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Hillstone E-Series vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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

Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
40th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (10th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (19th)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.8%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series2.8%
Hillstone E-Series0.8%
Other96.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.
MuhammadNadeem - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Has supported urgent deployments and enabled inline threat protection but pricing and features could be more flexible
I am not using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series mostly, but based on my experience, 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. However, for urgency and for some solutions that customers need for some of their other sites and subdivisions, we are providing the same.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I am impressed with the application filtering feature."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"Five out of five ROI."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
"The most valuable features of the Hillstone E-Series are its hardware capacity, innovation, and the throughput that the hardware can take."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Palo Alto’s Panorama centralized management system simplifies our security posture based on our requirements. Instead of manually pulling logs, then generating them into readable formats, it gives us the console in a readable format to view."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it meets all our requirements technically."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series has everything centralized. You have the VPN solution, firewall, routing, UDR, flexibility, updates, and full visibility of your traffic."
"We have reduced the number of configuration lines by 90%. We need fewer number of admins right now because of it."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"We can monitor the traffic manually and detect threats. Additionally, we can block different IP addresses and URLs."
"The main advantage of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series stems from the fact that you can access it with the help of cloud services."
 

Cons

"The tool provides just a general report. It does not provide a granular report. Hence, the tool should work on its reporting feature."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"I am not sure if this solution offers active directory integration. Adding that feature will definitely be an advantage."
"SSL VPN license cost is not cheap."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"There's room for improvement in terms of integration with the load balancer. It isn't like Fortinet, which has a load balancer built into its firewall. It is effortless to integrate within the load balancer-plus-firewall solution."
"The solution's licensing could be improved, and training should be included before installation."
"Just sometimes it can be a bit sluggish navigating through pages. That is just purely because of Java.​"
"From time to time, maybe twice a year, they have released content updates which have some issues; when they release content updates, the applications with these updates give us false positives."
"There is a need for two-factor authentication, particularly for VPN and CloudProtect."
"There could be dynamic DNS features similar to Fortinet in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"It is a little bit of crazy if you compare it to Vanguard, Sophos, or even Cisco. The newest version of Cisco, the Next-Generation Firewall of Cisco, is less expensive than Palo Alto. It is more comparable to Check Point."
"The price of this solution is very high for some parts of Africa, which makes it a challenge."
"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall.​"
"Palo Alto is more expensive than other products."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"Palo Alto definitely needs to be more competitive compared to other products. The problem that I have faced is that the price of licensing is very high and not very competitive."
"Some parts of purchasing through AWS Marketplace are good, such as this product was easy to find and launch. Some of the other parts could be clearer in the AWS Marketplace, e.g., how to properly do an annual subscription."
"Because I work for a university and the URL is for the institution, it's a free license for us."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?
The pricing is more on the expensive side, but it is justified due to its functionality, reliability, and throughput, even with all features enabled. In comparison to FortiGate ( /products/fortinet...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone E-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.