Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs WatchGuard XTM [EOL] comparison

Palo Alto Networks and WatchGuard are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 96% of Palo Alto Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 90% of WatchGuard users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 6, 2025

WatchGuard XTM EOL and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are two competing products in the network security sector. Based on extensive analysis, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer more comprehensive features, positioning it as a more robust solution despite WatchGuard XTM EOL's attractive pricing and support advantages.

Features: WatchGuard XTM EOL provides useful features such as content filtering, VPN capabilities, and straightforward device management. In contrast, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offers advanced threat detection, application control, and machine learning capabilities for real-time attack prevention.

Room for Improvement: WatchGuard XTM EOL could enhance its integration capabilities, scalability, and advanced reporting features. On the other hand, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls may benefit from further simplifying its complex deployment process, improving its user interface, and offering better integration with third-party solutions.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: WatchGuard XTM EOL is known for its ease of setup and quick customer support responses, making it user-friendly for those without dedicated IT teams. Meanwhile, despite a more intricate setup, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide thorough online resources and community support to facilitate troubleshooting.

Pricing and ROI: WatchGuard XTM EOL is a cost-effective option for organizations with limited budgets, providing notable ROI through lower initial expenses. Although Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls come at a higher cost, their extensive security features deliver significant returns on investment, deemed worthwhile for those prioritizing enhanced protection.

To learn more, read our detailed Firewalls Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Firewalls

April 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

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.

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AmjadKhan1

Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

Provides inline protection with a unified view and anti-spyware capabilities

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls ten out of ten because it is the best. Our disaster recovery site utilizes Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls. We are also in the process of upgrading the firewalls at our 365 sites in Pakistan to Palo Alto Networks firewalls. While budget firewalls may advertise comparable features, they often fall short of effectively detecting viruses, threats, and ransomware. In contrast, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, combined with Cortex XDR, provide comprehensive threat intelligence and detection capabilities, ensuring superior security coverage. I recommend conducting a proof of concept before selecting a firewall. This will allow you to evaluate different options and determine which best suits your needs. While Palo Alto offers robust firewall solutions, it's essential to compare them with other vendors to ensure you make an informed decision.

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it_user498942

Deputy Head of IT Department at a financial services firm with 501-1,000 employees

Helps me create firewall policies for networks and services.

1. It is difficult to configure WatchGuard with your internet settings. Actually, a normal internet setting/configuration is easy. However, I had a problem with multi WAN and multi LAN. I have a few different LAN subnet and two WAN. What I want to do is to route traffic from LAN1 through WAN1 and use WAN2 as failover. And for LAN2, it would route through WAN2 and use WAN1 as failover. So all traffic from LAN1 supposed to go through WAN1 only unless WAN1 is down, then it will go WAN2. However, I still could see some packet from LAN1 go through WAN2 at the same times. I checked the Traffic Monitoring in WatchGuard and I figured it out that is because of default “Outgoings” policy. Unfortunately, I could not disable default “Outgoings” policy and if I do “all clients could not access the internet even if I created another Outgoing Policy to replace the default one”. I used to ask my Vendor to help with this problem, but they could not do it. 2. I would like to see more granularity on each IP bandwidth that is used. I want to check which IP consume internet Bandwidth the most, but it is not convenient to check the total bandwidth that one IP is consuming. I need to go to “Traffic Management” to see which group IP that used most of the bandwidth, and then I go to “Hostwatch” to check bandwidth of each IP and sum the consumed bandwidth by myself. 3. It cannot block Internet Download Manager nor the Torrent application “BitComet” Internet Download Manager and BitComet are two applications that I cannot block in “Application Control”. I used to ask my vendor for help, but they still could not do it. Other application (Messenger, other peer-to-peer application, social network, VOIP .. etc), WatchGuard can block them.

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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

"I'm pretty happy with its reliability. It is also very scalable."

"The payment function for applications is good."

"The security features that they have are quite good. On top of that, their licensing model is quite nice where they don't charge you anything for the SD-WAN functionality for the firewall."

"This is a quality product with ok support, and it is better than the competition we've tried."

"We have been able to offer several services to customers in a single box."

"Fortinet FortiGate protects against internet-based threats, both internal and external. It is scalable, stable, easy to use, and easy to install."

"This solution has solid UTM features combined with a nice GUI."

"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is URL filtering."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The most valuable features are web filtering and application filtering."

"From my experience, comparing it to other products, the granularity you can have in the application is very good. The application detection is excellent. It's certainly one of the best."

"The most valuable features are Wildfire, URL filtering, and IPS."

"Protection from a single packet and ease of making security rules."

"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is Cortex Data Lake."

"I have found it to be reliable and very easy to use. I haven't really encountered many problems with it because its documentation is clear and readily available on their website."

"One of the things I really like about it is that we have the same features and functions available on the entry-level device (PA-220), as do large corporations with much more costly appliances."

"It has a unique approach to packet processing. It has single-pass architecture. We can easily perform policy lookups, application decoding, and integration or merging. This can be all done with a single pass. It effectively reduces the amount of processing required to perform multiple actions. This is the main advantage of using Palo Alto."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pros

"After installing the product, we achieved awareness of our data protection needs and email misuse."

"They have a reporting system which can store data over a very long period of time. Not many other firewall vendors provide a reporting system, but if they do, like Fortinet does, then you've got buy that as an additional product and that can be more than twice as expensive as the initial investment in the firewall. And without reporting over a long-term period, you're just about wasting your time."

"There is a site-to-site VPN configuration between others people."

"WatchGuard XTM is fairly basic. We use it as the perimeter firewall. The main point is to protect from attack software and hacking."

"Reputation Enabled Defense indicates that some websites are so infested that it's not even worth visiting them, and therefore saving the bandwidth of going through the detection process."

"It configures in all-in-one place."

"We have used technical support for WatchGuard many times and overall, we are satisfied with it. They are always listening and there is a good reaction time to our findings. When there are issues, they really try to resolve them."

"It is stable and does not require you to reboot all the time."

More WatchGuard XTM [EOL] pros

Cons

"The reporting in Fortinet FortiGate could improve. Customers are having to purchase additional reporting components. When I have used the Sophos solution it is a complete solution, in Fortinet FortiGate you have to use additional tools to have the features needed."

"There could be more integration between the logging and analytical platforms to make it more seamless and integrated."

"Monitoring and reporting could be better."

"We would like to have the ability to disable some of the security functionalities."

"It should come integrated or have its own type of network monitor tool in a module. There should just be one package, and you are good to go."

"It claims it does DLP, but the degree and level of controls are very basic."

"Lacks training for new features."

"The solution can have more features in a single box that can be multi-applied to integrate everything."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Palo Alto recently introduced a security analyzer in version ten, but this feature could be enhanced, and the URL filtering improved."

"The VPN has room for improvement."

"I would like a collaboration system and reporting ASA policy needs to be smarter."

"Surfacing actionable intelligence right away could be better. You have to dig far to get some of the information. If the solution could surface the two or three things out of the 10,000 a day that we really need to deal with, it would be helpful."

"As part of our internet filtering, we integrate heavily with Active Directory, and we use security groups to separate staff into two groups: those who should have full access to the internet and those who should have limited access. It may be just the way the topology is for our domain controllers and that infrastructure, but at peak usage, there seems to be a delay in reading back against the security group to find out what group the user is in."

"We have a lot of the older firewall models, i.e., the PA-220. It seems that with newer operating systems the PA-220 is becoming slower than when I first bought it. It is not really an issue for users who are passing traffic through the firewall, but more from the management access of it."

"The performance of the Panorama interface needs to be improved. It tends to be very sluggish at times."

"I would like to see better third-party orchestration so that it is easier for the team to work with different products."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls cons

"The VPN errors are not helpful when troubleshooting."

"One huge issue with WatchGuard XTM is that I'm not getting reports in a readable format. Readable means, I don't want Excel online. We repeat auditing when we trigger the report or setup calendar. That functionality is what we are looking for from WatchGuard XTM here."

"Sometimes we have had issues with stability of the product."

"The initial setup is neither simple nor complex. If you know the base in networking and how the firewall works, you will be able to figure it out."

"Syslog (Dimension) is focused on presentation, but needs more focus on utility like SonicWall syslog (GMS/Analyzer)."

"I would like them to improve the product's overall protections. This would be good for all product users."

"The setting policies need improvement. It needs an easier way to do static NAT and check on what policy is being used for that specific traffic."

"WatchGuard doesn't have a product that allows them to get into the data center. And that's just because there is no hardware to do the job. The software could do it, but there's no hardware that allows that to happen at the moment. So it doesn't scale as well as some other products, that's for sure."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is fair for what we get with FortiGate."

"Compared to Palo Alto, which we have used in the past, pricing and licensing are okay."

"I would say that all things considered, the pricing is pretty good."

"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."

"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."

"This is not a cheap solution but it isn't expensive, either. It's a good solution for the right price."

"We purchased a five-year bundle package, which worked out cheaper than competing solutions."

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

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It's too expensive."

"Unfortunately, Palo Alto Networks products aren't cheap, but you have to pay the price for good security technology. I don't know the exact price, but it's about $10,000 to $15,000 without a subscription. Cisco is priced similarly. FortiGate is inexpensive in Poland, so a lot of customers prefer that. Though it's pricey, customers ultimately realize Palo Alto is the best security solution because it's stable and the network security functions are practical. Cisco has some problems from time to time, but I feel comfortable with Palo Alto Networks."

"The pricing is competitive."

"The solution’s cost is a little high compared to other products."

"The pricing is straightforward with no hidden costs."

"I am not from presales or sales, but as a brand, Palo Alto is more expensive than other firewalls."

"Annually, the licensing costs are too much."

"It could be less expensive."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pricing and cost advice

"Get at least a maintenance contract for the updates and take a larger WatchGuard than you need. A WatchGuard creates new ways to secure your network."

"Like all other manufacturers, there are a lot of features and different pricing. The best is to talk to a representative."

"It costs less than the SO works and others (like SonicWall, Cisco, and Barracuda) without increasing so much CPU use."

"The licensing and renewal is very expensive."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

20%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

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

Sophos UTM vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 2% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 11% of the time

Sophos XG vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 10% of the time

Meraki MX vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 9% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Competitors

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

April 2025

Download Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls product report

Buyer's Guide

WatchGuard XTM [EOL]

April 2025

Download WatchGuard XTM [EOL] product report

Also Known As

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

Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation 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

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer comprehensive security, including application control, traffic shaping, threat prevention, and load balancing, designed to secure internal networks, perimeter protection, VPN services, and cloud environments.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are a key choice for managing and protecting data centers, securing remote access, network segmentation, malware prevention, and ensuring high availability and performance for business-critical applications. Known for stability and strong security, these firewalls use application-aware identifiers and IPS/IDS subscriptions to offer advanced threat protection. The unified platform facilitates seamless integration, while GlobalProtect and centralized management via Panorama enhance ease of use. However, there are areas for improvement, including pricing strategies, training, user support, and integration with third-party applications.

What are the essential features?

Stability: Reliable performance in different environments.
Application Control: Identifies applications to manage traffic.
Advanced Threat Protection: Includes DNS security, WildFire, and machine learning.
GlobalProtect: Secure remote access for users.
Centralized Management: Managed via the Panorama platform.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Security: Protects against threats with robust features.
User-Friendly: Simplified interface and easy configuration.
High Availability: Ensures performance for critical applications.
Integration: Seamless with existing systems and applications.
Support: Reliable technical support and resources.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls secure sensitive data and meet regulatory requirements. These firewalls help manage large-scale networks in these sectors, providing essential security features and maintaining high-performance standards. They are implemented to ensure compliance, protect patient information, secure financial transactions, and safeguard customer data.

Palo Alto Networks

Small businesses need big security, too, and the WatchGuard XTM Series firewall/VPN appliances deliver that strong protection, but without the hefty price tag. Enterprise-grade security includes full HTTPS content inspection, VoIP support, and optional security subscriptions like Application Control and Intrusion Prevention Service.

WatchGuard

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

SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments

AVG, Cyren, Kaspersky Lab, Lastline, NCP engineering, Trend Micro, Websense

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