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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection 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:
 

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 (13th)
SonicWall Capture Advanced ...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
30th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.5%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 1.2%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

RonnieYazdani - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly CLI and efficient dashboard streamline operations with robust security features
I find Palo Alto Networks VM-Series easy to deploy, and none of my customers have had significant complaints. My customers have high certifications provided by Palo Alto Networks. The friendly dashboard and the ability to easily command and use the CLI make Palo Alto Networks VM-Series a better product. It offers robust solutions, making it valuable to my customers.
MA
Has a good configuration but the price should be more competitive
Our primary use case of this solution is for security.  It's a good solution but the price is high. It also has an easy configuration. The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product. Our customers are mostly smaller enterprises.  The price should be more competitive.  I…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"It has excellent scalability."
"The technical support for the solution is very good."
"Overall, I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series an eight out of ten. I am happy with its performance and rich features."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series's most valuable feature is the visibility of the environment."
"In the newer version, there are 3850s, all of them are scalable. They fit better into the medium or small businesses."
"In AWS, Palo Alto provides us a better view than flow logs for network traffic."
"Palo Alto's robust threat intelligence supports new updates, and I can open cases directly with their Threat Intelligence team."
"It also has an easy configuration. The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product."
"The reporting that you get from it is the most valuable feature. You can see it via the appliance itself, and also via the MySonicWall account for the registered device. You are able to select the file if it's malicious, and you can select it in the reporting and see what triggered it, and things like that. I found that to be quite useful."
"I like this setup for a firewall. You can set things up very easily and you can automate items as well. It's a very robust firewall solution for enterprise as well as small businesses."
"They have a large database of commonly known things that they can catch automatically, then they have anything which is questionable go to the sandbox and be examined there before going into our network."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
"The ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) on scanning is the most valuable feature."
"Provides good protection and security."
"The stability of the solution is good. We haven't had any breaches or crashes. It's been very stable for us."
 

Cons

"Its web interface is a bit outdated, and it needs to be updated. They can also improve the NAT functionality. We have had issues with the NAT setup."
"The performance of VM instances has some limitations in terms of threshold and throughput compared to appliances."
"The disadvantage with Palo Alto is that they don't have a cloud-based solution that includes a secure web gateway."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"The utilization monitoring and GUI have room for improvement."
"The solution needs to improve its visibility. It's not straightforward to use. Understanding the policies, authorizations, and initializing features requires careful review. The product needs to offer proper training."
"If additional web application firewall capabilities could be integrated into the existing firewall, it would negate the need for additional products."
"There are various reports that come with the box or with the VMware, but you can only run them daily."
"I would say the solution needs a much simpler user interface, but the functionality of the firewall is quite extensive. You need the user interface to be that way. However, if there was a way to make the user interface a little easier, that would be great."
"Having an on-premise solution as well would be an option for some people, but they'll want to use a cloud solution for their sandboxing. Certain sites would want to keep all the checks done on an on-premise appliance. All the checking, rather than sending that up into a cloud engine."
"It does fare well against enterprise products."
"SonicWall should promote their roadmap and improve their marketing to customers."
"SonicWall had a recent layoff. This is a concern for us, because now we are missing the local presence from both the engineering and sales side."
"We would like to get immediate alerts from the alerting system without using third-parties."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"Could provide online training to allow customers to learn more about the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"There is a need to make payments toward a yearly subscription-based model in which you need to add modules that you want to use in your company."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is an expensive product but the best one in the market."
"The box, if you do not want to buy the threat prevention license in the box, you can buy it only with the support license. It is for the support of the hardware. It works like a simple firewall. It integrates what it calls user IDs and application IDs. If you do not buy any other license, only the firewall, Palo Alto will also help you improve a lot of your security."
"Do not buy larges box if you do not need them. Rightsizing is a great task to do before​hand."
"The pricing and licensing of this product on AWS for a three-year commitment is a great deal, if you can plan that far ahead."
"The product is cheaper than the on-premise version."
"The price is not bad. They have a yearly renewal fee, and the pricing is exactly where we expect it to be."
"It's thirty dollars per user and we have 30 users."
"When you compare it with other solutions, they are cheaper and more economical."
"We get our value for our money."
"The best deal from SonicWall is to buy the HA pair. When you buy the initial one, you receive the second one at a significant discount. If there is an event and something happens to one firewall, then you have the second firewall to roll into. For the price, it's pretty to tough to beat and not a lot of other firewall vendors offer it. You battle for a discount on both. Where with SonicWall, if you buy one, the second one is at half price. It's pretty straightforward."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Real Estate/Law Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

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...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Warren Rogers Associates
Wonder Cement, Foster Clark Products
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,524 professionals have used our research since 2012.