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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)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (14th)
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 May 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.4%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 2.1%, 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-Series2.4%
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection2.1%
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

"The VM-Series scalability is fast and easy to implement, improving our security posture as our Azure network grows."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is that you can control your traffic flowing out and coming it, allowing you to apply malware and threat protection, as well as vulnerability checks."
"I would recommend the product, and tell people, "Go for it." It has not disappointed us for the purpose that we use it."
"The VM series has an advantage over the physical version because we are able to change the sources that the machine has, such as the amount of available RAM."
"The main advantage of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series stems from the fact that you can access it with the help of cloud services."
"It is an easy-to-scale product."
"The technical support for the solution is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the alerting system."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
"The ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) on scanning is the most valuable feature."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product."
 

Cons

"The firewall itself is very complex. You have to do a lot of research, look through all the documentation, consult, and figure out how to use it."
"The scalability could be improved further."
"The user interface could use some improvement."
"There's room for improvement in terms of integration with the load balancer. It isn't like Fortinet, which has a load balancer built into its firewall. It is effortless to integrate within the load balancer-plus-firewall solution."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration between the endpoints and the firewalls."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"The solution must improve Zero Trust integration and use cases."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"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."
"Could provide online training to allow customers to learn more about the product."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"The setup needs improvement. It needs to be made more user-friendly."
"Sometimes customers are not aware of which protection is best for their business and SonicWall doesn't provide them with information on security features."
"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."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Based on the customer budget, they can choose from 12-month, 36-month, or 60-month licensing models."
"The pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"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."
"Because the solution was getting deployed on AWS, it was the best place to go and it was available there."
"The product's most valuable feature is pricing."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is notably cheaper than other firewall vendors, except Fortigate."
"The pricing for Palo Alto is quite high compared to FortiGate, which is more affordable. I don't have the exact figures as my manager handles that, but from my research, Palo Alto's licensing costs are significantly higher."
"We used BYOL, because of the cost to own."
"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."
"We get our value for our money."
"It's thirty dollars per user and we have 30 users."
"When you compare it with other solutions, they are cheaper and more economical."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Construction Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Media Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

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 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: April 2026.
893,915 professionals have used our research since 2012.