Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

Palo Alto Networks and Zyxel are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Additionally, 96% of Palo Alto Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 50% of Zyxel users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Zyxel Unified Security Gateway 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 Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway Report (Updated: December 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

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

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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Sven-Verbeke

Solution Architect // Network Consultant at Group S

Network security has improved and allows detailed user-based control over encrypted traffic

Bandwidth usage is not something we use much, but it depends on the SD-WAN plugin because the application load balancing is based on the SD-WAN product. That functionality does not work as it should, although the App-ID is working very well. SD-WAN functionality is working, but when you compare it with other products on the market, it is very limited. Palo Alto also has ION devices, and ION devices together with Prisma Access or Strata Cloud Manager now are more the way to go than using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls on-premises. At the moment I have some issues, but the issues are more related to the general way of working of many vendors. They implement new things very fast and it is not always bug-free. With new releases, sometimes you still have some issues. This is the main concern. If you look back five or maybe ten years ago, the products were more stable and you had more decent releases, but that is something in general for many vendors. Palo Alto is also a factor with that. They want to bring new features to the market too fast. Features are a concern because all vendors try to compete against each other. If one vendor comes out with a new feature, then other vendors do the same. Sometimes they want to be the first on the market with it, and that sometimes introduces bugs or issues with the product.

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reviewer2399337

Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks

I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

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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

"Fortinet FortiGate is stable; I am told that Fortinet FortiGate is one of the best solutions available, and I believe it."

"FortiGate IPS is really easy to use. I don't have any problems with this."

"The main benefits of Fortinet FortiGate are security and the ability to manage all information throughout the company, including managing all data inside the company to prevent intrusions from outside."

"We use the filtering feature the most. It has filtering and inbuilt securities. We can create customized rules to define which users can access a particular type of site. We can create policies inside the firewall."

"Simple interface and easy to deploy."

"One of the most valuable features of FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) is the ease of usability it offers."

"The solution is stable."

"The web controls are what I appreciate about Fortinet FortiGate. We have extensive controls over areas where we could block external-facing IPs, external URLs. We can do geo-fencing with the firewalls, which is a good feature."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"It has a very good user interface. The documentation is also very good. It is very useful for monitoring things."

"One of the key features for us is product stability. We are a bank, so we require 24/7 service."

"They have a good system operator in the firewalls and it provides many tools that they can use to protect their networks."

"It has the typical features of a next-generation firewall. It can do application control, antivirus, content filtering, etc."

"The best feature is the packet inspection; compared to solutions like Cisco and FortiGate, Palo Alto's packet inspection is much less CPU intensive, allowing it to detect threats embedded within packages more quickly and efficiently."

"The scalability is very good."

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer a comprehensive suite of security features, with Intrusion Prevention System and certificate inspection being among the most valuable."

"We have found the SSL decryption within this solution to be great; you can enable this feature and have the ability to see more of what is happening across your network."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pros

"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."

"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."

"The solution can scale well."

"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."

Cons

"They should make the rule sets more understandable for the end user. When you're trying to explain to somebody how a computer network is secured, sometimes it's difficult for an end user or customer to understand. If there was a way to make the terminology more accessible to the end user, the set up could be easier. They should translate the technical jargon to an easily relatable and understandable conversation for the end user, the customer, that would be brilliant. Particularly in an environment where the IT structure is audited regularly, there's always pressure from the auditor to up the standards and up the security and you get your USCERT's that come out and there's a warning about this and the customer will want to lock out so much and when you apply it they run into issue where they can't search the internet or print to their remote office. Of course they can't print to your remote office, they just locked it up. They should make the language more understandable for the customer. If there's a product out there that made the jargon understandable to John Q. Public, I would buy that."

"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."

"The room for improvement is about the global delivery time period. Usually I need to wait for almost one month to deliver it overseas. So if you can shorten the deliver time it'd be great."

"I would rate Fortinet support a six out of ten. The immediate response is not that good, particularly when raising a critical or P1 ticket; they lag in the immediate response."

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

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve if it had a cloud-managed solution."

"FortiGate may include AI capabilities and integrate external threat intelligence. However, version management and backup/restore operations could be improved."

"We have an issue with hotel guest vouchers."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The tech support was once great, but now it is poor. The tech support has gone south. It is really difficult. I had a Priority 1 case last a week in their queue, and after multiple complaints, I finally got somebody to take the case. These are things that are unacceptable in the business world. They could train their employees better."

"Currently, they don't have email protection. They can maybe add it in the future. Currently, if you want to do so, you need to go with another solution."

"Palo Alto Firewalls could improve by introducing more features, particularly in load balancing."

"I would like to see more integration."

"The price is high and has room for improvement."

"I am in GCC in the Middle East. The support that we are getting from Palo Alto is disastrous. The problem is that the support ticket is opened through the distributor channel. Before opening a ticket, we already do a lot of troubleshooting, and when we open a ticket, it goes to a distributor channel. They end up wasting our time again doing what we have already done. They execute the same things and waste time. The distributor channel's engineer tries to troubleshoot, and after spending hours, they forward the ticket to Palo Alto. It is a very time-consuming process. The distributor channels also do not operate 24/7, and they are very lazy in responding to the calls."

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

"In the cloud, the HA could be a lot better. Its price could also be better. It is very expensive."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls cons

"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."

"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."

"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is around $50,000 per month."

"I give the pricing of the solution a six out of ten."

"It was worth the money overall. It's good value."

"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."

"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."

"Work through partners for the best pricing."

"Its pricing is good. The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost."

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

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are more expensive than Cisco firewalls, but slightly less expensive than Juniper firewalls."

"The Palo Alto solution is actually not expensive. It was comparable to the old firewall manufacturers that we were using. From the benefits that we have gotten out of the Palo Alto products, it is well worth the difference in cost, even though the difference in cost is not much at all."

"The cost of the license is platform-dependent. It would be nice if they standardized that across the board to make the license a flat fee instead of based on scale and the platform you're using. Functionality shouldn't change based on the platform or the amount of data going through it. It's the same functionality on there. That's one aspect customers often raise. The platform's price is what it is, but the ongoing cost of the annual license is hard for some customers to wrap their heads around."

"The cost is steep, but most firewalls cost a lot."

"This solution is quite expensive."

"With Palo Alto, the licensing is very straightforward. For example, if you only have a requirement for a firewall, you can go with that. If you want to go with a subscription, you get all the features with it."

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is expensive, but it is worth its price."

"Palo Alto is like Mercedes-Benz. It is quite expensive, but the price is definitely justified."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pricing and cost advice

"This gateway is pretty cheap."

"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Educational Organization

Comms Service Provider

23%

Computer Software Company

11%

Outsourcing Company

Wholesaler/Distributor

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	74
Midsize Enterprise	56
Large Enterprise	85

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 is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...

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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...

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Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...

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What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?

The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?

I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done co...

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What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?

The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm lo...

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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

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 3% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 18% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 12% of the time

Check Point Quantum Force (NGFW) vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 10% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 7% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

Compared 14% of the time

Sophos Firewall vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

Compared 12% of the time

OPNsense vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

Cisco Meraki MX vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

Compared 5% of the time

More Zyxel Unified Security Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2026

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

January 2026

Download Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls product report

Buyer's Guide

Unified Threat Management (UTM)

January 2026

Download Zyxel Unified Security Gateway product report

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall

Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks 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

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls deliver advanced threat protection with machine learning, enhancing security through real-time attack prevention. Known for application visibility and a user-friendly interface, they offer robust network protection and flexibility in rule creation.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are designed to secure environments with features like GlobalProtect VPN, WildFire malware detection, and unified platform integration. Their strong firewall capabilities and high-performance throughput make them suitable for perimeter and data center protection, VPN configurations, application control, and network segmentation. Users consistently highlight the ease of managing network security policies and integrating third-party tools, ensuring a comprehensive protection strategy. While enhancements in support, training resources, and configuration simplicity are needed, these firewalls are integral for securing both on-prem and cloud environments, aligning with platforms like Azure and AWS.

What are the key features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Application Visibility: Provides insight into network traffic for better control.
Threat Prevention: Uses machine learning for real-time attack prevention.
GlobalProtect VPN: Secures remote access efficiently.
WildFire Malware Detection: Detects and prevents advanced threats.
Unified Platform Integration: Enhances network security through seamless integration with other tools.

What benefits should be evaluated when considering Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Flexibility in Rule Creation: Allows customized security policies to meet specific needs.
High-Performance Throughput: Ensures efficient network operations under high load.
Comprehensive Policy Management: Simplifies overseeing and adjusting security policies.
Robust Endpoint Security: Protects endpoints against sophisticated threats.
Seamless Integration: Works well with third-party tools for a comprehensive solution.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are commonly implemented across industries for securing LAN environments, URL filtering, and ensuring Zero Trust security. They secure both on-premises and cloud infrastructures, often becoming integral parts of security frameworks within enterprises. Leveraging these firewalls in conjunction with Azure or AWS enhances the overall network protection strategies employed by organizations.

Palo Alto Networks

ZyWALL USG Series delivers high-access quality to help businesses satisfy the demand for always-online communications. For internal deployments, the ZyWALL USG Series provides active-passive High-Availability (HA) service to support device or connection failover.

With Device HA Pro service, the ZyWALL USG Series also supports instant failover, so connections are always maintained when a failover event occurs. For external deployments, the ZyWALL USG Series features multi- WAN load balancing/failover and a comprehensive mobile broadband USB modem support list for WAN backup operations. The ZyWALL USG Series also supports IPSec load balancing and failover, providing additional resilience for mission-critical VPN failover with VTI Interface deployments.

ZyWALL USG110/210/310 thoroughly protects networks with industry-leading firewall, Anti-Malware/ Virus, Anti-Spam, Content Filtering, IDP, and Application Patrol functionality. Regulate unauthorized use of Web applications over your network, such as Facebook, Google apps, and Netflix, among others. Zyxel security measures are enhanced with SSL Inspection, blocking threats hidden in SSL-encrypted connections while facilitating deeper policy enforcement. Furthermore, newly improved Content Filtering 2.0 enhances HTTPS Domain Filter, Browser SafeSearch, and Geo IP Blocking for an array of security enhancements to ensure clean Web connections.

Zyxel

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

December 2025

Free Report: Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.

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