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Fortinet FortiSandbox vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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 FortiSandbox
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Threat Deception Platforms (6th)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSandbox is 5.4%, down from 7.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.3%, up from 1.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiSandbox5.4%
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series2.3%
Other92.3%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Abdelhamid Saber - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Security & Infra Technology Systems Engineer at BARQ Systems
Enhanced network security with adaptable integration and really good support
We use FortiSandbox for scanning files and images that pass through our networks. It integrates with different devices, such as five adapters and other Fortinet devices It is time-saving and more secure. It saves us from a lot of antivirus and anti-malware issues. The adapter is beneficial as it…
AV
Cyber security consultant at L&T Technology Services
Enhance cybersecurity for large enterprises using advanced threat management
An improvement could be the integration of security intelligence with Palo Alto cloud via APIs. This would allow IOCs, domains, and hash values to be automatically entered, reducing manual entry. Integration with CSIRT across all use levels would make it easier for administrators to stay updated on the blocked entities without manual intervention.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is very good because it catches a lot of threats in emails."
"The most valuable feature is the protection and the way it works, the technology is what I like the most."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It is an easily scalable solution."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiSandbox are the analysis options, artificial intelligence, and the many interfaces it provides."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiSandbox are customization, ICAP protocol, and integration with other vendors. Additionally, the security work very well."
"The GUI makes administration tasks straightforward."
"Fortinet FortiSandbox's most valuable feature is the security it provides against threats, such as ransomware. Additionally, it integrates well with APIs."
"It offers a single pane of glass for all the different types of installations."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is better than Fortinet, mainly in its SP3 structure, flexibility, and reliability, and based on feedback from customers."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"I like the UI. Most things are accessible from the user interface and it is quite user-friendly. With respect to both VM-based firewalls and physical firewalls, it's easy to create updates."
"I recommend going with the VM series, as it integrates advanced technological standards on a single platform and supports Kubernetes and Docker, which other vendors often don't offer."
"The most valuable feature is that you can control your traffic flowing out and coming it, allowing you to apply malware and threat protection, as well as vulnerability checks."
"You already can scale it if you put it in Auto Scaling groups. If you put it in a load balancer, it should already be able to scale."
"From a Synapse perspective, they have better visibility, better CV detection, better exposure detection, and it is in a single tool, so we are happy with it."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiSandbox can improve by decreasing the time of analysis response. Other solutions have a better response time, such as WildFire."
"The delivery feature in my country is extremely bad."
"The licensing can be very confusing. It needs to be simplified."
"Sometimes, there are issues upgrading the version of the firewall or the SD-LAN box. After we upgrade to the latest version of the software, we still have the same box. I think it's the same for every vendor."
"The use cases in Fortinet FortiSandbox are not good. It is difficult to upload a custom VM for Fortinet FortiSandbox. The integration of Fortinet FortiSandbox with other Fortinet or FortiGate firewalls is not good. VMs are already installed in the hardware and are working fine, but we tried to approve the custom VM many times but did not succeed."
"The integration is limited. The solution needs to offer better integration with multiple vendors."
"The reporting tools could be improved in Fortinet FortiSandbox."
"At least once a week we have a false alarm. This needs to be adjusted so that we get fewer of these occurrences."
"The web interface is very slow, and it needs to be faster."
"There are some deficiencies in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Having those features missing, we are not proposing Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to all customers."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"The flexible throughput in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series can be improved"
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a complex product to work with."
"It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."
"From time to time, they have released some content updates that have some issues, maybe twice a year."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license for Fortinet FortiSandbox depends on the use case."
"I rate the product's pricing a five or six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low, and ten is high."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSandbox is not expensive."
"Altogether, it is about €10,000 for the Sandbox and Email Gateway."
"FortiSandbox is a subscription that can be purchased from Fortinet directly. Only using FortiSandbox as features purchased as a subscription in the cloud."
"The solution is not expensive at all."
"It is an expensive solution."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. We have an additional feature that is integrated with S5, which is working well."
"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall.​"
"The product's most valuable feature is pricing."
"One of the factors for selecting Palo Alto was they had flexible pricing. They had a pay-as-you-go model. Comparable to other products, such as Check Point, the price point was definitely a plus."
"It is not the cheapest on the market. The total cost for two firewall instances is $75,000. This includes licenses, deployment fees, and support for two years."
"The solution is a little bit expensive compared to other vendors."
"There is a need to make payments toward a yearly subscription-based model in which you need to add modules that you want to use in your company."
"Regarding pricing, I initially downloaded the product for feature comparison purposes, not specifically due to pricing concerns. However, the current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing. Simplifying the pricing structure would be beneficial, especially given the duplication of services in some cases, leading to increased costs."
"I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSandbox?
The real-time analysis capability of FortiSandbox is beneficial for email analysis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSandbox?
I think it's affordable. For the six to seven months of usage, the cost has been reasonable.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSandbox?
We sometimes face a delay in email scanning due to not having multiple virtual machines. Improvements could be made in dynamic scanning, scanning all email components such as URLs and attachments, ...
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...
How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?
Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
 

Also Known As

FortiSandbox
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSandbox vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,422 professionals have used our research since 2012.