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FireMon Security Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 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

FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
91
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 17.8%, up from 15.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 7.1%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Palo Alto Networks Panorama7.1%
FireMon Security Manager17.8%
Other75.1%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Ganesh-Khutwad - PeerSpot reviewer
Rapid policy insights with robust dashboards and cross-vendor automation
FireMon Security Manager is excellent for real-time compliance management. It allows us to quickly retrieve any policy needed for testing and easily analyze it for loopholes. If a loophole exists, FireMon provides comprehensive details within the policy manager. It alerts us to firewall rule additions or changes that violate compliance policies. It supports various firewall platforms, including Checkpoint, Zscaler, Fortinet, Cisco, and AWS, and provides centralized management for all configured policies through a single console. FireMon Security Manager provides many features, like whether my firewall is compatible with required standards such as NTP and SNMP. Each compliance included in our RFPs is shown in the UI of FireMon. It gives robust and clear dashboards, making it easier to understand risks because the policies have ratings showing usage, and the number of hit attacks. It streamlines our compliance reporting processes by providing comprehensive risk and compliance assessments. It offers a range of features, including verification of firewall compatibility with protocols like NTP and SNMP, and detection of signal charges. FireMon effectively addresses all compliance requirements outlined in our RFPs. For instance, it can determine if firewalls or proxies within a stack are configured in Secure Mode or Active-Active mode. FireMon Security Manager enables us to generate reports on all these aspects, ensuring thorough compliance monitoring and documentation. FireMon Security Manager is robust and can help automate firewall policy changes across large multi-vendor enterprise environments. FireMon Security Manager helps automate firewall policy changes across various environments, including on-premises, cloud, hybrid, SASE, and SD-WAN. It also simplifies cleaning up firewall rules in our environment. The time required to accurately create, approve, and deploy firewall policy rules has been reduced. Tasks that took 30 minutes can now be completed in just five minutes using FireMon. FireMon provides immediate visibility into our policies through a robust and clear dashboard, making it easy to identify errors or misconfigurations based on the policy rating.
Waleed Aboda - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized monitoring enhances control while seeking greater flexibility and rapid response
I am still working for Lotus. We work with Palo Alto three series, Panorama, and Firewall Banu, specifically Firewall three series and five series I find this solution valuable for full monitoring, centralized control for reporting, and centralized management. These features are instrumental in…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature is the reporting capability because everything that we do is a result of our being able to query a report, based on our environment and our PCI compliance efforts."
"I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement."
"The most valuable feature of FireMon is its ability to configure multiple devices and consolidate them into a single desktop, which allows us to manage all of our security devices, such as Palo Alto and Zscaler, from one place."
"The most valuable feature is the Firewall reviews for our company compliance."
"The Security Manager part of FireMon... gives me an eye on everything that's out there, everything that I cannot see. Because I'm not a network admin, I cannot go to a firewall itself, but at least I have FireMon so that I can go in and view everything that I want to view. And I can eliminate whatever I see that is wrong,"
"FireMon Security Manager is a fast and intelligent device that delivers results in under ten seconds, even with thousands of policies."
"The most valuable feature is that everything is recorded in the historical logs, including the firewall rules, headcounts, object-level usage, and the rule documentation. The rule certification details are also there, which means that someone can be held accountable for a specific firewall rule."
"Policy test, access path analysis, and change reports."
"It's a reliable solution."
"The threat prevention and layer seven security features were the most used and important for us. All operations are quite good in this solution."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama is stable."
"Panorama is very easy, easy to administrate, and easy to control."
"What's most valuable in Palo Alto Networks Panorama is that it allows us to see the status on the network side, particularly on the endpoint, because we also use it for the internal network."
"I would improve the management. I need to view charts and traffic statistics, but the management console doesn't share that information with me."
"Technical support is quite helpful."
"I found logging and management features the most valuable in Palo Alto Networks Panorama. Another good feature of the product is that it lets you define global firewall policies and templates."
 

Cons

"The initial setup can take some time, including connecting it and configuring it. It's not something that is easy for anybody to do. There is time and energy required because of the number of systems you have to configure to get it to work properly."
"Its reporting can be improved. I am the only one who works a lot with it, and I am having problems in terms of reporting. In the case of Palo Alto, I'm okay with it, but with some of the Cisco devices, such as routers, when I provide the reports to other teams for review, they always say that the hit count is incorrect. So, I was struggling for a long time to work with them. When working with other teams, they have a lot of questions about reporting, such as how it reports, and we are still struggling with that."
"The issue for me started with Fortinet not being able to see things correctly. It lost its appeal in terms of what it could do for me from a security standpoint, so I do not pay as much attention to it."
"Our firewalls have multiple paths through them and FireMon falls short a little bit because it's not Palo Alto-centric. I don't think FireMon has kept up with where Palo Alto is at. They started out being Check Point-centric for years and they've never really fully embraced the nuances others, like Palo Alto or Fortinet, have. They don't handle a lot of the capabilities and attributes that Palo Alto does yet. They're working on it. They're getting there."
"The stability has been fairly decent, but there have been a few issues. My coworker has had some issues in the past where he has had to work with support."
"The current health and monitoring of the devices is atrocious... Imagine you have a list of 200 devices, and you can grade each of those devices as either green, yellow, or red. However, there might be three different reasons for you to go to red, or eight different reasons to go to yellow, and all of those things could be combined... Out of all those categories, I only find one or two of them that are, perhaps, pertinent."
"The cost of the solution is pretty expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on their pricing."
"FireMon could be made more user-friendly when it comes to creating filters or conducting traffic analysis."
"The alerts in Palo Alto Networks Panorama could improve by integration with other systems, such as a forwarding trigger system. For example, if a customer has their own system it would be helpful to have the alarms integrated."
"My company's getting whatever it needs from Palo Alto Networks Panorama, but in the cloud, there's an issue with CPU management, and that's an area for improvement. Though the normal data traffic doesn't go through the management interface, whenever there's an increase in the throughput, CPU management becomes high. If you increase the load, CPU management spikes, and it's what needs to be taken care of in Palo Alto Networks Panorama."
"The ability to add scheduled jobs would be a significant improvement. Panorama has the ability to push out OS updates, but it would be nice to be able to schedule those updates so not to affect the site during normal business hours."
"It could be more secure."
"When extracting reports to a CSV file, the lack of correlation to the actual report generated is an issue. You get a CSV file with a vague name, which is inconvenient when sorting through multiple reports."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"A bottleneck in Palo Alto Networks Panorama is the licensing. The licensing model for the product is complicated. Another area for improvement is the PDF report generation because you'll notice that it's missing some details."
"From a storage perspective, I would like to see an improvement where logs can be compressed to make some space available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"Pricing is reasonable."
"Pricing model seems fair."
"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."
"Regarding additional costs, if you want things like Policy Optimizer, extra features, that's extra."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."
"We pay for it yearly."
"Palo Alto products are generally priced higher compared to their competitors."
"Palo Alto is expensive and there are many cheaper firewalls, but they do not work as well."
"Although I don't have direct knowledge of the setup cost I believe it is mid-range."
"We pay approximately $3,000 a year in order to use the product."
"With the URL filtering, we probably went down from around four hours in response time to about five minutes."
"We have a yearly license. The cost is not that high and not that cheap either."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has so many licenses. For example, it has threat protection and group protection licenses. One license depends on another. I find it more expensive than Cisco."
"The pricing model is reasonable for this class of solutions."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise44
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business32
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise47
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FireMon?
I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
Comparatively, FireMon has a very good price and is below the general competition in cost. I have not seen any additional fees beyond the general contract fees for the usage I have. So, I have not ...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
For one company I work with, I use Fortinet, and FireMon is not able to understand the zones that Fortinet uses. Part of that compliance piece does not provide me with the necessary information. An...
What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
If you go with the cloud-based deployment, it is pretty much affordable. If you go with the physical bare-metal hardware, then it is quite expensive.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
I do see some disadvantages with Panorama. If your staff is not technical enough, you have to be very careful if you have production devices on Panorama because once you push any changes, those get...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about FireMon Security Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,783 professionals have used our research since 2012.