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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

"The multi-threat protection feature helps us secure our organization."
"It is a fantastic product, it fits the customer requirements very well, and the vendor is great."
"The reliability of Fortinet FortiGate is through the roof, we're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently."
"Fortinet FortiGate is pretty robust. The updates and firmware releases are pretty timely. They have a good product revision and review system, so they are constantly reviewing their configuration and the different mechanisms that are used on Fortinet FortiGate."
"It is very flexible to use."
"We like signature-based anomaly detection and zero-day protection features."
"Fortinet FortiGate is very stable."
"The product is scalable."
"I would recommend this product to any business that wants to protect its cloud environment, cloud server, or on-premises virtual servers."
"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."
"Hillstone CloudEdge is compatible with all the mainstream public cloud providers, such as AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Alibaba Cloud."
"Our clients find the most valuable features in Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be the user-friendly interface, extensive capabilities, and highly granular rule creation process."
"If you need really reliable hardware and software, and don't want headaches after the implementation, just buy Palo Alto."
"Identifying applications is very easy with this solution."
"The unified platform provided is very important to us as it allows us to manage all traffic and ensure security without using separate tools. It has AI and ML capabilities, which work well for real-time attack prevention."
"The most valuable features are the threat prevention and policy-based routing features."
"The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the performance."
"Application control, IPS, and sandboxing towards the cloud are the most valuable features. It is a very user-friendly product with a very easy-to-use interface."
"Innovative, advanced threat protection is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution."
"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."
"In the future, I would like to see improvements made to cloud-based management."
"Fortinet could improve the windows opener or the virtual IP solutions for opening windows. The virtual IP settings need improvement as firewalls are trending in new development directions."
"They can probably improve the reporting feature. Reporting and report alerting are the main key features of this solution."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"The configuration part was challenging, especially converting configurations from another OEM to FortiGate."
"Fortinet needs to continue to improve network traceability. Other than that, we haven't run into anything that would give me any concern."
"There is room for improvement in AI features, particularly for zero-day attacks and providing maintenance guidance."
"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."
"The solution needs more granular level reporting on system usage."
"Palo Alto keeps coming out with antivirus and malware updates. When we have to integrate those updates we face some problems with the cloud platform, not the on-prem setup."
"The machine learning in Palo Alto NG Firewalls for securing networks against threats that are able to evolve and morph rapidly is good, in general, but there have been some cases where we get false positives and Palo Alto has denied traffic when there have been new updates and signature releases."
"Once in a while, they have new features being released that can be buggy."
"It would be better to have more tools to control Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. We don't have too many tools to access Palo Alto."
"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."
"The reports it provides are not helpful."
"For an upcoming release, they could improve on the way to build security rules per user."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls do not provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"​We saved a bundle by not needing all the past appliances from an NGFW.​"
"Our licensing costs are on a yearly basis."
"The pricing for this solution is reasonable."
"Cost-wise, there is not much difference from Sophos, but feature-wise, we get more features."
"Setup costs and pricing depends on many variables, but it's mostly affordable."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall costs our company around $12000 per year."
"Currently, we are paying about $1,500 a month for three sites."
"It was pretty affordable. We did go a little bit above MSRP, but the service pack that was included was quite worth the additional costs. It is competitively priced compared to other major players in the market. It is significantly cheaper than Check Point, which is a primary competitor. Additionally, its pricing is comparable to that of Cisco's ASA and a few other vendors."
Information not available
"I don't know about the price of the platform or the license fees, as the finance department deals with that. I only bill for the materials involved in the design."
"It will be worth your time to hire a contractor to set it up and configure it for you, especially if you are not very knowledgeable with PA firewalls."
"I am not from presales or sales, but as a brand, Palo Alto is more expensive than other firewalls."
"The NG firewall is an expensive solution."
"These firewalls are not cheap, but they have a reasonable licensing model."
"Its price is higher than other vendors. They need to re-think its pricing. With Fortinet, the SD-WAN feature is totally free, whereas, with Palo Alto, I need to pay for this feature. With Fortinet, there is one licensing, and I can get many things, whereas, with Palo Alto, I need to go for individual licensing."
"There are security licenses."
"Pricing is yearly, but it depends. You could pay on a yearly basis, or every three years. If you want to add a device or two, there would be an additional cost. Also, if you want to do an assessment, or other similar add-on, you have to pay accordingly for the additional service."
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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.
892,943 professionals have used our research since 2012.