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FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF) 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

FortiGate Cloud-Native Fire...
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
90
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF) is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 7.1%, down from 10.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadJahangir - PeerSpot reviewer
Provided us with a good experience, making it the best firewall for our needs
We are using two Fortinet firewalls. One is as an office firewall for all users behind it, configured with remote VPN for users working from home. The other firewall is for production use, with our applications behind it, ensuring PCI DSS compliance. It is deployed in AWS Cloud FortiGate has…
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 people I work with appreciate the stability of FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF), as they love its reliability."
"The important part of FortiGate CNF is the UPM. It has a significant impact on the network by providing additional attributes such as a binder filter. This feature is very beneficial."
"FortiGate has provided us with a good experience, making it the best firewall for our needs."
"Support is excellent. There is local support through the distributor, which is efficient and provides a friendly relationship."
"Threat detection and prevention features are the most effective aspects of FortiGate CNF."
"I have configured some SD-WAN features, and it's worked pretty well. It manages pretty well, connecting all links to the firewall. It can lower balance and traffic management."
"The ability to launch third-party software is one of the best features because of the variety of software available. For me, it's one of the best ones."
"Unlike other products, the FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall has many features under one appliance."
"On the one or two occasions that I had to make use of technical support, I felt it to be pretty good."
"I like the quality of this product, and it performs. It's the best solution in the IT business."
"We use the solution for centralized monitoring."
"It allows administrators to manage all firewalls from a single interface, reducing the time and effort required for configuration."
"It is great that the records go back to 30 days."
"The compliance features are very effective at identifying things that need to be properly hardened."
"The solution is absolutely stable."
"The most valuable aspect of this solution is the ability to manage our devices centrally. Additionally, we can monitor the workforce connections, receive reports, and use the backup feature."
 

Cons

"The product is very expensive."
"The prices for FortiGate are way too high and are perceived as overpriced."
"For scalability, if the hardware isn't fit or working, the box needs changing."
"They should offer more affordable renewal options or flexible plans for license upgrades."
"There are some bugs that need to be fixed, and they can take some time to resolve."
"There could be more detailed descriptions regarding version upgrades, particularly in terms of the upgrade process."
"There is room for improvement in terms of support."
"I'd like them to add a DNS option for FortiGate."
"The solution requires more flexibility and quicker response times."
"From a storage perspective, I would like to see an improvement where logs can be compressed to make some space available."
"It could be easier to manage. In the future, it should be much easier because it's not very easy to manage. So in the next release, I think it should be much easier to manage, especially in the first configuration. It could also be more stable."
"The general customer feedback is when saving the configuration, it takes a long time. That needs to be fixed. The troubleshooting, the debugging part is also a little bit of a pain. It's not user-friendly on the interface to do our debugging when comparing it with other firewalls, like Forcepoint."
"My pain point is the automation process is not well-documented. There are some things that they could improve on there."
"It can take a few minutes to test to see if any changes are successful or not. This needs to be improved. A commit change should take a second, not a minute or more."
"The dual WAN functionality is missing in this solution."
"The licensing costs are quite high."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is competitive."
"The tool's licensing costs are cheap and yearly."
"FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall is not an expensive solution."
"It is an expensive platform."
"FortiGate's price is really good."
"The pricing is pretty average. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a five."
"Cost-wise, it's very expensive."
"Pricing is high compared to other vendors in the same space. Licensing is also fairly high for different functions to be added on."
"The solution is relatively cheap; I rate it four out of five for affordability."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama could be lower."
"Everyone, I suppose, would like the price to be improved. Price is always a good thing to change."
"There is a license required to use this solution and it is paid annually."
"With the URL filtering, we probably went down from around four hours in response time to about five minutes."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF)?
The pricing is a bit expensive, primarily due to licensing fees. Extra expenses include upgradations beyond licensing.
What needs improvement with FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF)?
The customization of FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF) could be improved, particularly in terms of configurations to better adjust to specific needs.
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?
Palo Alto Networks Panorama is expensive but provides good value for money. For the higher end, the cost is justified. However, for the lower end, a reduction in cost could improve competitiveness.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
From the reporting side, naming the reports properly so that they can be easily identified would be an improvement. Other than that, it works well. There was a bug causing us to not get the latest ...
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about FortiGate Cloud-Native Firewall (FortiGate CNF) vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
864,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.