Palo Alto Networks K2-Series vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series comparison

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Download the complete report

Helped 850,028 peers since 2012

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 May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is 0.0%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

Read full review

Krishnakumar M

enterprise architect at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

One of the best tools for the prevention of evasive threats

There is a feature called granular application controls, which I liked. Instead of relying on ports and IP addresses, they use AMP ID. This kind of solution is very good. Another valuable feature is the prevention of evasive threats, which is one of the best tools I've encountered. SSL decryption and app ID-based SSL decryption are also impressive, along with the integration with user ID. Identity-based policies ensuring only authorized users can access specific resources are excellent features. Normally, there is something called SIM or SCIM in IDA IDM, but this feature is provided on the box, which is exemplary.

Read full review

Deminda Dilan

Senior Network Engineer at Just In Time Group (Sri Lanka)

Good for enterprise-level businesses and offers many features like URL filtering and antivirus capabilities

Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7. Currently, I don't think it's available. If they can improve that, it would be better. We wouldn't need to purchase a separate WAF solution because they already have advanced URL filtering. But I don't think that advanced URL filtering has the same features as a dedicated WAF, like F5 or other solutions. That is an area for improvement. If they can improve the WAF feature, customers won't have to buy a separate WAF solution. They could do it with the same Palo Alto firewall, perhaps through a subscription-based model. So the web application firewall feature has to be improved.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment."

"Fortinet FortiGate has impacted our cost savings and security efficiency positively."

"Customers are more inclined towards FortiGate because of application control, web filtering, and anti-spam features. The support from the FortiGate team is good, and price-wise, it is affordable."

"We use a lot of function on the IPS and it works well for us."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ability to work in proxy mode, which other solutions, such as Palo Alto cannot. There are some features that are better that come at no extra license or subscriptions cost, such as basic SD-WAN. The DLT is useful, other solutions have the same feature too, such as Palo Alto."

"The usage in general is pretty good."

"The solution is very user friendly. The user interface in particular is quite nice."

"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the different types of profiling. It has been the most effective for me. The WAF and the antivirus profile are the most effective in network protection."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The most valuable features are the intuitive user interface, ease of use, and reporting."

"I have found the threat profile feature valuable."

"Palo Alto has a unique solution for DNS security, which is very good."

"The customer service and support are really good."

"As long as the solution is kept updated, it's pretty stable."

"Palo Alto has an approach that makes the configuration easier not only for the customers but also for the IT help for the customers."

"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is the performance which is above their competitors. The throughput they have delivered is good. When we used other solutions they failed the deployment when we were using different rules. They have a theory perform performance light and performance degradation. However, Palo Alto Networks K2-Series never fails in that scenario."

"The solution offers effective security features such as HIDS (Host-based Intrusion Detection System) in global products."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series pros

"It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides."

"It offers application-based policy enforcement. Palo Alto Networks firewalls help us recognize protocol anomalies, contrasting with other vendors that may require policies based on port numbers. With Palo Alto Networks, the port number isn't a constraint because their devices handle protocol traffic at Layer 7, allowing for accurate identification of protocol usage and port numbers. They can identify which protocol actually uses which port."

"The product's initial setup process was simple."

"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced. It is almost 90% faster compared to other solutions."

"The tool's most valuable feature is WildFire."

"The solution provides good customer support."

"A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced, almost 90% faster compared to other solutions. This leads to quicker deployment and less downtime."

"I like the tool's security and web filtering features."

More Palo Alto Networks PA-Series pros

Cons

"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."

"One area for improvement is the performance on bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."

"It's my understanding that more of the current generation features could be brought in. There could be more integration with EDRs, for example."

"Areas of improvement for Fortinet FortiGate include the need for more training and certification, especially when dealing with distributors globally, which presents challenges in product availability and delivery timelines."

"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."

"I would like to see improvements in the support from Fortinet. Here in the Philippines, whenever we have problems with a Fortinet product, we mostly ask for support from distributors and resellers and not directly from Fortinet."

"The user interface could be improved to make it less confusing and easier to set up."

"The price of FortiGate should be reduced because there are some other leading products that are cheaper."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"It would be really helpful to have dashboards that provide information on IOC blockings such as where and how many. It will also be good to know how many hashing files have been reported. It would also be nice to have easy access to this information. Otherwise, it's a painful, manual task."

"If we have issues, they take anywhere from two days to a week to respond. I even wrote to their CEO because there was no response. When it comes to support, this is the worst company."

"There are a lot of bugs in this solution."

"The scalability for on-premises version is limited as it depends on the model."

"Threat prevention could use improvement."

"The scalability of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is good. It is good for larger environments over smaller ones."

"The technical support, and how they provide it to the client, needs to be improved."

"Sometimes there are interactions with support or the provider that are not ideal."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series cons

"The UI definitely needs work. In my opinion, the UI could be simpler and more user-friendly for the average user."

"With Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, I find that the support team takes a long time to resolve the issues that a user may face during the use of the product."

"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The support has been shaky. Initially, it took one or two hours to get a Palo Alto engineer, which is quite slow. I expect faster response times."

"There are constant updates for the operating system. It is a nice thing also, but it has its own disadvantages. Continuous updates are there. The users face issues like, how often do I need to update that? Within a period of five months, I'm updating it two or three times. It gives them a feeling that they are not confident about their product and have to update it so frequently."

"Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7."

"The web interface is slow."

"I had opened a case before with the tool because I could not create a wildcard for the security address. We can create wildcards for security addresses in Fortinet, but this feature doesn't exist in the product."

More Palo Alto Networks PA-Series cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Work through partners for the best pricing."

"Fortinet FortiGate's price can be reduced."

"For medium and enterprise organizations, FortiGate is more affordable."

"FortiGate's pricing falls within the mid-range when compared to other leading firewall solutions."

"It is an inexpensive solution."

"For the price, I'd rate it a ten because it's very cost-effective."

"The price of the license and warranty can be better because it is very expensive."

"Fortinet has one or two license types, and the VPN numbers are only limited by the hardware chassis make."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"When comparing Palo Alto Networks K2-Series with other solutions it is on the higher end of the price scale."

"It is an expensive solution."

"The overall price of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could be reduced."

"It would be nice if they lowered their prices for small businesses."

"Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is an expensive solution, the price could be reduced. They are more expensive than some of their competitors."

"Pricing is a sensitive issue because the cost is high in this market."

"Palo Alto firewalls are very expensive."

"This solution is expensive compared to other, similar products."

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series pricing and cost advice

"Palo Alto’s pricing is way higher than any other solution provider."

"It is a very expensive solution."

"With Palo Alto, even when you enable all the modules, it still provides the exact throughput they advertise."

"Price-wise, Palo Alto offers high-price products."

"The pricing is fair."

"The pricing is a bit on the higher side."

"The tool's pricing was reasonable when we bought the product. We pay around 60,000 dollars per year."

"The product is expensive."

More Palo Alto Networks PA-Series pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.

See recommendations

850,028 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

28%

Manufacturing Company

Media Company

Energy/Utilities Company

Computer Software Company

17%

Manufacturing Company

13%

University

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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...

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 ...

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...

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

It is a stable solution.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?

The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable and there are no complaints about the licensing.

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

The reporting feature and application ID functionality within Palo Alto Networks PA-Series are incredibly valuable to...

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

The price of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is expensive.

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?

The interface of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series should be made much more user-friendly.

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Comparisons

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Compared 100% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks K2-Series Competitors

OPNsense vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 32% of the time

Sophos XG vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 17% of the time

Juniper SRX Series Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 13% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 10% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Compared 4% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Competitors

Product Reports

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Fortinet FortiGate

May 2025

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series

Download Palo Alto Networks K2-Series product report

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Download Palo Alto Networks PA-Series product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Designed to handle growing throughput needs due to increasing amounts of application-, user-, and device-generated data, the K2-Series offers amazing performance and threat prevention capabilities to stop advanced cyberattacks and secure mobile network infrastructure, subscribers, and services.

Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is essential for firewall implementation, perimeter defense, securing infrastructure boundaries, web filtering, VPN, and threat prevention. Organizations deploy it for secure cloud connections, internet security, and managing network devices.

Companies trust Palo Alto Networks PA-Series to protect corporate networks from external threats, control traffic between networks, and meet regulatory compliance. Integrating well with applications, it offers centralized management and advanced security features such as IDS, IPS, and GlobalProtect. It ensures stable performance, application-based policy enforcement, and decryption of SSL traffic while providing efficient resource usage and comprehensive logging.

What are the key features?

Stability: Reliable performance for continuous protection.
App-ID: Application-based policy enforcement.
URL Filtering: Prevents access to malicious websites.
Security Controls: Comprehensive threat prevention mechanisms.
User-Friendly Interface: Simplifies management and operations.
Efficient Resource Usage: Optimized for minimal resource consumption.
Reporting: Detailed logs and analytics for better insights.
Antivirus: Protects against malware and viruses.
WildFire: Advanced threat prevention with machine learning AI.
Protocol Anomaly Detection: Identifies unusual network behavior.
SSL Decryption: Ensures secure traffic inspection.
Encryption: Safeguards sensitive data.
VPN Capabilities: Secure remote access for users.
Active Directory Integration: Streamlines user authentication.
Quality of Service (QoS): Manages network traffic efficiently.

What benefits should be evaluated?

Enhanced Security: Superior threat prevention and detection.
Centralized Management: Streamlined control of network devices.
Regulatory Compliance: Assists in meeting legal requirements.
Operational Efficiency: Reduced resource usage and downtime.
Comprehensive Reporting: Complete visibility into network activities.
Scalability: Adapts to growing network demands.
User Accessibility: Simplifies secure access for remote employees.

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is implemented across industries like healthcare, finance, retail, and manufacturing. In healthcare, it ensures patient data protection and compliance with HIPAA. Financial institutions utilize it to secure transactions and meet regulatory standards. Retailers benefit from protecting customer information and securing online payments. Manufacturing companies deploy it to safeguard intellectual property and control plant floor operations.

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

State of North Dakota, SEGA, Alameda County Office of Education, Temple University, VERGE, CAME

Information Not Available

Palo Alto Networks K2-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series