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Hillstone CloudEdge vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
592
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Hillstone CloudEdge
Ranking in Firewalls
50th
Average Rating
10.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks NG Firew...
Ranking in Firewalls
6th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
199
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 16.0%, down from 21.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Hillstone CloudEdge is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is 5.1%, up from 3.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate16.0%
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls5.1%
Hillstone CloudEdge0.3%
Other78.6%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
Albert-Wang - PeerSpot reviewer
Technical Consultant at SiS Technologies
Comprehensive cloud security with robust threat protection and VPN capabilities
Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud. This solution has a unified OS system for security products, ensuring that the virtual firewall has similar features to the on-premise solutions. Important features include a VPN, VTech VPN, SSL VPN, QoS, antivirus, threat protection, and sandbox capabilities.
Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Advanced visibility has transformed security policies and provides proactive threat prevention
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are powerful, but there are areas for improvement that could enhance their effectiveness, such as cost and licensing models. One of the main challenges we face is the high cost, especially for small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs), with licensing for features such as threat prevention, URL filtering, and WildFire being quite expensive. Additionally, centralized management with Panorama is a dependency for managing multiple firewalls, leading to added costs and complexity, and the built-in centralized management features could be made more user-friendly. Moreover, the learning curve associated with the initial setup and advanced configuration including NAT, decryption, and routing can be complex for new users, and enhancements in logging and reporting could also improve the user experience. There are a few more areas where improvements could streamline operations, such as optimizing commit times. Sometimes committing changes takes a noticeable amount of time, particularly for larger configurations, so a faster commit option would significantly help during urgent troubleshooting. Easier policy troubleshooting is necessary as well. Even though logs are detailed, finding the exact rule match and issue can still be time-consuming in complex environments, so having automated policy simulation and a recommendation tool would expedite troubleshooting. Additionally, better default templates and best practices for SMB data centers and branch offices would speed up deployment and reduce errors. Enhancing integration visibility through a unified dashboard would simplify monitoring, and improving the firmware upgrade process to allow for a more seamless zero downtime upgrade would also enhance operations, as upgrades are stable but typically require careful planning and downtime.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Security management tool that's easy to integrate and easy to work with. No issues found with its stability and scalability."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"The network security and cloud security are most valuable."
"It is easy to use and update the software version. It is also useful for integration with other Fortinet products, because my office and company use Fortinet solutions."
"Fortinet's scalability and stability are fine because I have three units across India, and none have gone down so far."
"Fortinet FortiGate has improved our routing and made us more secure."
"For the performance they provide, the price is acceptable."
"The beauty is the price performance ratio is great with FortiGate, as it provides all the features we need and the price is comparable with other firewalls, making it quite competitive with firewalls that have similar features."
"I would recommend this product to any business that wants to protect its cloud environment, cloud server, or on-premises virtual servers."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
"The solution is very easy to download and configure. The initial setup was very easy. The technical support is very good."
"I'd rate the solution nine out of ten."
"This is a stable firewall and you don't have a lot of surprises."
"The application control portion of the solution is its most valuable aspect."
"The graphical interface is easy to troubleshoot because it has a drill-down sequence and it is easy to monitor traffic."
"Palo Alto is a lot easier especially in regards to security."
"Provision of quality training material and the reporting is very good."
"Identifying applications is very easy with this solution."
"The user experience is good and the configuration is very easy."
"I found Palo Alto NG firewalls more intuitive compared to other products. I value the capability to identify a cloud solution."
 

Cons

"The cloud features can be improved."
"I would like to see improvements in the IPS/IDS feature to enhance protection against attacks from attackers, including ransomware protection."
"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."
"The UI could be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG can't be used on its own, and you have to get FortiAnalyzer."
"The only challenge with Fortinet FortiGate is the pricing model."
"The performance and speed are aspects of the solution that could always be improved upon."
"The solution could improve by having some additional features, such as IBS and better cloud administration."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"The solution's VPN, called GlobalProtect, could be improved as I've had a few issues with that."
"They need to provide documentation for CLI, as most of the commands, we get from Community Forums."
"When we looked at it originally, we needed to host the Panorama environment ourselves. I would prefer it if we could take this as a service."
"This solution is definitely not scalable."
"Configurations related to different operating systems can be complex, and we have encountered issues with Linux systems."
"The solution would benefit from having a dashboard."
"There has been a recent change in the graphical interface. For the monitoring part, they could have a better UI."
"The only thing that is a little strange is in Policy-Based Forwarding."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The Indian market is different than the European and American markets. When you compare they need to be a bit more aggressive on pricing."
"When you look at these end security systems and firewalls, these firewalls even five years ago were $50,000 or perhaps $25,000 to implement in some types of customer sites. Now we're talking about tools that are $1,000. In this case, it might have been $500 or something like that."
"FortiGate SWG is reasonably priced."
"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."
"My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Fortinet FortiGate is quite good. I don't have a public site, such as in Azure, where I can see the pricing. I always have to go through the distributor, and that could take some time to get the real price for each appliance."
"Pricing for this product is comparatively lower than other products. It's an affordable solution, but when expanding the number of users, they'll ask you to replace the model, so that's an added cost."
"It's an expensive solution."
"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."
Information not available
"The cost is steep, but most firewalls cost a lot."
"It is an expensive solution."
"Reducing costs is important, especially since Prisma can be expensive. It would be great if it were more affordable."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are more expensive than Cisco firewalls, but slightly less expensive than Juniper firewalls."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is expensive, but it is worth its price."
"This is an expensive product and there is a subscription cost."
"We always aim to reduce the pricing, as it is currently a bit high and needs to be lowered."
"I would assume that it's still within mid-range given its company structure and everything else. My guess is it's still okay."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business367
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise193
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business76
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise85
 

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 ...
What needs improvement with Hillstone CloudEdge?
There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance. M...
What is your primary use case for Hillstone CloudEdge?
Our primary use case is to provide cloud-based security solutions for customers using public cloud platforms. We dist...
What is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?
Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...
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 is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall
 

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
LinkTime
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 Hillstone CloudEdge vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
892,868 professionals have used our research since 2012.