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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)
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (16th)
SonicWall Capture Advanced ...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
28th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series2.5%
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection2.0%
Other95.5%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadNadeem - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Has supported urgent deployments and enabled inline threat protection but pricing and features could be more flexible
I am not using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series mostly, but based on my experience, there are some deficiencies in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Having those features missing, we are not proposing Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to all customers. However, for urgency and for some solutions that customers need for some of their other sites and subdivisions, we are providing the same.
MA
Technical Manager, NOC at TEXUM JORDAN
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

"App-ID and User-ID have repeatedly shown value in securing business critical systems."
"Compared to the previous devices that we have used from other vendors, Palo Alto is very user-friendly, and we are comfortable with the features and capabilities that it offers."
"I highly recommend this service compared to other vendors."
"I have not actually called their support line, because we have a direct contact to a senior engineer in the company for any issues that we handle with them. I will say they are very responsive, and they do give you the information you need when you need it.​"
"It allows us to see all our traffic to properly secure it and only allow what is needed through the firewall."
"It offers robust solutions, making it valuable to my customers."
"It is very stable. It is fairly easy to use."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series's most valuable feature is the visibility of the environment."
"This is a solid solution that fills the requirements."
"SonicWall came out with a new add-on; it was inexpensive to add on to the existing product that we already owned, so we added it."
"The ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) on scanning is the most valuable feature."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
"The most valuable features of the product are the application filters, application policies, that block certain websites and allow bandwidth for others, those kinds of things."
"We get alert messages whenever there is a new threat. We are notified at the firewall level that things are blocked, which keeps us in our comfort zone."
"Provides good protection and security."
"For the past four and a half years, we haven't had any breaches or issues of any kind."
 

Cons

"All areas need improvement: manufacturing, education, financial, etc."
"The disadvantage with Palo Alto is that they don't have a cloud-based solution that includes a secure web gateway."
"The product could be better in terms of performance than one of its competitors."
"It would be helpful if we had a direct number for the support manager or the supporting engineer. That would be better than having to email every time because there would be less wait."
"There is a need for two-factor authentication, particularly for VPN and CloudProtect."
"The initial setup of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series was somewhat challenging, requiring extensive documentation review. I rate it a six out of ten for ease."
"We have run into some issues with scaling and limitations associated with some of the configurations."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"If anything at all, it would be some very minor updates that need to be done, but in terms of changes, nothing comes to mind."
"SonicWall should promote their roadmap and improve their marketing to customers."
"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."
"Sometimes customers are not aware of which protection is best for their business and SonicWall doesn't provide them with information on security features."
"The setup needs improvement. It needs to be made more user-friendly."
"It does fare well against enterprise products."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"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."
"The pricing and licensing of this product on AWS should be from $1.28/hr or $4,500.00/yr. Then, it would be a good price for the performance that it delivers."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is notably cheaper than other firewall vendors, except Fortigate."
"Because the solution was getting deployed on AWS, it was the best place to go and it was available there."
"Based on the customer budget, they can choose from 12-month, 36-month, or 60-month licensing models."
"Palo Alto is more expensive than other products."
"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."
"We get our value for our money."
"When you compare it with other solutions, they are cheaper and more economical."
"It's thirty dollars per user and we have 30 users."
"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
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Construction Company
14%
Marketing Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise3
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?
The pricing is more on the expensive side, but it is justified due to its functionality, reliability, and throughput, even with all features enabled. In comparison to FortiGate ( /products/fortinet...
What needs improvement with SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection?
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection needs to reconsider the pricing, especially in the cloud environment. The product is good overall, but the GUI needs to be more stable. I chose nine out...
What is your primary use case for SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection?
My main use case for SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is that it helps us with sandboxing for analyzing and inspecting unknown files and URLs. A quick specific example of how I've used ...
What advice do you have for others considering SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection?
I advise others looking into using SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection to consider that it is truly helpful and very important to have great sandboxing with advanced threat protection to s...
 

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: August 2026.
909,563 professionals have used our research since 2012.