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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 has good stability; we haven't had any issues, and it has never been down."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use."
"It offers robust solutions, making it valuable to my customers."
"The product provides more visibility into our traffic."
"Embedding it into my application development lifecycle prevents data loss and business disruption, allowing the adoption to operate at the speed of my AWS Cloud."
"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."
"It is very stable. It is fairly easy to use."
"We now know a lot more detail about what our users are doing on the network."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is the alerting system."
"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."
"This is a solid solution that fills the requirements."
"Provides good protection and security."
"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."
"It also has an easy configuration. The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
 

Cons

"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a complex product to work with."
"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."
"All areas need improvement: manufacturing, education, financial, etc."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration of multi-factor authentication vendors."
"When managing the firewall, it involves a Strata Cloud web browser that requires improvement to enhance deployment ease and call center efficiency."
"The user-friendliness of the UI could be improved."
"The web interface is very slow, and it needs to be faster."
"The product could be better in terms of performance than one of its competitors."
"Could provide online training to allow customers to learn more about the product."
"SonicWall should promote their roadmap and improve their marketing to customers."
"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 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."
"It does fare well against enterprise products."
"The setup needs improvement. It needs to be made more user-friendly."
"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."
"We would like to get immediate alerts from the alerting system without using third-parties."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Initially, pricing was high. Later on, we were able to negotiate the pricing and get something that fits our budget."
"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall.​"
"I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing an eight out of ten."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"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."
"One of the factors for selecting Palo Alto was they had flexible pricing. They had a pay-as-you-go model. Comparable to other products, such as Check Point, the price point was definitely a plus."
"It is an expensive product."
"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."
"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
14%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
15%
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.
915,325 professionals have used our research since 2012.