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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)
13th
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)
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 September 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.5%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall Capture Advanced Threat Protection is 2.1%, up from 1.0% 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 Protection2.1%
Other95.4%
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

"They now know the details about their network traffic that they did not know before: Applications that they are using and some application they did not know they were using."
"It is nice to have a rock solid security platform that we can count on."
"The technical support for the solution is very good."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it meets all our requirements technically."
"If you do not have a Next-Generation Firewall, Palo Alto is a good choice, it is reliable and the support is very good."
"I highly recommend this service compared to other vendors."
"In the newer version, there are 3850s, all of them are scalable. They fit better into the medium or small businesses."
"In Palo Alto the most important feature is the App-ID."
"It also has an easy configuration. The feedback that we get from our customers is that it's a good product."
"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."
"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 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."
"We use it for protection against viruses and ransomware attacks."
"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."
 

Cons

"When you have a client compare box against box, a lot of times Palo Alto is a bit more expensive, but its network firewalls have a very rich ratio."
"The scalability could be improved further."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a complex product to work with."
"The user-friendliness of the UI could be improved."
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"There are some delays that I have observed when my company communicates with Palo Alto's support engineers."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"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."
"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."
"It does fare well against enterprise products."
"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 should promote their roadmap and improve their marketing to customers."
"Could provide online training to allow customers to learn more about the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Purchasing on the AWS Marketplace was simple, effective, and easy."
"The price of this solution is very high for some parts of Africa, which makes it a challenge."
"Some parts of purchasing through AWS Marketplace are good, such as this product was easy to find and launch. Some of the other parts could be clearer in the AWS Marketplace, e.g., how to properly do an annual subscription."
"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."
"AWS is available as a AMI that you can purchase from the AWS Marketplace. Therefore, you need to purchase the licensing, since it is per AMI. Then, you deploy it on a regular EC2. Then, for on-premise, you can use both Palo Alto's software and hardware."
"Do not buy larges box if you do not need them. Rightsizing is a great task to do before​hand."
"We used BYOL, because of the cost to own."
"I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing an eight out of ten."
"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."
"We get our value for our money."
"It's thirty dollars per user and we have 30 users."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
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.
914,889 professionals have used our research since 2012.