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

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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)
16th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (15th)
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 October 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.6%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 2.1%, up from 1.1% 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-Series2.6%
SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection2.1%
Other95.3%
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

"It ensures that every interaction, pre and post-loan processing, undergoes a thorough inspection, leveraging VPN features and comprehensive security protocols."
"The most effective features for threat prevention include the threat prevention signature level, the application filter capability, and the visibility provided by the 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."
"With Palo Alto VM-Series, we are capable through a single point of management and visualization both in infrastructure and on premises and in the cloud, allowing us to improve the speed to create new rules and speed up the resolution of problems by having a holistic vision of our firewall infrastructure."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"It is very stable. It is fairly easy to use."
"The VM-Series scalability is fast and easy to implement, improving our security posture as our Azure network grows."
"In the newer version, there are 3850s, all of them are scalable. They fit better into the medium or small businesses."
"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 enjoy SonicWall as a package, with a robust firewall solution that protects against zero-day threats, optimizes network traffic for critical applications, and offers easy setup and automation for enterprises as well as small businesses."
"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."
"For the past four and a half years, we haven't had any breaches or issues of any kind."
"The stability of the solution is good. We haven't had any breaches or crashes. It's been very stable for us."
"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 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."
"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."
 

Cons

"There is a need for two-factor authentication, particularly for VPN and CloudProtect."
"The solution must improve Zero Trust integration and use cases."
"The implementation should be simplified."
"Integrative capabilities with other solutions should also be addressed."
"Technical support is good for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, but sometimes for new feature requests, we are facing challenges."
"The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters."
"I would like a way to do everything programmatically, or be able to copy the configs from different prices at different levels."
"The scalability could be improved further."
"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."
"We would like to get immediate alerts from the alerting system without using third-parties."
"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."
"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."
"I would like to have better documentation before starting with deployment because the deployment is a bit complex."
"It does fare well against enterprise products."
"The setup needs improvement. It needs to be made more user-friendly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The license fee is slightly high."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"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."
"It is not the cheapest on the market. The total cost for two firewall instances is $75,000. This includes licenses, deployment fees, and support for two years."
"The VM series is licensed annually."
"The pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is an expensive product but the best one in the market."
"It's thirty dollars per user and we have 30 users."
"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."
"When you compare it with other solutions, they are cheaper and more economical."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Construction Company
14%
Media Company
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: September 2026.
917,884 professionals have used our research since 2012.