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Palo Alto Networks CN-Series 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

Palo Alto Networks CN-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
34th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
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 Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is 0.4%, up from 0.1% 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%
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series0.4%
Other96.9%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Ahmed_Shalaby - PeerSpot reviewer
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…
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

"The app inspection is very helpful for network security."
"The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent."
"The product provides more visibility into our traffic."
"The VM series has an advantage over the physical version because we are able to change the sources that the machine has, such as the amount of available RAM."
"The most valuable feature is that you can control your traffic flowing out and coming out, allowing you to apply malware and threat protection, as well as vulnerability checks."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its stability, ease of implementation, ease of operation, and security."
"In terms of security breaches, the product aids in categorizing and monitoring traffic, allowing for the identification of potentially malicisous or incorrectly formatted applications."
"Palo Alto's robust threat intelligence supports new updates, and I can open cases directly with their Threat Intelligence team."
"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. "
"What I like about the VM-Series is that you can launch them in a very short time."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see more IOPs features."
"Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive."
"I find it difficult to reach technical support at Palo Alto Networks. Most customers go for partner-enabled support, which involves multiple layers, leading to delays."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a complex product to work with."
"The only minor issue we've faced is with the app's ID configuration, which requires specific matching for application filtering."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
"I would like a way to do everything programmatically, or be able to copy the configs from different prices at different levels."
"Enhancing the ease of accessing technical support would be useful."
"The initial setup of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series was somewhat challenging, requiring extensive documentation review. I rate it a six out of ten for ease."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Because I work for a university and the URL is for the institution, it's a free license for us."
"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"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."
"It is an expensive product."
"We found purchasing process the product on the AWS Marketplace to be very good."
"The product's most valuable feature is pricing."
"Because the solution was getting deployed on AWS, it was the best place to go and it was available there."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
University
12%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
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 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.
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 Panorama needs enhancement because it involves a specific plugin and configuring ...
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 Panorama. I have been involved with the implementation of Palo Alto Networks CN-S...
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

Information Not Available
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks CN-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
909,647 professionals have used our research since 2012.