Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Check Point Quantum Force vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 22, 2026

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
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
587
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
Check Point Quantum Force
Ranking in Firewalls
29th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (12th)
 

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.
Abnet Tsegaye Belay - PeerSpot reviewer
Cybersecurity Engineer at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has strengthened perimeter security through AI-driven protection and unified management
I have noticed some limitations with Check Point Quantum Force. There is a limitation in integrating with existing infrastructure, such as orchestration and logging, specifically with VPNs. VPNs are hard and sophisticated to deploy on this firewall. However, it is improving currently. Some performance aspects need higher resources. If you do not give it higher resources, it will slow down your network. It is a trade-off - if you have higher resources, you will have good performance. The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs. It has to be simpler to understand.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It does not require a lot of maintenance."
"The features that I have found most valuable are the SD-WAN and their IP4 policy."
"I haven't configured or experienced any stability issues."
"FortiGate is a scalable product and our customer has approximately 2,000 users."
"FortiGate Next Generation Firewall has a simple configuration."
"Fortinet FortiGate has improved our routing and made us more secure."
"What's most important is the ease of use."
"Fortinet FortiGate is highly recommended because they update everything every second."
"The most valuable features I find in Check Point Quantum Force are the security policy features, including all security features that are provided by firewall, IPS/IDS."
"The security features and layered security features are better compared to others."
"In performance and threat prevention, it has benefited my cybersecurity strategy."
"The outcomes from Check Point Quantum Force firewall gave us the ability to be fit and secure from the cyber world."
"It is reliable and the support is very good."
"Palo Alto offers excellent security, with features such as email scanning, malware protection, and efficient VPN and antivirus capabilities."
"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."
"In AWS, Palo Alto provides us a better view than flow logs for network traffic."
"The threat prevention and WildFire features are the most valuable features. DNS is another good feature of the product."
"What I like about the VM-Series is that you can launch them in a very short time."
"With Palo Alto, it feels like you're using the Rolls-Royce of firewalls."
"AWS has improved our agility to apply firewall rules. It has reduced the amount of time that it takes to apply firewall rules because everything is based in the cloud."
 

Cons

"One point against them is that their solution lacks a unified approach."
"The central management for the FortiGate Fortinet Firewall needs improvement. They have the manager to do the essential management for both SD-WAN and for the security policy. They should also improve the SD-WAN function."
"The price of the solution could be cheaper."
"The FortiGate series does not have that much troubleshooting and network testing features in its GUI, hence we’ll definitely be looking for some add-on features in near future."
"The vendors offer models with different levels of productivity of the product to its users, which is not possible in FortiGate Next Generation Firewall (NGFW). It lacks integration options."
"The solution could be more secure and stable."
"Security level could be increased."
"We are pretty happy with it. If anything, I believe the web interface could be simpler, especially for someone who has limited networking experience."
"I have observed weaknesses in Check Point Quantum Force, particularly when configuring tunnels from any point product to a peer, which has very complex configuration requirements."
"I see good competition which is less expensive."
"Check Point Quantum Force does not have strong local support. We are based in India, and Check Point Quantum Force does not have extensive local support in our region."
"The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs."
"The tool is very costly."
"Even when the solution locks away a virus, there seems to be a delay for four or five minutes. It should be as little as one."
"We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
"The solution needs to have more easily searchable details or documentation about it online, so it's easier to Google if you have queries."
"Its web interface is a bit outdated, and it needs to be updated. They can also improve the NAT functionality. We have had issues with the NAT setup."
"The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"In the Asian economy in which we operate, FortiGate is expensive."
"Pricing and licensing is a little bit complicated in FortiGate. They are always on the higher side. This is one issue that we always raise with the company that they should reduce the price according to Indian market requirements. There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The price is highly competitive when compared to other brands that offer similar functionality."
"We just pay a flat monthly fee to the vendor for the support."
"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"
"If you compare Fortinet FortiGate with Sophos and other firewall products available in the market, this solution is affordable."
"We are on an annual license to use Fortinet FortiGate."
"The support subscription for the solution is annual. You are paying for support and there are two levels of support, professional and advanced."
Information not available
"The pricing was expensive but it was comparable to the competition."
"Do not buy larges box if you do not need them. Rightsizing is a great task to do before​hand."
"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."
"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 pricing for Palo Alto is quite high compared to FortiGate, which is more affordable. I don't have the exact figures as my manager handles that, but from my research, Palo Alto's licensing costs are significantly higher."
"The license fee is slightly high."
"Because I work for a university and the URL is for the institution, it's a free license for us."
"Palo Alto definitely needs to be more competitive compared to other products. The problem that I have faced is that the price of licensing is very high and not very competitive."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Firewalls solutions are best for your needs.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
No data available
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business361
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise190
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise24
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Quantum Force?
In terms of pricing, setup cost, and licensing, many users and clients say that the pricing is high. The license stru...
What needs improvement with Check Point Quantum Force?
I would assess Check Point Quantum Force's real-time threat intelligence in guarding against ransomware as not effect...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Quantum Force?
I am dealing mostly with firewalls and I am working with Check Point Quantum Force. I have utilized the capability to...
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...
 

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
Information Not Available
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Quantum Force vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
885,264 professionals have used our research since 2012.