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IPFire vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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

IPFire
Ranking in Firewalls
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
17th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (18th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of IPFire is 1.0%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.7%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series2.7%
IPFire1.0%
Other96.3%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

AE
Chief Technology Officer at Agileware Limited
Firewall deployment has secured mission-critical public apps and simplifies Linux-based management
The best features IPFire offers include its very intuitive nature because, even though it has a Linux back-end, in terms of configuration, it has a very rich GUI interface. The GUI and configuration features of IPFire have made my work easier and more efficient because their positioning and the sequence with which I follow is easy. In terms of all the processes, what you need to do at first and the next thing that you need to do is clear. The GUI is well arranged in sequential order, so you can follow that from whatever you want to do until you get the target objective. IPFire includes features with a very robust and rich community that is very much valid in terms of content. IPFire has positively impacted my organization by giving us some mileage. At least, a lot of organizations now know that we have a solution that can deliver the same value.
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

"Regarding IPFire's AI capabilities, I think they are quite focused; in all the deployments I have done, I have not had any incidents or breaches."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"In the newer version, there are 3850s, all of them are scalable. They fit better into the medium or small businesses."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"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."
"Palo Alto's robust threat intelligence supports new updates, and I can open cases directly with their Threat Intelligence team."
"AWS has improved our agility to apply firewall rules."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"It is a great product, it is a great company, and I am very glad to work with them."
 

Cons

"I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"The solution needs to improve its visibility. It's not straightforward to use. Understanding the policies, authorizations, and initializing features requires careful review. The product needs to offer proper training."
"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."
"The reporting part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The product needs improvement in their Secure Access Service Edge."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters."
"The solution must improve Zero Trust integration and use cases."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"The product's most valuable feature is pricing."
"The price of this solution is very high for some parts of Africa, which makes it a challenge."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"The pricing was expensive but it was comparable to the competition."
"The solution is a little bit expensive compared to other vendors."
"Initially, pricing was high. Later on, we were able to negotiate the pricing and get something that fits our budget."
"The pricing and licensing of this product on AWS should be from $1.28/hr or $4,500.00/yr. Then, it would be a good price for the performance that it delivers."
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909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
20%
Computer Software Company
9%
University
8%
Government
7%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with IPFire?
IPFire can be improved, but so far, there are no functionalities that have not been able to meet my needs. I wish IPFire could do more, but so far, I am happy with the solution. If there are other ...
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
My main use case for IPFire is usually for security, functioning as a firewall for organizations that run public-facing applications. I will give you a typical example: there is an agency of the fe...
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
I would rate IPFire 8 out of 10 because I do not think there is any solution anywhere in the world that is 100 percent efficient. In elementary physics, we are told that no machine can be 100 perce...
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

1. Siemens 2. IBM 3. Cisco 4. Dell 5. HP 6. Intel 7. Oracle 8. Google 9. Microsoft 10. Amazon 11. Apple 12. Facebook 13. Twitter 14. Netflix 15. Adobe 16. SAP 17. VMware 18. Juniper Networks 19. Ericsson 20. Nokia 21. AT&T 22. Verizon 23. T-Mobile 24. Vodafone 25. Orange 26. Deutsche Telekom 27. British Telecom 28. Comcast 29. Time Warner 30. Sony 31. Samsung 32. LG
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about IPFire vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.