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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Palo Alto Networks CN-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
151
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
34th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM2.2%
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series0.4%
Other97.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Ehab Ali - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Presales Consultant at a computer software company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Unified security fabric has simplified multi-country deployments and strengthened threat response
FortiGate VM delivers exceptional performance and security with no degradation of service or protection (same features as the HW option). As part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, it extends across clouds and distributed locations, mitigating blind spots in virtual infrastructures. FortiGate VM can be rapidly deployed, managed through a centralized platform, and offers a range of purchasing options to suit every need. Also, FortiGate VM offers versatile deployment options across both public and private clouds, supporting all major public clouds including AWS, Azure, and Google as well as most hypervisors such as VMware, Hyper-V, and KVM. These deployments enable organizations to create scalable, high-performance firewalls that can be tailored to different virtualized environments and hyper-scale public cloud infrastructures. FortiGate VM integrates seamlessly with various infrastructure as code (IaC) tools such as Jenkins and GitLab, supporting security as code practices.
Ahmed_Shalaby - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cyber Security Engineer at Beta Information Technology
Application control excels and integration with monitoring system boosts efficiency
I am an integrator working with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series and Panorama. I have been involved with the implementation of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent. Application control is one of the most valuable features. Its monitoring capability…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"FortiGate integrates well."
"The performance overall is very good."
"It's great that we can have separate services for the same client, and it's a complete solution where you only need to deploy it once and can have many clients and many services for these clients in the same VM."
"If you have enough budget and care about performance, Fortinet is a good choice."
"It is highly scalable because it has a mesh architecture that allows consistent policies."
"I observed a fifty to sixty percent reduction in operational costs after migrating to FortiGate VM."
"The fact that it is a complete ecosystem with all kinds of integrations is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is that its IPsec works perfectly."
"The app inspection is very helpful for network security."
"The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent."
 

Cons

"We occasionally have issues when we are doing firmware updates."
"The licensing needs to be improved. We need longer licensing periods, especially for POCs and trials. It should be for six months. Right now, it's too short of a timeframe."
"Fortinet could improve the availability and delivery of its products. It takes four to six weeks for every purchase to arrive."
"Interoperability could be improved."
"It would be useful to have integration with different reporting tools. This is something we are sorely missing. It would be a plus to have reporting integrations. It would be good to have more integration with the identity suites, such as Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, of different providers that we use. Integrations are already available, but it would be nice to have some more advanced options."
"Interoperability could be improved. The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively."
"The pricing is expensive."
"Not a ten because I think that Cisco is better."
"I'd like to see more IOPs features."
"Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"At present, the SD-WAN licenses are on an annual basis."
"It is an expensive solution if you are migrating from an open source solution."
"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."
"The price of the solution could be less expensive. There are some features that have to be purchased separately that have their own license."
"VMs can be affordable, but for high-demand scenarios, I'd still recommend the hardware. For the cost, it's a ten out of ten."
"It is more expensive than its competitor, e.g. Sophos."
"The product is expensive. Users can opt for a one-year, two-year, three-year, or five-year subscription model when it comes to licensing."
"The price is similar to Symantec Endpoint, but it's more expensive than Forcepoint solutions. Fortinet is better than Forcepoint."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
7%
University
12%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business74
Midsize Enterprise35
Large Enterprise43
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
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 a...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigate VM integrates well and has excellent centralized reporting. It is very easy to...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
I am not involved in the pricing and costs associated with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, as those are handled by the CFO. We are in operations, and we just access the product as it is and take care of the...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?
The pricing of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is quite expensive, rating around eight on a scale of one to ten for cost.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive. The SD-WAN implementation using Panorama needs enhancement because it involves a specific plugin and configuring ...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?
I am an integrator working with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series ( /products/palo-alto-networks-cn-series-reviews ) and Panorama. I have been involved with the implementation of Palo Alto Networks CN-S...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Palo Alto Networks CN-Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,948 professionals have used our research since 2012.