No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 S-Series Network ...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
22nd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Advanced...
Ranking in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) category, the mindshare of Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System is 1.6%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is 4.8%, down from 5.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention4.8%
Hillstone S-Series Network Intrusion Prevention System1.6%
Other93.6%
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer1080873 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Complements any firewall
The core processors are there and it's able to generate reports for that. It also complements any kind of firewall. For example, if an end user is using Palo Alto as a firewall, they'd need another layer of firewall like the S-Series that will protect internal servers. It's something that complements any firewall in the market.
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Global Network Tech Lead at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Advanced protection enables us to confidently secure against evolving threats
Palo Alto Networks can improve Advanced Threat Prevention by catering to the growing adoption of AI and agentic tooling. The Threat Protection modules should have the necessary intelligence to protect against those types of threats, as AI will be there to do a human job; this is an evolving area. From an Advanced Threat Protection perspective, the technology associated with Palo Alto Networks, such as their sandboxing environment, is quite good. However, Palo Alto needs to focus on how to bring that technology to end users and how easy it is to use, especially in a hybrid environment where users work from various locations. While Palo Alto excels in certain setups, they need to improve the user experience in distributed working conditions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
"Setup is straightforward with the same reliability and scalability as the firewall series."
"My advice to others would be to use Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention for the perimeter of the network."
"The user interface is a bit more professional than some free products."
"I like the solution's interface."
"The most valuable feature is its use of machine learning to detect potentially unknown threats."
"It's a monster, it's got so many beautiful features. We do deal with other firewalls and we've got a better idea of what other firewalls' capabilities are, any comparison with the Palo Alto I liked the quality of service on the applications that you can control the amount of bandwidth an application is allowed to consume. The best feature is the quality of the application quality of service."
"The solution has many features that save me time."
"I rate Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention as nine out of ten."
"Everything has been okay with the solution. We are using all of the features."
 

Cons

"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
"Lack of tools to help educate end users"
"Mission learning techniques should continue to expand and detect unknown threats on the fly."
"Some bugs, which will be rectified by Palo Alto in the next update."
"The documentation needs to be improved. I need better information about how to configure it and what the best practices are."
"There is a potential drawback with the lack of support for the ICAP protocol."
"The solution could benefit from improved AI analytics to predict potential attacks before they occur, similar to NDR systems."
"The technology firewall anomaly network could stand improvement."
"I think they can use some improvement on FID. There are lots of false positives and those can be eradicated."
"Right now we are focusing on email. If Palo Alto can increase the features related to email filtering and the new malware, it would help us protect our systems."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing and the licensing are pretty competitive at this stage. As a reseller, I would like to see the price come down a little bit so I can compete better against other firewalls because we do that all the time."
"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower."
"It is an expensive solution and I would like to see a drop in price."
"It's not too expensive."
"The product’s pricing is expensive for small companies."
"If you want to have all of the good features then you have to pay extra for licensing."
"The pricing could be lower."
"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve by having consistent pricing at system levels."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) solutions are best for your needs.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
No data available
Financial Services Firm
10%
Performing Arts
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise14
 

Questions from the Community

Ask a question
Earn 20 points
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention requires an add-on license and is considered expensive compared to competitors like Cisco AMP and FortiGate ( /products/fortinet-fortigate-reviews ) fi...
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?
Palo Alto Networks can improve Advanced Threat Prevention by catering to the growing adoption of AI and agentic tooling. The Threat Protection modules should have the necessary intelligence to prot...
 

Also Known As

Hillstone S-Series NIPS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, SkiStar AB, TRI-AD, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Darktrace, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS). Updated: April 2026.
886,011 professionals have used our research since 2012.