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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Palo Alto Networks WildFire comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.1
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series offers high ROI with efficient deployment, enhanced security, and significant time and effort savings.
Sentiment score
7.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire efficiently prevents threats, reduces costs significantly, and integrates seamlessly for comprehensive real-time security.
Customers can see data within a week, indicating a quick return on investment.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series support is generally responsive and effective, but some users note delays and inefficiencies.
Sentiment score
7.3
Palo Alto Networks WildFire support excels for large companies, with varied quality and responsiveness for others, depending on region.
The support quality could be improved.
Resolving issues promptly.
They are responsive and provide high-quality assistance.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
The support is quite difficult to access promptly.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is scalable with praised deployment and licensing, but faces integration and cost management challenges.
Sentiment score
8.2
Palo Alto Networks WildFire excels in adaptability, scalability, and seamless integration, meeting diverse organizational demands and high-performance standards.
They are easy to upgrade, and with credit licensing, they scale effectively according to demand.
The solution is scalable and can easily handle an increase in the number of users.
It is easy to use with an excellent graphical user interface and extensive documentation, which contributes to its high scalability.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable, and I give it a nine for scalability.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is highly stable, reliable, and performs excellently, though occasional update and API delays are reported.
Sentiment score
8.4
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly reliable, stable, and efficient, excelling in large-scale deployments and seamless cloud integration.
Hardware is generally very stable.
I have not experienced any major problems or downtime.
Perfection is unlikely as the dynamic nature of traffic and constant changes can result in occasional bugs despite regular updates.
 

Room For Improvement

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series could improve usability and integration by adopting HTML5, enhancing features, and addressing cost and support issues.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire needs improvements in cost, user interface, ease of deployment, integration, detection capabilities, and support efficiency.
Integration with CSIRT across all use levels would make it easier for administrators to stay updated on the blocked entities without manual intervention.
Most customers go for partner-enabled support, which involves multiple layers, leading to delays.
When managing the firewall, it involves a Strata Cloud web browser that requires improvement to enhance deployment ease and call center efficiency.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
The support could be improved, as it takes a while to get assistance from the vendors.
 

Setup Cost

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing is high, complex, and costly compared to Fortinet and Check Point alternatives.
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is valued for advanced security despite high costs, preferred by enterprises but challenging for smaller firms.
Palo Alto is expensive in terms of pricing, particularly when comparing features to cost.
The cost involves purchasing through a vendor, which might mark up due to the supply chain.
Pricing for Palo Alto Networks is higher than other OEMs, but considering the robustness and features, it gains customer trust.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
 

Valuable Features

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series offers superior threat management, scalability, advanced security features, and ease, making it a preferred cybersecurity choice.
WildFire offers sandboxing, App-ID, and automation, excelling in threat detection with real-time updates and seamless integration.
We use these tools to prevent all known and unknown threats using Palo Alto Networks' Wildfire and other data filtering tools to gather information, analyze traffic, manage malicious traffic, and offer visibility, control, and attack prevention.
Palo Alto's robust threat intelligence supports new updates, and I can open cases directly with their Threat Intelligence team.
The DNS security significantly enhances security through visibility and detection, allowing control over crucial traffic like DNS, which is often exploited by ransomware.
Integrating Palo Alto Networks WildFire with various security protocols similar to a firewall has significantly improved the overall threat detection capabilities in our organization.
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
 

Categories and Ranking

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (11th)
Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is 12.3%, up from 12.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

AshwaniTyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced protection and good integration capabilities with good reliability
We use Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to offer services to our customers as a managed security service provider. We provide solutions and services to our customers across the globe. For example, if I want to host a firewall in the cloud or somewhere where the physical appliance is not a possibility…
AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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...
How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Warren Rogers Associates
Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks WildFire and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,963 professionals have used our research since 2012.