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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
28th
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
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 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 2.6%, 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-Series2.6%
IPFire1.0%
Other96.4%
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."
"I would rate the stability as ten out of ten for IPFire."
"IPFire has prevented any kind of hacking and enables us to comply with customer requirements."
"It has good stability; we haven't had any issues, and it has never been down."
"The most valuable feature is the CLI."
"Everything from Palo Alto is good and I recommend that people implement this firewall."
"Palo Alto offers excellent security, with features such as email scanning, malware protection, and efficient VPN and antivirus capabilities."
"The additional visibility, which was lacking with cloud-native tools, has improved the organization's cloud security posture. Advanced enforcement and granular security controls help manage potential threats."
"Overall, I give Palo Alto Networks VM-Series a rating of nine out of ten."
"Using Palo Alto Networks Panorama, we were able to deploy a single point of management and visualization of the firewall infrastructure in cloud, on-premise and integrated with Azure to automate scale up. Its security features, i.e. anti-malware, threat prevention, URL Filtering, VPN, and antivirus are the most valuable. The ID-User integrated with AD and 2FA features are also very useful to provide secure access to servers and some users in the company. "
"I like the UI. Most things are accessible from the user interface and it is quite user-friendly. With respect to both VM-based firewalls and physical firewalls, it's easy to create updates."
 

Cons

"Accessing the internet was a bit complicated."
"The graphical interface could be much better."
"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."
"There is no proper support channel to follow up on cases."
"The tool is very costly."
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"The web interface is very slow, and it needs to be faster."
"There could be dynamic DNS features similar to Fortinet in the product."
"The firewall itself is very complex. You have to do a lot of research, look through all the documentation, consult, and figure out how to use it."
"The user interface could use some improvement."
"The product could be better in terms of performance than one of its competitors."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"The price is not bad. They have a yearly renewal fee, and the pricing is exactly where we expect it to be."
"There is a need to make payments toward a yearly subscription-based model in which you need to add modules that you want to use in your company."
"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."
"The product's most valuable feature is pricing."
"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall.​"
"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."
"I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing an eight out of ten."
"Because I work for a university and the URL is for the institution, it's a free license for us."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
21%
Computer Software Company
10%
University
8%
Government
7%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
8%
 

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?
The graphical interface could be much better.
What is your primary use case for IPFire?
I use IPFire ( /products/ipfire-reviews ) to protect my home.
What advice do you have for others considering IPFire?
Sometimes configuring IPFire is challenging. Overall, I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.
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: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.