligence, so I think it's excellent equipment."
"By using Fortinet FortiGate, I significantly reduced major attacks that could exploit my network."
"The interface is very good."
"The security features and layered security features are better compared to others."
"The most valuable features I find in Check Point Quantum Force are the security policy features, including all security features that are provided by firewall, IPS/IDS."
"The outcomes from Check Point Quantum Force firewall gave us the ability to be fit and secure from the cyber world."
"In performance and threat prevention, it has benefited my cybersecurity strategy."
"The solution provides good customer support."
"The solution is easy to manage."
"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced, almost 90% faster compared to other solutions. This leads to quicker deployment and less downtime."
"When I compare the tool with other firewalls, it’s the most powerful. It's the most powerful security engine. All the traffic going to the Internet passes through it as the first layer of protection. Because of its good performance, we also use it for decryption."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is basically integrated with LDAP to fetch the identity of the users and we provide access based on the identity."
"It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"The most effective features for threat prevention in the PA-Series are its integration with Cortex and the use of machine learning AI for advanced threat detection."
 

Cons

"Areas of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate include the need for more training and certification, especially when dealing with distributors globally, which presents challenges in product availability and delivery timelines."
"We had some issues in the beginning while setting it up, but after doing the firmware update, it is working fine."
"They should improve the interface to make it more user-friendly."
"This product needs to have an analysis feature, rather than having the analysis done through the integration of a different product."
"FortiGate can only retain logs for 24 hours or 7 days. I'm not sure if it holds them for a longer period, such as for a month."
"There are some license issues. Not every feature must have a separate license."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"There should be more testing before releasing software since it can be a little buggy sometimes when new features come out after updates."
"I see good competition which is less expensive."
"Check Point Quantum Force does not have strong local support. We are based in India, and Check Point Quantum Force does not have extensive local support in our region."
"The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs."
"I have observed weaknesses in Check Point Quantum Force, particularly when configuring tunnels from any point product to a peer, which has very complex configuration requirements."
"The solution's licensing price could be improved."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved because it is an expensive solution."
"There are constant updates for the operating system. It is a nice thing also, but it has its own disadvantages. Continuous updates are there. The users face issues like, how often do I need to update that? Within a period of five months, I'm updating it two or three times. It gives them a feeling that they are not confident about their product and have to update it so frequently."
"I encountered a slight issue with the application portal, which was not functioning correctly."
"The support has been shaky. Initially, it took one or two hours to get a Palo Alto engineer, which is quite slow. I expect faster response times."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive. We would like to see additional threat hunting features."
"I experienced some problems with AWS cloud parameters connected to Palo Alto firewall."
"The SD-WAN feature of Palo Alto Networks is not good compared to FortiGate."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Its price is reasonable. They have a clear pricing policy. It is not complicated by the number of VPN users at a time. We know what the price is. The yearly subscription for the security license is rather high, but it is all included for whatever number of users you have and the kind of functions you need."
"The price, in comparison to other products is very cheap."
"It's not the cheapest, but it's value for money. Given everything we've got out of it: the DMZ port, the VPN, and the high availability, it's a pretty reasonable price."
"It is not the cheapest one, but its price is very competitive."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. Its one-year license cost is competitive with three and five-year licenses offered by other products."
"When comparing this solution to others, I would rate it a ten out of ten in terms of pricing. However, the issue of requiring a separate license for redundancy is a drawback, and I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."
"You need to pay a license for this solution. Our licensing is now done in our subsidiary."
Information not available
"Palo Alto is more expensive than FortiGate."
"From my perspective, managing the price is important, especially because we're a small business. For larger organizations like Barclays, we provide our requirements to the client, and they place the order on BigFix. It's their responsibility to consider their budget and make decisions accordingly. We appreciate the features we get, but the cost-sharing still depends on the client."
"The product is expensive."
"This product has an affordable and reasonable price point."
"The tool's pricing was reasonable when we bought the product. We pay around 60,000 dollars per year."
"The cost varies depending on the device model, with entry-level firewalls priced around $1,300 to $1,500, while higher-end models can reach prices of several hundred thousand dollars."
"Compared to other vendors, Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive."
"The product is offered to users at high prices compared to the pricing model of the other vendors in the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business367
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise193
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise17
 

Questions from the Community

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What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Quantum Force?
In terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing, many users and clients say that the pricing is high. The license stru...
What needs improvement with Check Point Quantum Force?
I would assess Check Point Quantum Force's real-time threat intelligence in guarding against ransomware as not effect...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Quantum Force?
I am dealing mostly with firewalls and I am working with Check Point Quantum Force. I have utilized the capability to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
If we look at the features, then the price is good, but they do charge for the GlobalProtect VPNs. Overall, the prici...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
Licenses are too costly. As I compare with Check Point or other OEM, the licenses are too much more costly and they s...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
I am still using a Check Point, but CloudGuard is not enabled on that one. I am using it for internal purposes only. ...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
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Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Quantum Force vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.