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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
411
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks K2-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
31st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
34
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.8%, up from 17.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 1.9%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Q&A Highlights

DL
Mar 23, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Sitti Ridzma Salahuddin - PeerSpot reviewer
Integrates seamlessly and helps with real-time threat response
Since the solution we offered was a complete suite with Fortinet FortiGate-VM, it was easier for them to manage because they have FortiManager as well. The main reason they wanted to position FortiGate in the cloud was so that they could easily deploy through FortiManager. That was the selling point we had for them. Especially for their multiple branches, where they had approximately 60 sites, and some assets were in AWS, it was really a good deployment opportunity. FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer were also part of that solution.
Krishnakumar M - PeerSpot reviewer
One of the best tools for the prevention of evasive threats
There is a feature called granular application controls, which I liked. Instead of relying on ports and IP addresses, they use AMP ID. This kind of solution is very good. Another valuable feature is the prevention of evasive threats, which is one of the best tools I've encountered. SSL decryption and app ID-based SSL decryption are also impressive, along with the integration with user ID. Identity-based policies ensuring only authorized users can access specific resources are excellent features. Normally, there is something called SIM or SCIM in IDA IDM, but this feature is provided on the box, which is exemplary.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate is user-friendly and affordable."
"For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."
"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."
"A strong point of FortiGate is that the graphical interface is complete and easy to use, especially if we think there is a list of operations that we are able to perform inside."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."
"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"One of the nice things about FortiGate is that it can be deployed on the cloud or on-premises. You can actually do both. That's the biggest reason why I stick with this solution as opposed to something like Cisco Meraki. Another nice thing is that I can log directly into a FortiGate or get to it through their FortiCloud access products. They're pretty reliable and consistent. One of the reasons why I started using the product was their single pane of management. I can deploy their line of firewalls in conjunction with their switching and access points, and I can manage the entire network from one interface. I don't have to log into one interface for the firewall, another one for the access points, and another one for the switches. These firewalls have access point controller functionality built right into the system, so I don't even have to purchase additional devices to manage them."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM are its flexibility and scalability. This solution is available as a license, which allows us to activate it based on the specific needs of the customer. This gives us and the customer a great deal of versatility and customization options."
"The most valuable features are the web proxy for protection and web gateway for deployment."
"There is an interesting possibility of building a tunnel to a firewall from access points. We use this feature for small branch offices with one to two employees with access to central RDP servers."
"The web GUI is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the WAN optimization."
"It is scalable because it is a virtual appliance. You can probably scale it up more."
"I really like that it's internationally deployable."
"The policies are very valuable. They allow me to secure and manage future traffic effectively."
"It is a stable solution."
"Simple integrations with the domain controllers and other inventories"
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is the configuration, it is very clear."
"Palo Alto has better and finer controls than, say, Cisco or Check Point."
"The solution offers effective security features such as HIDS (Host-based Intrusion Detection System) in global products."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is the performance which is above their competitors. The throughput they have delivered is good. When we used other solutions they failed the deployment when we were using different rules. They have a theory perform performance light and performance degradation. However, Palo Alto Networks K2-Series never fails in that scenario."
"I have found that Palo Alto Networks K2-Series has the best security. They are more user-friendly, older firewalls used to have to be configured using the command-line interface, but in this solution, it can be done in the GUI."
"I like the tool's WildFire feature."
 

Cons

"The non-error conserve mode has room for improvement."
"The visibility of the network can be better. The GUI can be improved for better visibility of the network flow. Other solutions have better GUI in terms of network visibility."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"I use the FortiGate 60D model and realized the 300Mbps bandwidth limitation. Because it is a product that offers many services, I think it could have greater bandwidth capacity."
"The price and deployment part of Fortinet FortiGate is good, but it can always be better."
"The anti-malware engine could use an upgrade."
"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."
"The support is the main thing that needs to be improved."
"Compatibility and integration with other products or vendors such as Cisco SD-WAN products need improvement."
"FortiGate-VM could be improved by making it cloud-based. I'd like it to be a cloud-based management solution instead of just a dedicated management orchestration tool."
"There should be a bit more automation."
"The price is problematic."
"​The tech support calls were not the best and could be improved. ​There have been times when we felt as if we knew more about the device than the support person on the phone.​"
"The user interface needs to be improved."
"The interface of the solution could be improved."
"Price-wise, it could be slightly better, however, if you compared it to other makes and models of equal category, it is generally cheaper."
"Its networking features could be better."
"The scalability for on-premises version is limited as it depends on the model."
"It would be nice if it could easily be integrated with Elasticsearch or Nagios."
"The graphical user interface is a little complex and difficult to manage. L1 engineers cannot work on the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series because it's too complex, which requires L2 and above level of engineers."
"It would be really helpful to have dashboards that provide information on IOC blockings such as where and how many. It will also be good to know how many hashing files have been reported. It would also be nice to have easy access to this information. Otherwise, it's a painful, manual task."
"The product should get frequent updates allowing us to add new signatures."
"Palo Alto releases a lot of bug fixes for their firewalls, which means it's necessary to do frequent upgrades. They should work on decreasing their bugs so that upgrades aren't needed so often."
"The tool needs to improve integration with more products from other vendors. I would like the product to add threat intelligence features as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is very competitive."
"In terms of the market, it's not a cheap product, but it's cost-effective."
"Fortinet FortiGate is expensive."
"Fortinet FortiGate allows you to purchase licenses for hardware and software."
"Fortinet is reasonable in pricing and licensing. Overall, FortiGate is affordable. The licensing fee can be a little high, depending on the budget for your project."
"The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."
"The pricing for the product is alright."
"It was worth the money overall. It's good value."
"The pricing is really good."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is a high price, and ten is a low price."
"The price is similar to Symantec Endpoint, but it's more expensive than Forcepoint solutions. Fortinet is better than Forcepoint."
"The cost of this product is too high."
"At present, the SD-WAN licenses are on an annual basis."
"Of all the firewalls that we compared, FortiGate is the cheapest and most affordable, so we are satisfied with the pricing."
"Installation does not require another license making it an inexpensive solution."
"​The basic pricing in Austria is OK, but asking for special offers, e.g., NPOs, NGOs, trade up, and/or trade in, is always useful.​"
"This is an expensive solution, although you will get value for the price."
"When comparing Palo Alto Networks K2-Series with other solutions it is on the higher end of the price scale."
"This solution is expensive compared to other, similar products."
"It would be nice if they lowered their prices for small businesses."
"The pricing is expensive."
"Products by the leader in the field are justifiably a bit more expensive compared to other vendors."
"The overall price of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could be reduced."
"It is an expensive solution."
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Answers from the Community

DL
Mar 23, 2021
Mar 23, 2021
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...
2 out of 4 answers
AT
Mar 20, 2021
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
LD
Mar 22, 2021
Hi PaloAlto is better when working on app control feature and special virtual wire links. Execpt that specific point, Fortinet is above. Best Regards, Damien
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Performing Arts
23%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
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 ...
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...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?
The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable and there are no complaints about the licensing.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?
The graphical user interface is a little complex and difficult to manage. L1 engineers cannot work on the Palo Alto N...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?
I use the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series ( /products/palo-alto-networks-k2-series-reviews ) for protection from perimet...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
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
Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
State of North Dakota, SEGA, Alameda County Office of Education, Temple University, VERGE, CAME
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
865,384 professionals have used our research since 2012.