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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Zyxel Unified Security Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
591
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Firewalls (1st), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (14th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (12th)
Zyxel Unified Security Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
4.9
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Unified Threat Management (UTM) (12th)
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
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.
reviewer2399337 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sales and technical consultant at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
User has benefited from stable performance and effective completion of security tasks
I use it mostly for VPN and for some firewall solutions When considering my main use case with VPN, I can say that I got the Zyxel Unified Security Gateway, and it works fine. However, we are thinking about using a different solution based on open source because Zyxel Unified Security Gateway…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The stability is great; there are no issues with crashing or freezing, and there are no bugs or glitches."
"It is quite easy to handle."
"The initial setup is easy."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"The solution is very easy to understand. It's not overly complex."
"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."
"The strengths of Fortinet FortiGate include network security, VPN, site-to-site tunnels, client VPN solutions, two-factor authentication for VPN clients, and SD-WAN for branch level. We have implemented these solutions for various customers."
"We receive substantial help from Fortinet, which is very valuable as they assist us in choosing the right solutions. If we need configuration assistance, they can send specialists who help design the solution."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The feature that I have found the most useful is that it meets all our requirements technically."
"In Palo Alto the most important feature is the App-ID."
"Everything from Palo Alto is good and I recommend that people implement this firewall."
"From a Synapse perspective, they have better visibility, better CV detection, better exposure detection, and it is in a single tool, so we are happy with it."
"It gives us the ease that we are secure. We have set up the proper things that help make our data safe."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The cost is very low."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus."
"The solution can scale well."
 

Cons

"They've become quite expensive."
"Fortinet FortiGate could improve their documentation on forward error correction and failover technologies."
"I believe one area that could be improved in Fortinet FortiGate is posturing, specifically for remote VPN users, as there are OS-based limitations I encountered with only Windows; adding domain restrictions for VPN access would make it more competitive and useful."
"The web interface could be made better."
"Technical support could be better. You don't always get the level of help you need right away."
"The stability could be a bit better."
"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."
"We also have FortiAnalyzer deployed here, so we want to enable the soft functionality of FortiGate and built-in compression for a firewall VPN use case. We want the ability to deploy a gateway for HTTPS enabled on this firewall. It is currently only for use in our headquarters."
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"The product could be better in terms of performance than one of its competitors."
"Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"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."
"The implementation should be simplified."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved. The advanced UI allows me to do whatever I want, but this is where the issue of speed exists."
"I have never seen it in any company that I've worked with before, and I would advise other companies not to buy it."
"The product has some scalability and data management issues where improvements are required."
"Although manageable, the user interface is a little bit slow and could be improved."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is perfect."
"It is quite affordable for our customers. There is a separate cost for IPS, antivirus, web filtering, and other features. They have a great choice of licenses. You can go for the license that you want, which is quite useful."
"Its pricing is competitive with other solutions."
"Fortinet FortiGate IPS is cheaper than other solutions like Cisco or Check Point."
"There is an annual license to use this solution. The prices have been increasing over the years."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have the full license that included all of the features and support."
"The price of FortiGate is comparable to that of most other firewall solutions and is more affordable than Cisco."
"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."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is notably cheaper than other firewall vendors, except Fortigate."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is the most expensive tool among competitors"
"The box, if you do not want to buy the threat prevention license in the box, you can buy it only with the support license. It is for the support of the hardware. It works like a simple firewall. It integrates what it calls user IDs and application IDs. If you do not buy any other license, only the firewall, Palo Alto will also help you improve a lot of your security."
"The license fee is slightly high."
"The pricing and licensing are reasonable."
"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"The price of Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is good compared to other similar products in the market."
"This gateway is pretty cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
19%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business367
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise193
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise24
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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...
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...
What do you like most about Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The most valuable features of the solution stem from web filtering, malware protection, and antivirus.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
I cannot definitively comment on whether Zyxel Unified Security Gateway is an affordable product as I haven't done co...
What needs improvement with Zyxel Unified Security Gateway?
The integration capability is quite challenging. The system is very complicated, and many features are hidden. I'm lo...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Warren Rogers Associates
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. Zyxel Unified Security Gateway and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
894,738 professionals have used our research since 2012.