Menlo Secure vs Palo Alto Networks CN-Series comparison

Menlo Security and Palo Alto Networks are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Menlo Security is ranked #52, while Palo Alto Networks is ranked #31 with an average rating of 9.5. Menlo Security holds a 0.1% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Palo Alto Networks’s 0.2% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Menlo Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Palo Alto Networks users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Menlo Secure and Palo Alto Networks CN-Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Menlo Secure vs. Palo Alto Networks CN-Series Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Palo Alto Networks CN-Series

December 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 18.8%, down from 20.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.1%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is 0.2%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate	18.8%
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series	0.2%
Menlo Secure	0.1%
Other	80.9%

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala

Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch

A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service

I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.

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reviewer2701794

Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.

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Ahmed_Shalaby

Senior Cyber Security Engineer at Beta Information Technology

Application control excels and integration with monitoring system boosts efficiency

I am an integrator working with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series and Panorama. I have been involved with the implementation of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent. Application control is one of the most valuable features. Its monitoring capability…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The initial installation is very straightforward."

"The solution effectively blocks unwanted traffic."

"The most valuable aspects of FortiGate NGFW are its top-notch reputation in peer reviews, user-friendly interface, and excellent support."

"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."

"The solution provides good threat intelligence feeds."

"The ease of setting the solution up is a valuable aspect for us."

"FortiOS is quite good in my experience with Fortinet FortiGate, and it works very effectively and is stable for companies. The customers have given feedback that FortiOS has been very stable for a long time."

"The impact of SD-WAN on my network performance is clear, and if we speak about Fortinet Unified SASE, it is effective for me."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

"The app inspection is very helpful for network security."

"The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent."

Cons

"We were not able to build a full-mesh VPN; however, I am not sure if this was the fault of Fortinet FortiGate."

"What could be improved in Fortinet FortiGate SWG is its pricing because it's a bit higher. If it's cheaper, my company could pitch it to customers and engage with customers better about it. What I'd like to see in the next release of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an improvement in its dashboard or GUI. I'd like it to be more user-friendly."

"The solution’s pricing is high."

"I would rate the technical support of Fortinet FortiGate as a five because it is not as strong as Cisco. Additionally, the turnaround time is very high compared to Cisco."

"The advanced models are expensive."

"There is a lot of improvement needed with SSL-VPN."

"They could improve the response time and quality of support."

"I need user-behavior analytics, to find threat scenarios from inside the organization, insider attacks. That would be very helpful for us. In addition, I would like next-generation features for small and medium businesses. These businesses require UTM, all in one product. Fortinet must include it."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."

"I'd like to see more IOPs features."

"Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"There is a license required to use Fortinet FortiGate with all the features. It has to be updated with the threats on an ongoing basis for the signatures to prevent threats and a license is needed to receive those security updates."

"The pricing is perfect."

"I think price-wise, the solution is totally reasonable since it has many products to serve, starting from small homes to massive scale sites."

"The license is yearly. We pay for the top end. It's called 360."

"I rate FortiGate Next Generation Firewall a five out of ten for pricing."

"The solution's price is average."

"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."

"There is a license to use Fortinet FortiGate."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

14%

Retailer

12%

Computer Software Company

12%

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	357
Midsize Enterprise	133
Large Enterprise	188

No data available

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...

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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...

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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 ...

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What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?

The pricing of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is quite expensive, rating around eight on a scale of one to ten for cost.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?

Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive. The SD-WAN implementation using P...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?

I am an integrator working with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series ( /products/palo-alto-networks-cn-series-reviews ) and P...

See all answers

Comparisons

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 20% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 6% of the time

OPNsense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

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Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 32% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Menlo Secure

Compared 9% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Menlo Secure

Compared 6% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Palo Alto Networks CN-Series

Compared 49% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Palo Alto Networks CN-Series

Compared 29% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks CN-Series

Compared 23% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks CN-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

January 2026

Download Menlo Secure product report

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

January 2026

Download Palo Alto Networks CN-Series product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate is a versatile network security tool offering features like VPN, firewall, web filtering, intrusion prevention, and scalability. It is known for its performance and integration with other Fortinet products, making it a preferred choice for robust cybersecurity.

Fortinet FortiGate stands out as a comprehensive cybersecurity solution with strong performance and ease of configuration. It delivers unified threat management, integrating features such as dynamic routing, SD-WAN support, and centralized management. Despite its strengths, improvements in the web interface's stability, pricing structures, and reporting capabilities are needed. Users seek better integration with third-party tools and automation advancements to enhance the experience further. These enhancements, alongside improvements in bandwidth management and the reduction of licensing costs, are points of interest for users looking to capitalize on FortiGate's extensive capabilities.

What are Fortinet FortiGate's key features?

VPN: Ensures secure remote connections.
Firewall: Protects against unauthorized access.
Web Filtering: Blocks malicious sites and content.
Application Control: Manages and controls applications.
Intrusion Prevention: Detects and prevents vulnerabilities.
SSL Inspection: Enhances security by inspecting encrypted traffic.

What benefits should be considered when evaluating Fortinet FortiGate?

Affordability: Offers cost-effective security solutions.
Reliability: Known for consistent and stable performance.
Integration: Seamlessly integrates with other Fortinet products.
Comprehensive Protection: Provides broad threat protection capabilities.

Fortinet FortiGate is widely implemented across industries as a primary firewall system for securing internet gateways and safeguarding data centers. It supports businesses in achieving SD-WAN integration and enhances cybersecurity by providing essential features like antivirus, web filtering, and application control. Enterprises utilize FortiGate for securing remote connections and ensuring compliance with security standards, making it adaptable for different network sizes and industries.

Fortinet

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Palo Alto Networks CN-Series offers advanced container security and micro-segmentation for Kubernetes environments, known for robust threat prevention, ease of deployment, and seamless integration with existing security infrastructure.

Palo Alto Networks CN-Series enables application-level visibility and control, providing comprehensive protection for dynamic workloads. Its scalable architecture suits modern cloud-native applications, making it a top choice for securing containerized environments and microservices. Users appreciate its automated policy creation, granular micro-segmentation, and enhanced container security. Although it offers great features, users suggest improvement in integration with other security tools, better scalability for larger environments, and enhanced documentation. Performance in high-traffic scenarios and intuitive configuration processes are areas for potential enhancement, along with improved customer support.

What are the key features of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?

Advanced Threat Protection: Addresses and mitigates security threats efficiently.
Seamless Kubernetes Integration: Integrates easily within Kubernetes environments.
Comprehensive Visibility: Offers visibility across multi-cloud environments.
Automated Policy Creation: Simplifies the policy creation process.
Granular Micro-segmentation: Provides detailed network traffic segmentation.
Enhanced Container Security: Strengthens security measures for containerized applications.
Ease of Deployment: Simplifies overall deployment process.
Scalability: Adapts to growing needs of cloud-native applications.

What benefits or ROI can users expect from Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?

Increased Security: Effective protection against sophisticated threats.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Streamlined deployment and policy management.
Greater Visibility: Enhanced insight into network traffic and potential vulnerabilities.
Cost Savings: Reduced costs through automation and integration of security processes.
Enhanced Compliance: Helps meet regulatory requirements with strong security controls.

Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is implemented across diverse industries including finance, healthcare, and technology. In financial institutions, it addresses stringent security and compliance requirements. In healthcare, it ensures patient data protection within dynamic cloud environments. In tech, it supports innovative cloud-native applications with robust security measures.

Palo Alto Networks

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Palo Alto Networks CN-Series

December 2025

Free Report: Menlo Secure vs. Palo Alto Networks CN-Series

Find out what your peers are saying about Menlo Secure vs. Palo Alto Networks CN-Series and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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