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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 (13th)
SonicWall Capture Advanced ...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
27th
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 April 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.1%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 2.0%, up from 0.8% 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-Series2.1%
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection2.0%
Other95.9%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

AV
Cyber security consultant at L&T Technology Services
Enhance cybersecurity for large enterprises using advanced threat management
An improvement could be the integration of security intelligence with Palo Alto cloud via APIs. This would allow IOCs, domains, and hash values to be automatically entered, reducing manual entry. Integration with CSIRT across all use levels would make it easier for administrators to stay updated on the blocked entities without manual intervention.
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

"Overall, I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series an eight out of ten. I am happy with its performance and rich features."
"With Palo Alto, it feels like you're using the Rolls-Royce of firewalls."
"The most valuable feature is that you can launch it in a very short time; you don't have to wait for the hardware to arrive and get it staged and installed, and from that perspective, it is easy to launch and also scalable."
"Scalability is a strength of Palo Alto VM-Series."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use because, after installation, its intuitive web interface makes all the traffic very well filtered and gives me all I need."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is easy to maintain...From a security point of view, I find Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to be a better product compared to the other solutions in the market."
"We have reduced the number of configuration lines by 90%. We need fewer number of admins right now because of it."
"With the improved visibility we now have, the traffic is being properly monitored, which means that we are better able to manage it. These are improvements that we saw very quickly."
"This is a solid solution that fills the requirements."
"The stability of the solution is good. We haven't had any breaches or crashes. It's been very stable for us."
"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."
"I would recommend this solution, as a firewall product solution that has a similar sandboxing type of thing has become quite an essential part of a security footprint."
"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."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
"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."
"The ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) on scanning is the most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"There are various reports that come with the box or with the VMware, but you can only run them daily."
"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."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."
"It can definitely improve on the performance."
"Palo Alto should update their documentation to make it more readable and provide easier-to-follow instructions through videos."
"It is not very easy to scale up the solution."
"We have run into some issues with scaling and limitations associated with some of the configurations."
"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."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"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."
"SonicWall should promote their roadmap and improve their marketing to customers."
"The setup needs improvement. It needs to be made more user-friendly."
"We would like to get immediate alerts from the alerting system without using third-parties."
"Sometimes customers are not aware of which protection is best for their business and SonicWall doesn't provide them with information on security features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"The license fee is slightly high."
"Based on the customer budget, they can choose from 12-month, 36-month, or 60-month licensing models."
"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 solution is expensive. I rate its pricing a three out of ten."
"The pricing was expensive but it was comparable to the competition."
"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."
"Because the solution was getting deployed on AWS, it was the best place to go and it was available there."
"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%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
14%
Media Company
8%
Marketing Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise16
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: March 2026.
885,728 professionals have used our research since 2012.