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

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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

"The solution has very good threat and content filtering switches."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include everything about networking, such as routing and VPNs."
"In terms of cost, features, and security, everything is top-notch."
"The customers have seen an ROI from using Fortinet FortiGate and they are satisfied with the solution."
"The combined license for the network, the next-generation firewall, and the integration with SD-WAN for all branches are what I consider to be the best features. It's effective for multi-branch customers."
"The firewall and VPN features are the most valuable in protecting our customers' networks."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is better than Cisco, Check Point, and Palo Alto."
"The initial setup was very easy and straightforward."
"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."
"The outcomes from Check Point Quantum Force firewall gave us the ability to be fit and secure from the cyber world."
"In performance and threat prevention, it has benefited my cybersecurity strategy."
"Palo Alto's robust threat intelligence supports new updates, and I can open cases directly with their Threat Intelligence team."
"The threat prevention and WildFire features are the most valuable features. DNS is another good feature of the product."
"The main advantage of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series stems from the fact that you can access it with the help of cloud services."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use."
"AWS has improved our agility to apply firewall rules."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"The additional visibility, which was lacking with cloud-native tools, has improved the organization's cloud security posture. Advanced enforcement and granular security controls help manage potential threats."
"Using Palo Alto Networks Panorama, we were able to deploy a single point of management and visualization of the firewall infrastructure in cloud, on-premise and integrated with Azure to automate scale up. Its security features, i.e. anti-malware, threat prevention, URL Filtering, VPN, and antivirus are the most valuable. The ID-User integrated with AD and 2FA features are also very useful to provide secure access to servers and some users in the company. "
 

Cons

"The interface and product support could use improvement."
"The pricing of Fortinet FortiGate IPS could always be improved."
"The documentation available for Fortinet FortiGate should be improved"
"The inability to change passwords when using FortiGate firewall and relying on a local FortiGate database for account creation can be problematic, particularly in non-Active Directory setups."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG can be expensive for some customers."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"They really need to work on their support."
"It would be better if they had a dashboard where we could see what attacks were happening. It would be good to see who's trying to get into our network."
"The complexity of configuring a VPN needs to be improved because we need to go back and forth to configure VPNs."
"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."
"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."
"There are some delays that I have observed when my company communicates with Palo Alto's support engineers."
"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."
"Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
"The firewall itself is very complex. You have to do a lot of research, look through all the documentation, consult, and figure out how to use it."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
"I find it difficult to reach technical support at Palo Alto Networks. Most customers go for partner-enabled support, which involves multiple layers, leading to delays."
"With Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, it is hard for me to manage its network configuration part."
"It is not very easy to scale up the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is flexible."
"Fortinet's pricing is more straightforward than other solutions. If Fortinet doesn't stick out when you're searching for a solution, you are a glutton for punishment. You only need to know two things when purchasing a Fortinet solution: your total bandwidth and bandwidth at the site. You need to estimate the future bandwidth with other solutions if your customer plans to upgrade."
"No comment."
"I had to pay for the license for the firewall, but it is guaranteed to have updates. I expect a good service for it. It was about €1000 for a year, and there was no additional cost."
"Pricing for this product is comparatively lower than other products. It's an affordable solution, but when expanding the number of users, they'll ask you to replace the model, so that's an added cost."
"Its price could be better."
"Fortinet FortiGate IPS is cheaper than other solutions like Cisco or Check Point."
"A year or two years back, its price was competitive and reasonable. That was one of the reasons that people easily switched to Fortinet. Over the last two years, the prices have increased drastically. However, the prices of others have also increased. An advantage is there from the price point but not as much as it was previously."
Information not available
"Regarding pricing, I initially downloaded the product for feature comparison purposes, not specifically due to pricing concerns. However, the current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing. Simplifying the pricing structure would be beneficial, especially given the duplication of services in some cases, leading to increased costs."
"​The licensing is pretty much like everyone else."
"There is a need to make payments toward a yearly subscription-based model in which you need to add modules that you want to use in your company."
"The pricing was expensive but it was comparable to the competition."
"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."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"One of the factors for selecting Palo Alto was they had flexible pricing. They had a pay-as-you-go model. Comparable to other products, such as Check Point, the price point was definitely a plus."
"It is not the cheapest on the market. The total cost for two firewall instances is $75,000. This includes licenses, deployment fees, and support for two years."
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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 Business360
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise190
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

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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.