Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series comparison

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

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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

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav

Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd

Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches

Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.

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Jim Voige

Site Manager at a consultancy with 11-50 employees

High availability routing has secured our network and delivers reliable support every day

One downside of Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router is the need for a better understanding of what hardware it would run on. Right now, we're using Netgate's hardware, but I'm interested in knowing if there are other hardware options available, particularly heavier duty hardware, because the Supermicro 1537 version we have only has a single power supply, which is a shortcoming in an IT environment where dual power supplies are ideal. The pricing for the hardware of Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router is steep, which is one reason I'd explore other options. I'm familiar with the costs of Supermicro servers, and I believe Netgate charges a premium for their server hardware without enough upside to justify it. The pricing is not justified.

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MuhammadNadeem

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.

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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

"Some of the valuable features are the firewall, IPS, web filter, and gateway capabilities. Additionally, it is easy to use and flexible."

"Fortinet FortiGate has positively impacted my organization, offering ease of management with no network disruptions; it works seamlessly."

"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."

"In my opinion, the main benefits that end users receive from Fortinet FortiGate are that the return on investment is good, whatever money we invest in Fortinet FortiGate product, we get it back in two years' time, it is pretty secure, having very robust hardware and software, updates are pretty good, and in the event of an issue, updates are pretty quick."

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

"FortiGate is a scalable product and our customer has approximately 2,000 users."

"Fortinet FortiGate is both scalable and stable."

"It is quite easy to handle."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"They are more satisfied with Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router in terms of its flexibility and customer support."

"My experience with the product is that it is a stable and good product that is easy to use."

"It's very simple to use, efficient, up to date, and the hardware is very available; it's very safe."

"Overall, the entire Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router product has been reliable, though some of their smaller gear aimed at remote offices hasn't been cost-effective."

"I do not have complaints about Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router with Firewall, VPN, and Router; it is really comfortable for use, and it does a pretty good job."

"We use pfSense and Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router to establish a VPN tunnel between our client and our headquarters to transfer data between client and our equipment; it's very simple to use, efficient, up to date, and the hardware is very available; it's very safe."

"The threat prevention and WildFire features are the most valuable features. DNS is another good feature of the product."

"Embedding it into my application development lifecycle prevents data loss and business disruption, allowing the adoption to operate at the speed of my AWS Cloud."

"Palo Alto offers excellent security, with features such as email scanning, malware protection, and efficient VPN and antivirus capabilities."

"Palo Alto’s Panorama centralized management system simplifies our security posture based on our requirements."

"The most valuable features are web control and IPS/IDS."

"If you do not have a Next-Generation Firewall, Palo Alto is a good choice, it is reliable and the support is very good."

"You already can scale it if you put it in Auto Scaling groups. If you put it in a load balancer, it should already be able to scale."

"The most valuable features are the User ID, URL filtering, and application filtering."

More Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pros

Cons

"I wish Fortinet FortiGate's UI updates would be done in a more simplified way to improve it."

"In our case, the deployment options of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) are not scalable, but in terms of connectivity to other companies, that's exactly what we needed, and that's exactly what it does perfectly, what is needed."

"The pricing could be a bit better, especially when you consider how they have the most basic offering priced."

"In most cases, the IPS engine uses too many resources, which makes Fortinet FortiGate devices unstable."

"I would like the deployment and integration of this product to be easier. We should be able to deploy the features more easily and have different types of access."

"One of the problems I was having was with user mapping, and it is an issue for which I have escalated tickets with Fortinet support."

"Its price could be better."

"It needs to improve its ISP load balancing."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The pricing for the hardware of Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router is steep, which is one reason I'd explore other options."

"The effectiveness of Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router traffic shaping is quite good, but I am not very satisfied with the interface for control."

"I would assess the effectiveness of Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router's traffic shaping as good, but I would give a six marks only for that compared to others because in the past few years, there has been a stop of improvement or lack of improvement showing in Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall_VPN_Router."

"They have to learn something more from FortiGate."

"The most significant drawback in recent years has been the cessation of firmware release downloads."

"With Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, it is hard for me to manage its network configuration part."

"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."

"When managing the firewall, it involves a Strata Cloud web browser that requires improvement to enhance deployment ease and call center efficiency."

"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."

"The command-line interface is something that some people struggle with and I think that they should have an option to go straight to the GUI."

"The user-friendliness of the UI could be improved."

"It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."

"The scalability could be improved further."

More Palo Alto Networks VM-Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It scales well if you know what to buy from a physical box standpoint. They seem to offer something for every level."

"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."

"It is less expensive than a Cisco solution."

"FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall is cheaper than Cisco or CheckPoint."

"The price of FortiGate is average and I would say that based on the top five products available on the market, it is in the affordable range."

"On a scale of one being cheap and ten being expensive, I rate the tool's price as an eight."

"The solution is very expensive so pricing is rated a one out of ten."

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

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall."

"The pricing and licensing are reasonable."

"For licensing, It depends how they want to use the firewall. The firewall can be used only for IPS purposes. If you only want that firewall IPSs, you will only need a license that is called threat prevention. That license, threat prevention, includes vulnerabilities, antivirus signatures and one additional measure (that I can't remember), but it includes three measures and security updates."

"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is notably cheaper than other firewall vendors, except Fortigate."

"I know Palo Alto is not cheap. They have been telling me, the members of the finance team, it is not a cheap solution. It is a solution whose target is that no matter how big your organization is, small, medium, or large, it is about the maturity of your security team or infrastructure team whom you want to work with."

"Palo Alto is more expensive than other products."

"When you have a client compare box against box, a lot of times Palo Alto is a bit more expensive, but its network firewalls have a very rich ratio."

"The solution is a little bit expensive compared to other vendors."

More Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Construction Company

39%

Comms Service Provider

11%

Healthcare Company

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	367
Midsize Enterprise	135
Large Enterprise	193

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	31
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	24

Questions from the Community

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When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...

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...

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 ...

What needs improvement with Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router?

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router regularly provides updates. One aspect they can improve is that most people ...

What is your primary use case for Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router?

We work with Netgate products. We are a reseller and consultant. We have been working with Netgate and Fortinet for a...

What advice do you have for others considering Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router?

For metrics to measure its impact, we do not measure in a formal way. We use bandwidth monitoring to check how effect...

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...

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...

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?

The filtering feature is good.

Sophos Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Comparisons

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

VyOS Platform vs Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router

Compared 59% of the time

OPNsense vs Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router

Compared 41% of the time

More Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

Compared 19% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point Cloud Firewall (formerly CloudGuard Network Security) vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

Compared 6% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

Compared 3% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2026

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router

Download Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router product report

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router report

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

Download Palo Alto Networks VM-Series product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

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

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router offers open-source, license-free software with strong VPN options and robust networking capabilities, supporting secure, scalable, and reliable IT infrastructure integration.

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router stands out with its open-source framework, providing organizations the freedom from annual license renewals and enabling focus on CAPEX. It integrates seamlessly within IT environments, offering extensive package availability for broad functionality. Equipped with WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IPsec, it ensures robust VPN configurations. Its traffic shaping, load balancing, and failover functionalities enhance network performance, while Multi-WAN connections boost uptime. Users benefit from its affordability, scalability, VLAN support, and consistent secure operations. However, clearer communication on antivirus capabilities and interface improvements for speed is needed. The equipment's transition to cloud-based firmware updates has seen mixed reception.

What are the key features of Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router?

License-Free Software: Avoid annual renewals, allowing financial focus on CAPEX.
Strong VPN Options: Supports WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IPsec for secure connections.
Traffic Shaping and Load Balancing: Optimizes network performance and reliability.
Multi-WAN Capability: Enhances connectivity and ensures consistent uptime.
VLAN Support: Allows efficient network segmentation and management.
Open-Source Nature: Provides transparency and continuous community-driven enhancements.

What benefits and ROI should users look for in reviews?

Cost Efficiency: Reduces expenditure with license-free, open-source software.
Scalability: Grows with organizational demands without added costs.
Reliability: Ensures secure, stable connections with minimal downtime.
Ease of Use: Simplified configuration and management for technical teams.
Community Support: Backed by a knowledgeable user community for ongoing support.

In educational settings, such as universities and engineering colleges, Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router facilitates secure VPN tunnels for data transfer. It sees application as a high-availability BGP setup among consultants and resellers, ensuring reliability and network efficiency.

Netgate

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series offers robust threat prevention and advanced security capabilities. Key features like traffic control and malware protection enhance its usability in cloud and hybrid environments.

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series specializes in delivering comprehensive network security with features such as traffic inspection, threat management, and firewall functionalities. It supports secure remote access and integrates easily with third-party solutions. With features like GlobalProtect VPN and Advanced Threat Protection, enterprises leverage the VM-Series in cloud, on-premises, or hybrid deployments to protect data and enhance cybersecurity. Despite its strengths, improvements in cloud solutions, integration, and scalability are needed.

What are the most important features of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?

Traffic Control: Manages and inspects traffic for security risks.
App-ID: Identifies and controls applications for enhanced security.
WildFire: Provides threat intelligence and malware detection.
Centralized Management: Streamlines security management from a single pane.
Cloud Integration: Seamlessly fits into cloud services for flexible deployment.

What benefits should users expect from Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?

Ease of Deployment: Quick setup and easy integration reduce disruption.
Scalability: Adaptability to growing network demands.
Threat Intelligence: Informed decisions through comprehensive threat data.
Traffic Inspection: Detailed analytics for informed security posture.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and technology, Palo Alto Networks VM-Series plays a crucial role in network security. Companies implement it to secure remote access, protect sensitive data, and ensure compliance. Its compatibility with cloud environments allows versatile deployment across sectors needing stringent cybersecurity 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

Warren Rogers Associates

Netgate pfSense Plus Firewall/VPN/Router vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series