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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
6.9
Number of Reviews
589
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 (13th), 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) (13th)
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
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.
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 solution is stable."
"I think Fortinet is a cheaper, stable, scalable, and reliable device."
"We have several sites spread geographically across Latin America and Asia that use FortiGate, and some of them are unable to support cloud services so we have deployed it on-premise in order to provide ourselves with a fast and secure network."
"Generally, every aspect of it being a next-generation firewall provides good value."
"The feature I like most is the SD-WAN. It allows you to manage more than one ISP at the same time. And there is a high-availability mode, so if one of your ISPs is down, you still have a backup."
"If companies are thinking about the security of their network, they should consider FortiGate as a gate to the internet."
"The features that I have found most valuable are that it is good to use, and most importantly, the pricing. The customer especially likes the discount when they trade up or something like that."
"There is really nothing to complain about with this product; it's a very good product to use, and it has just started to get the top ratings for firewalls."
"The VM-Series scalability is fast and easy to implement, improving our security posture as our Azure network grows."
"The most valuable feature is that you can control your traffic flowing out and coming out, allowing you to apply malware and threat protection, as well as vulnerability checks."
"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."
"It is nice to have a rock solid security platform that we can count on."
"I have not actually called their support line, because we have a direct contact to a senior engineer in the company for any issues that we handle with them. I will say they are very responsive, and they do give you the information you need when you need it.​"
"A valuable feature of the solution is that it is not dependent on the hypervisor so we can install it on Hyper-V Microsoft software and deploy it."
"The VM series has an advantage over the physical version because we are able to change the sources that the machine has, such as the amount of available RAM."
"Palo Alto offers excellent security, with features such as email scanning, malware protection, and efficient VPN and antivirus capabilities."
"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 cost is very low."
"The solution can scale well."
"This is a capable appliance and the standard features work well for us."
"The Zyxel Unified Security Gateway solution is stable and does its job effectively."
 

Cons

"There could be improvements in the mathematical algorithms used for behavior analytics of traffic."
"We had some experiences where they release something new and great, but some of the old features are disabled or they don't work well, which impacts the product satisfaction."
"When it's overloaded, it works slower and overheats."
"We would like to see a better training platform implemented."
"Fortinet currently has many products bundled with FortiGate including the basic firewall and load balancer, and I think that that they need to have separate product portfolios for each of these specialized services."
"One drawback of Fortinet FortiGate is that they provide two types of models: one with a hard disk and another without. The model without a hard disk has very low ROM where you can store very few logs, after which you need to upload it to the cloud or purchase a firewall with SSD. That's the only drawback."
"One of the features that I would like to have is to do with endpoint production, it should be integrated. For example, the firewall gets notified of any kind of forensic event that needs to be done, such as if there is a ransomware attack and how it originated, all those records have to be available from the firewall, which is not."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"The solution needs to improve its visibility. It's not straightforward to use. Understanding the policies, authorizations, and initializing features requires careful review. The product needs to offer proper training."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"The tool is very costly."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"The performance of VM instances has some limitations in terms of threshold and throughput compared to appliances."
"There are some delays that I have observed when my company communicates with Palo Alto's support engineers."
"Sometimes it reboots when you least expect it, and that's the main issue."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Go for long term pricing negotiated at the time of purchase."
"Its price could be better."
"It's very affordable."
"The pricing for the product is alright."
"It is an expensive solution."
"If the customer is looking for SD-WAN, it comes free with FortiGate."
"Although the solution's pricing is high, compared with other products, it may be cheap."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate when compared to other solutions is high. However, my knowledge of the price is from third parties and I am not sure how accurate it is. I typically work in the technical area of my organization."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is an expensive product but the best one in the market."
"It is an expensive product."
"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"Sometimes, it's cheaper to buy a new firewall with licensing instead of renewing the licenses of an old firewall."
"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 VM series is licensed annually."
"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall.​"
"We used BYOL, because of the cost to own."
"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
11%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
21%
Computer Software Company
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business364
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise190
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise16
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: March 2026.
885,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.