Hillstone A-Series vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls comparison

Hillstone Networks and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Hillstone Networks is ranked #47, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #6 with an average rating of 8.9. Hillstone Networks holds a 0.2% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 4.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Hillstone Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 96% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 19, 2025

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Hillstone A-Series compete in the network firewall market. Palo Alto Networks often stands out due to its advanced security features and robust support, while Hillstone A-Series offers a cost-effective alternative balancing features with budget considerations.

Features: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer superior threat prevention, application identification, and integration with cloud services, which enhance both security and visibility. Hillstone A-Series is notable for its user-friendly interface and solid performance in secure network management. The primary distinction lies in Palo Alto's focus on advanced security tools and Hillstone's emphasis on efficient network protection.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Palo Alto Networks is renowned for its strong customer service and detailed documentation, which aid in facilitating efficient deployment. Hillstone A-Series has a simplified deployment model that is quicker and less complex, appealing to businesses in need of rapid implementation. The key difference is Palo Alto's comprehensive support versus Hillstone's straightforward, time-saving deployment.

Pricing and ROI: Palo Alto Networks is known for a higher setup cost, attributed to its advanced features and strong security capabilities, while delivering a significant ROI through advanced threat management. Hillstone A-Series offers a lower initial setup cost, providing a considerable ROI by offering essential features at a more accessible price, making it a budget-friendly choice for cost-conscious buyers.

To learn more, read our detailed Firewalls Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

January 2026

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 18.7%, down from 20.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone A-Series is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is 4.6%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	18.7%
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls	4.6%
Hillstone A-Series	0.2%
Other	76.5%

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

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.

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Albert-Wang

Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies

Good performance, responsive support, and an easy setup

We use the product for small and medium-sized businesses. Their scalability is good. They have a lot of choices based on their performance. Even on one unit, they have multiple ports to support customers so that they can connect to different devices. I'd rate the scalability nine out of ten.

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Senthil Kumar Manian

Director at Zuci Systems

Leverage machine learning for real-time attack prevention but the configuration framework could be improved

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. The integration of machine learning in the core of the firewall that provides inline real-time attack prevention is crucial. Palo Alto Networks NG firewalls embed machine learning in their core, which aids in preventing real-time attacks. The effectiveness of this technology improves with each release, bolstering confidence in the product's ability to provide robust security. When we identify a vulnerability, we use Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls to mitigate the threat. We experienced no downtime in the past two and a half years while using Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation firewalls.

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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 easy to implement and easy to configure. The most valuable feature is FortiGate’s content filtering."

"The most valuable features are the possibility of having one fabric for switching on security."

"FortiGate IPS is really easy to use. I don't have any problems with this."

"Fortigate is very scalable to serve our customers' needs. We have scaled already from fifty to more than a hundred instances of Fortinet FortiGate. Around 20 staff are required for deployment and maintenance, mostly engineers."

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall can be described as the most complete solution."

"With Fortinet FortiGate, we improved security significantly."

"FortiGate is flexible and easy to use."

"FortiGate SD-WAN facilitated a smooth transition for our customers between their two internet service providers, ensuring uninterrupted connectivity without any downtime."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The antivirus is very good."

"I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine out of ten, as it is a very good and stable solution, and I recommend it over Check Point, Fortinet, and Cisco; it stands out as the leader."

"The application IDs, application controls, URL filtering, visibility, monitoring, and reporting are the most valuable features."

"Most of the features in Palo Alto are very valuable."

"One of the most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is application symmetries."

"It's a next-generation firewall and it's pretty stable. You don't have to worry about if you restart it for some maintenance. It will just come back."

"I like all the functions and features."

"The solution provides web security, application security, and network security."

"All the features are valuable, but my main one is the straightforward and well-designed GUI. I'm over 50 and have been in this business since the internet started. I'm not a GUI guy; I prefer using the command line. The product's GUI is excellent, and so is the threat intelligence. It's also straightforward to configure and flexible. The solution even has good networking, such as VLAN and subinterfaces, which is great because, in my experience, if the firewall is good, then the router usually isn't and vice-versa, but Palo Alto has both."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pros

Cons

"The solution could be more secure and stable."

"The solution could improve the configuration, there are times the configuration is missing."

"It should be more stable. There should be full integration within Fortinet products themselves as well as with other third-party products. Especially when you're not dealing with SIEM and the correlation of the security box, we want Fortinet to be able to share that information with as many other products as it can."

"The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate IPS could always be improved."

"The firmware updates are sometimes not stable. The stability issues can vary, sometimes happening once a month or quarterly. New firmware updates can occasionally introduce bugs, causing some policies to fail. We then have to raise a ticket, and Fortinet usually provides a fix within a few days."

"The web-cache feature which was previously on the FortiGate device, but was deleted with the recent upgrade should be returned. It was a very valuable feature for us."

"In most cases, the IPS engine uses too many resources, which makes Fortinet FortiGate devices unstable."

"Fortinet's support team consists of a huge networking team, because of which there is a delay in response at times."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"It would be helpful if they could integrate more with third-party security systems."

"The level of control and granularity in terms of rule customization could be enhanced. However, compared to our previous solution, Palo Alto provides much better drill-down capabilities."

"The price could be more friendly, which would be good for Palo Alto and us. If the price were a little lower, then it would be a viable option for mid-level businesses, who may not be able to deploy at the current price point."

"There are some advanced features that we aren't able to use, which include active IP authentication and app ID. We are facing challenges with implementing those two features."

"We would like to see the external dynamic list for this solution improved. The current version does not automatically block malicious IP addresses, which would be very useful."

"This is a difficult product to manage, so the administrator needs to have a good knowledge of it, otherwise, they will not be able to handle it properly."

"The price is high and has room for improvement."

"Enhancements could potentially be made to the firmware to improve its inspectability."

"We are not happy with Palo Alto at all. It would be better if they provided more support for the firewall. We have a few pending issues with the configuration for each application. We cannot deploy them yet due to some support-related problems in the firewall. We have deployed a few policies for DNS spoofing and DNS attacks, but we could only block a few IP addresses through the policy. That's DNS security, and we have configured a few policies for DNS spoofing and more. URL categorization and URL filtering are not yet adequately maintained. For example, if you created a few rules in the rule-based configuration and made some rules downstairs, you will lose some of them if you give access upstairs. It's not giving us a proper solution for which route it is using. We need to apply the application-based policies and URL filtering-based policies. It creates more issues because we are not getting good support from the team."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing for the product is alright."

"The value is the capability of having multiple services with one unique license, not having the limitation per user licensing schema, like other vendors."

"Easy to understand licensing requirements."

"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."

"Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost."

"Its pricing is good. It's average or normal as compared to Palo Alto and Check Point firewalls."

"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall is an expensive solution with a yearly subscription."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"The cost of Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls is significantly higher compared to Huawei."

"The pricing for Palo Alto is very high. The price difference with other vendors is huge because Palo Alto has been the market leader for the last five or six years, and they have a reliable product."

"This is an expensive product, which is why some of our customers don't adopt it."

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are more expensive than Cisco firewalls, but slightly less expensive than Juniper firewalls."

"That solution's pricing and/or licensing are very convoluted."

"Paul Alto is the most expensive solution in this category."

"Palo Alto is not a cheap solution but it is competitive when it comes to subscriptions."

"The product is expensive. With one being the cheapest and ten being the most expensive, I give it an eight."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Computer Software Company

11%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	74
Midsize Enterprise	56
Large Enterprise	85

Questions from the Community

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Hillstone A-Series?

The solution is cheaper than other Western brands. The pricing is reasonable. There are costs for the hardware as wel...

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What needs improvement with Hillstone A-Series?

It would be helpful if they could integrate more with third-party security systems. Often, a client will have deploye...

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What is your primary use case for Hillstone A-Series?

We use these devices in the office or in the public cloud environment to protect networks.

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Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...

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In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...

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Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 4% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

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Hillstone E-Series vs Hillstone A-Series

Compared 42% of the time

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Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 17% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 12% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 9% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 7% of the time

Sophos XG vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 5% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

January 2026

Download Hillstone A-Series product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

December 2025

Download Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

No data available

Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

The Hillstone A-Series effectively enhances network security and protects against cyber threats. It is praised for its ability to prevent unauthorized access, detect and block malicious activities, and ensure the overall integrity of network infrastructure. Its stand-out features include advanced threat detection and seamless integration with existing networks.

Hillstone Networks

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls deliver advanced threat protection with machine learning, enhancing security through real-time attack prevention. Known for application visibility and a user-friendly interface, they offer robust network protection and flexibility in rule creation.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are designed to secure environments with features like GlobalProtect VPN, WildFire malware detection, and unified platform integration. Their strong firewall capabilities and high-performance throughput make them suitable for perimeter and data center protection, VPN configurations, application control, and network segmentation. Users consistently highlight the ease of managing network security policies and integrating third-party tools, ensuring a comprehensive protection strategy. While enhancements in support, training resources, and configuration simplicity are needed, these firewalls are integral for securing both on-prem and cloud environments, aligning with platforms like Azure and AWS.

What are the key features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Application Visibility: Provides insight into network traffic for better control.
Threat Prevention: Uses machine learning for real-time attack prevention.
GlobalProtect VPN: Secures remote access efficiently.
WildFire Malware Detection: Detects and prevents advanced threats.
Unified Platform Integration: Enhances network security through seamless integration with other tools.

What benefits should be evaluated when considering Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Flexibility in Rule Creation: Allows customized security policies to meet specific needs.
High-Performance Throughput: Ensures efficient network operations under high load.
Comprehensive Policy Management: Simplifies overseeing and adjusting security policies.
Robust Endpoint Security: Protects endpoints against sophisticated threats.
Seamless Integration: Works well with third-party tools for a comprehensive solution.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are commonly implemented across industries for securing LAN environments, URL filtering, and ensuring Zero Trust security. They secure both on-premises and cloud infrastructures, often becoming integral parts of security frameworks within enterprises. Leveraging these firewalls in conjunction with Azure or AWS enhances the overall network protection strategies employed by organizations.

Palo Alto Networks

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

1. Google 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. IBM 5. Cisco 6. Oracle 7. Intel 8. HP 9. Dell 10. Apple 11. Facebook 12. Twitter 13. LinkedIn 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. Salesforce 17. VMware 18. Samsung 19. Sony 20. Toshiba 21. Panasonic 22. LG 23. Nokia 24. Ericsson 25. Siemens 26. Philips 27. General Electric 28. Honeywell 29. BMW 30. Mercedes-Benz 31. Audi 32. Volkswagen

SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Sophos and others in Firewalls. Updated: January 2026.

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