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

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Download the complete report

Helped 902,988 peers since 2012

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score

4.4

Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers stability, security, and cost savings, yet requires careful sizing for optimal long-term benefits.

Sentiment score

6.5

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series offers cost-effective security solutions with advanced features, providing significant ROI within three to five years.

I observed a fifty to sixty percent reduction in operational costs after migrating to FortiGate VM.

Rahool Sharma

Senior Network Consultant at Visionet Systems Inc.

They have a platform that organizes their networks and access effectively.

Pietro Di Blasi

Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

We haven't used MPLS for over five years now, and it was extremely beneficial to see the changes from MPLS to SD-WAN using Fortinet FortiGate.

reviewer2706363

Chief Technology Officer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

The return on investment with this product is a hard question because security tends to be a cost center rather than a profit center.

Global Network Engineering Technical Lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series will be more reliable and will save money, time, and multiple resources.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Project Engineer at IT Solution

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is definitely worth the investment a company is paying to use it.

Nazish Sameer Shaikh

Senior Network Security Engineer at UNITE HERE HEALTH

Customer Service

Sentiment score

6.3

Fortinet FortiGate-VM's customer service is largely praised for responsiveness, though occasional slow responses affect satisfaction levels.

Sentiment score

6.2

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series customer service is praised for knowledge but criticized for slower response times compared to Cisco.

Their support is helpful and effective.

Rahool Sharma

Senior Network Consultant at Visionet Systems Inc.

The end-user support is delayed at levels L2 and L3.

reviewer1866795

Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

They support us almost instantly.

Khushru_Mistry

Chief Technology Officer at GM Modular

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

They're constantly following up after a case has been opened to ensure that it has been resolved properly.

Global Network Engineering Technical Lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Cisco TAC support comes within five to ten minutes on the call.

Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Initially, it took one or two hours to get a Palo Alto engineer, which is quite slow.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Operations Specialist - MX Operations at Bank Alfalah Limited

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score

6.7

Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers scalability and flexibility for enterprises, though cost and module limitations may pose challenges.

Sentiment score

6.9

The PA-Series provides excellent scalability for enterprises, with virtual models offering adaptability for thousands of users and devices.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM adapts effectively; for example, you have a limited number of VPN connections on VM01, accommodating around 1,000 remote users, and if the customer needs another endpoint, we can deploy VM02 and manage that transition effectively.

Samuel-Mottet

EMEA Enterprise Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

Scalability is well-supported, with the notable ability to implement features easily.

Ino Vitra

Assistant Operation Manger at IIJ Singapore

It can start with a single core and scale up to a 32-core license for a robust deployment.

reviewer1866795

Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

If you talk about virtual firewall, it is easy to autoscale.

Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The solution can handle more than ten thousand users in my organization.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Operations Specialist - MX Operations at Bank Alfalah Limited

There are no restrictions in scalability.

Akhilesh Kumar

Asisstant Manager at Yaskawa America, Inc

Stability Issues

Sentiment score

6.3

Fortinet FortiGate-VM is praised for its stability and cost-effectiveness, despite occasional issues with upgrades and specific modules.

Sentiment score

8.2

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is praised for stability due to consistent updates, high availability, and reliable long-term operation.

The stability of Fortinet FortiGate is excellent.

Subhadip Pakrashi

CEO at Kapstone Technological Services LLP

The product has been very stable, based on my ten to eleven years of experience.

Ino Vitra

Assistant Operation Manger at IIJ Singapore

In the past couple of years, they started releasing numerous new features, and things have become somewhat unstable.

reviewer2706363

Chief Technology Officer at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

I am giving stability a rating of 10 out of 10 because since implementation, we have not observed any issues with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series related to version, vulnerabilities, or anything else.

Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

If the data plane hangs or gets stuck, then we can troubleshoot using the management plane.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Project Engineer at IT Solution

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate-VM needs improved UI, support, reporting, integration, customization, stability, pricing, deployment, performance, AI, and interoperability.

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series faces high costs, complex setup, slow support, and demands for better integration, UI, and features.

You should not look just at a data sheet, but also look at real tests in the field and load tests from companies who are making them.

reviewer2283873

Founder at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively.

Rahool Sharma

Senior Network Consultant at Visionet Systems Inc.

Now, these features require separate products like FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, and a FortiCloud subscription for reporting.

reviewer1866795

Chief Executive Officer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

You can buy cheaper products, but I believe in the value they're giving us.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Global Network Engineering Technical Lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

The interface of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series should be made much more user-friendly.

Michael Chiao

IT Coordinator at CSA Makati

For the next release of the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series firewall, I would like to see logs monitoring included.

Akhilesh Kumar

Asisstant Manager at Yaskawa America, Inc

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers flexible and competitive pricing, appealing to enterprises despite being pricier than open-source options.

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series provides high-end security and support valued by enterprises, despite its higher price compared to competitors.

The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2.

Sitti Ridzma Salahuddin

System Engineer at Trends and Technologies, Inc

I don't have this experience with Fortinet FortiGate-VM because my colleagues in Germany are reaching better prices than me.

Karel Ondracek

Network Administrator at THK Co Ltd

They could be slightly cheaper, however, Fortinet offers a good cost-benefit ratio.

Pietro Di Blasi

Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

The firewall is expensive for every company, but the cost is worth it to ensure maximum security.

Operations Specialist - MX Operations at Bank Alfalah Limited

The price of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive.

Michael Chiao

IT Coordinator at CSA Makati

Overall, the pricing is good, but if they included GlobalProtect, it would be more valuable.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Project Engineer at IT Solution

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers ease of use, robust security features, and integration, valued for affordability, scalability, and strong interface.

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series offers advanced security features and simplified management for organizations prioritizing data security and flexibility.

The more integrated we become, the less we spend on solving bugs and issues, allowing us to reduce time focusing on understanding and improving our network.

Pietro Di Blasi

Pre-Sales Analyst at a comms service provider with 51-200 employees

Fortinet is the only provider to have successfully set up a unified operating system on all its products in the network security ecosystem.

reviewer2742447

System Administrator, Security Engineer, Security Result at a tech vendor with 201-500 employees

For what we need to do, which is setting up a VPN connection between both sides and using it for SSL VPN connections for remote users, it works effectively and we haven't encountered vulnerabilities.

Samuel-Mottet

EMEA Enterprise Solutions Architect at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees

For more quotes and insights, download the Fortinet FortiGate-VM report

Integrated threat intelligence has empowered my organization to adapt to threats by taking a lot of the burden off us; there's just no way we would see the same breadth of knowledge that a vendor or manufacturer would have.

Global Network Engineering Technical Lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series has multiple security features, including antivirus, IPS, and behavior-based analysis.

Project Engineer at IT Solution

The most effective features of the solution are its Magic Quadrant positioning, making it a leading firewall on perimeter areas and internet edges.

For more quotes and insights, download the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series report

Operations Specialist - MX Operations at Bank Alfalah Limited

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Ranking in Firewalls

11th

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

6.8

Number of Reviews

144

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Ranking in Firewalls

19th

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

7.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 PA-Series is 1.1%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM	2.2%
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series	1.1%
Other	96.7%

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Karel Ondracek

Network Administrator at THK Co Ltd

Faced hardware limitations and setup challenges but have improved network protection over time

I spent much time finding exact firmware on Aruba which was working with these guns, but it is not optimal because it is not the latest version, so there could be potential security problems. We decided to replace those access points with another one. I personally have trouble because I don't know the exact life cycle of Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. I don't know if the life of boxes is five years or something else; we moved from our previous company, which sold us to other companies. Before 10 years, we had a special department that took care of core networks, including firewalls. After that, this responsibility fell to me and my colleague. It is not easy to set up these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes properly because we didn't have previous experience with this kind of solution. At first, we set up only a few rules that were not secure enough, and over a couple of years, we improved the settings and security of these Fortinet FortiGate-VM boxes. Currently, I have one Fortinet FortiGate-VM that needs to be replaced next year, and this box is not so powerful, so I need to redirect some traffic to another Fortinet FortiGate-VM. It is stable, but because the CPU processor of this box is not powerful, I need to redirect some traffic to another box. In the future, I need to choose a higher-level box to prevent potential troubles with the power of this box.

Read full review

Identity-based perimeter control has improved security and supports reliable remote access

Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

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.

Read full review

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	74
Midsize Enterprise	34
Large Enterprise	39

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	17

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?

From our perspective, it's quite good. When we have the visibility, we will make our policies depending on the threats that are coming because we are using many different other security measures. F...

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 pricing is good, but if they included GlobalProtect, it would be more valuable.

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?

There is room for improvement in Palo Alto Networks PA-Series in the areas where they can minimize applications and implement features that can be useful for us.

What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?

I am using Palo Alto Networks PA-Series to ensure protection and cybersecurity by preventing and implementing network security features to safeguard networks against threats and malware. I have to ...

Azure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Comparisons

Compared 13% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 10% of the time

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 9% of the time

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Compared 6% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate-VM Competitors

Fortinet FortiGate vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 13% of the time

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 10% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 9% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 8% of the time

OPNsense vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 8% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Fortinet FortiGate-VM

Download Fortinet FortiGate-VM product report

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Download Palo Alto Networks PA-Series product report

Also Known As

FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate-VM delivers robust security services and advanced network management suitable for cloud environments, providing solutions like firewall and SD-WAN, with seamless integration across Fortinet devices.

FortiGate-VM is designed for enterprise security, offering comprehensive features like intrusion prevention and application filtering. It's known for its scalability and flexibility, supporting cloud platforms such as Azure and AWS. It enhances threat response and network management efficiency, thanks to real-time threat response, intuitive integration with existing systems, and cost-effectiveness.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

Strong Security: Offers firewall, intrusion prevention, and application filtering.
SD-WAN Capability: Improves network connectivity and performance.
Scalability: Efficient scaling in cloud environments.
Integration: Seamlessly connects with other Fortinet devices.

What benefits can users expect from Fortinet FortiGate-VM?

Enhanced Network Management: Simplifies deployment with real-time threat response.
Cost-Effectiveness: Optimal for managing network protocols at reasonable costs.
Flexibility in Deployment: Suitable for secure virtual machine operations on platforms like Azure or AWS.

Fortinet FortiGate-VM is predominantly employed in industries requiring stringent data center security, enabling network segmentation and VPN services. It's particularly favored by organizations using virtual and cloud networks due to its Unified Threat Management capabilities, making it an efficient solution for protecting virtual environments from threats.

Fortinet

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is essential for firewall implementation, perimeter defense, securing infrastructure boundaries, web filtering, VPN, and threat prevention. Organizations deploy it for secure cloud connections, internet security, and managing network devices.

Companies trust Palo Alto Networks PA-Series to protect corporate networks from external threats, control traffic between networks, and meet regulatory compliance. Integrating well with applications, it offers centralized management and advanced security features such as IDS, IPS, and GlobalProtect. It ensures stable performance, application-based policy enforcement, and decryption of SSL traffic while providing efficient resource usage and comprehensive logging.

What are the key features?

Stability: Reliable performance for continuous protection.
App-ID: Application-based policy enforcement.
URL Filtering: Prevents access to malicious websites.
Security Controls: Comprehensive threat prevention mechanisms.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies management and operations.
Efficient Resource Usage: Optimized for minimal resource consumption.
Reporting: Detailed logs and analytics for better insights.
Antivirus: Protects against malware and viruses.
WildFire: Advanced threat prevention with machine learning AI.
Protocol Anomaly Detection: Identifies unusual network behavior.
SSL Decryption: Ensures secure traffic inspection.
Encryption: Safeguards sensitive data.
VPN Capabilities: Secure remote access for users.
Active Directory Integration: Streamlines user authentication.
Quality of Service (QoS): Manages network traffic efficiently.

What benefits should be evaluated?

Enhanced Security: Superior threat prevention and detection.
Centralized Management: Streamlined control of network devices.
Regulatory Compliance: Assists in meeting legal requirements.
Operational Efficiency: Reduced resource usage and downtime.
Comprehensive Reporting: Complete visibility into network activities.
Scalability: Adapts to growing network demands.
User Accessibility: Simplifies secure access for remote employees.

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is implemented across industries like healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing. In healthcare, it ensures patient data protection and compliance with HIPAA. Financial institutions utilize it to secure transactions and meet regulatory standards. Retailers benefit from protecting customer information and securing online payments. Manufacturing companies deploy it to safeguard intellectual property and control plant floor operations.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Security7 Networks, COOPENAE

Information Not Available

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series