We performed a comparison between Fortinet FortiGate and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."I like Fortinet FortiGate's antispam filter, SPN, and clustering features."
"The next-generation firewall is great."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"We purchased Fortinet because of the pricing, its functionality, because it met our requirements, and the total cost of ownership over five years was quite reasonable. In the market, Fortinet is rated quite well."
"The reporting you receive out of this appliance is excellent. You will not need an external management system."
"The flexibility and ease of configuration are the most valuable features."
"Reliability is the best feature. We faced some issues when we were setting it up, but the service, portal, and administration are good."
"It increases security posture and is helpful for firewall reporting, intrusion protection, web filtering, and SD-WAN implementation."
"It is reliable and the support is very good."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use."
"It has excellent scalability."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its stability, ease of implementation, ease of operation, and security."
"The most valuable feature is that you can control your traffic flowing out and coming it, allowing you to apply malware and threat protection, as well as vulnerability checks."
"It is nice to have a rock solid security platform that we can count on."
"The reports are very basic."
"There are some cloud-based features that could be much more flexible than they currently are."
"Lacks training for new features."
"The solution could be more evenly structured."
"The stability of Fortinet FortiGate could improve."
"The solution could have licensing fees reduced in the future."
"Fortinet needs to overhaul its documentation."
"The main aspect of FortiGate that could be improved is load balancing. Our management team does not want to buy another appliance for only load balancing."
"The solution needs to have more easily searchable details or documentation about it online, so it's easier to Google if you have queries."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"The solution must improve Zero Trust integration and use cases."
"The utilization monitoring and GUI have room for improvement."
"Just sometimes it can be a bit sluggish navigating through pages. That is just purely because of Java."
"Recently, they introduced their Prisma Cloud solution. Compared to the previous technologies, like Panorama, which is used for centralized firewall management, or even the individual firewalls, it's a bit challenging to integrate the traditional firewall policies into Prisma Cloud."
"There are some delays that I have observed when my company communicates with Palo Alto's support engineers."
"Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is ranked 10th in Firewalls with 53 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series writes "Many features are optimized for troubleshooting real-time scenarios, saving a lot of time". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is most compared with Azure Firewall, Fortinet FortiGate-VM, Cisco Secure Firewall, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Juniper SRX Series Firewall. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series report.
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Hello Tarun, we have been designing solutions with Palo Alto Networks NGFW for 6 years now and we have 95%+ customer retention.
I would suggest looking into customer requirement on the basis of the following things, and priority is given by the customer:
1. Internet Bandwidth
2. No. Of users - In-house and users connecting from home/outside organization network.
3. Security features required - Sandoxing, DNS Security, etc.
4. Port density required on the firewall.
5. SSL decryption.
6. Deployment - On-prem or virtual DC or on Cloud.
7. HA requirement
8. MFA requirement
9. Local presence of Palo Alto/Fortinet expert team.
10. Integration for other (operational) solutions like SD-WAN, Load balancer, etc
11. Integration with other security solution like EDR/XDR or XSOAR
12. Customer's current solution (firewall/UTM and engineers/IT team working on it).
13. Customer's current IT Team strategy
14. Customer future IT strategy (to move on the cloud, etc)
15. Customer's growth and scalability in 5 years.
16. Reporting and logging requirement.
17. Customer's budget for IT Security.
Well, I guess with these parameters, and customer's priority you can recommend them a suitable solution.
Palo Alto NGFW will be best recommended for the following:
1. Deployment on the cloud - It has a very stable PANOS for VM-Series
2. Security Innovations - Considering security, in terms of today and future, Palo Alto is disruptive and groundbreaking.
3. Predictive Bandwidth - Palo Alto NGFW gives us Predictive bandwidth, and hence, once sized, it will last longer than defined. The throughput numbers are test cases of real-world scenarios, and after enabling all the features. It operates on its patented SP3 architecture and defines device throughput after enabling all security features and operational functionalities.
4. Integration with EDR/XDR and SOAR/XSOAR platforms.
5. User/SSL VPN - When you are planning for SSL VPN on Palo Alto NGFW, it will not charge you additionally for users connecting their Windows or MAC systems on NGFW over SSL VPN. For users that are Android/IOS/Linux/etc, and required additional HIP checks and Clientless VPN, there is a single subscription you will need to purchase.
6. Sandboxing - Palo Alto came up with Wildfire which is a threat intel cloud, which can be termed as Palo Alto Network's Sandboxing solution, but it does much more than that. it has a response SLA of 5 mins, where it can convert any unknown to known in 5 minutes or less. Also, after it identifies the file, it auto-updates other engines like URL filtering, DNS Security, Anti-Spyware, Bad IP and Domain list, CNC tunnel signatures.
7. Reporting and alerting - Foremost reason why users started implementing Palo Alto firewalls inside their network was to get the visibility - in terms of User-level visibility, Network traffic (depth to application layer), and Content (files and threats) level visibility. Also, logging and reporting is provisioned on the appliance itself and no additional subscription or any appliance is required, unless the customer requires the storage of logs for more time frame. The NGFW also co-relates all the events and alerts to give critical visibility like Botnets and hosts and users accessing malicious websites, or resolving malicious domains.
8. EDL - again external dynamic lists(EDL) helps you reduce the attack surface by minimizing the traffic to and from Malicious and Bad - IPs and Domains. This list is automatically updated by Palo Alto Networks by default by its threat research teams (Unit 42), Threat Intel (Wildfire), DNS Security module, and other sources. It has also a provision for you and/or the customer to integrate other third-party URL lists to be blocked.
9. Security features:
-- DNS filtering - by intercepting DNS traffic, you will not need any additional solution and/or modification in your current network for protection against threats related to DNS traffic. Its DNS module is cloud-based and tightly integrated with other modules and features of NGFW.
-- Credential phishing - This feature will avoid users sharing/uploading their credentials which are the same to access internal resources and external websites. This will prevent the leak of user credentials.
-- ML Powered NGFW - Currently, PA NGFW is the only firewall powered by ML to prevent unknown threats in real-time.
10. Application layer firewall - complete identification of all and any traffic based on application rather than port and protocol. Not only the known but also if the application is not identified it will classify that traffic as unknown. Also, you can create a custom application as required.
and many more...
Benefits in Fortigate firewall will be:
1. More port density.
2. Better SD-WAN configuration
3. Easy User interface and hence lacks granular controls.
4. Provides seamless integration with FortiToken for MFA(additional cost).
5. Seamless integration with Forti Load balancer.
6. Low cost (than Palo Alto least).
Thanks
Darshil Sanghvi
Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Checkpoint are the best NGFW. You can choose one of them.
The Fortinet advantage is the Security Fabric. Many other Fortinet's products (switches, AP, EDS, XDR, DDoS, FortiClient, etc) are integrated and a Fortigate can communicate with another product to block an attack.
Because PA has FPGA based architecture, which no other firewall has, due to this firewall processes the traffic from all the engines simultaneously. it increase efficiency of the product and provides way better throughput as compare to other vendors. The performance of security engines of PA are better then other vendors. PA provides on-box reporting, you have to purchase forti-analyzer separately for reporting in fortinet. PA provides granular view of policies, providing insight to you which policies are used in and which are not. it also provides you the feature, that tells you which of the firewall's features are not being utilized, this way you can plan your renewal to only purchase the feature you need.
I have FortiGates and the last upgrade of firmware cut internet traffic if you use Inspection Mode Proxy-Based, recommended and more secure, you have to use Flow-based, less secure. I don't work with Palo Alto
I strongly recommend Sophos XG Firewall.
Take a look
Sophos Firewall: Synchronized Next-Gen Firewall
I think you can go with Palo Alto...
Palo Alto
I would recommend Palo Alto