FireMon Security Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

FireMon Security Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama

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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

FireMon Security Manager

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

4th

Average Rating

8.2

Reviews Sentiment

7.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Ranking in Firewall Security Management

3rd

Average Rating

8.4

Reviews Sentiment

7.1

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of FireMon Security Manager is 16.6%, up from 16.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 8.1%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewall Security Management

Featured Reviews

Ganesh-Khutwad

Senior Network Specialist at Tech Mahindra Limited

Rapid policy insights with robust dashboards and cross-vendor automation

FireMon Security Manager is excellent for real-time compliance management. It allows us to quickly retrieve any policy needed for testing and easily analyze it for loopholes. If a loophole exists, FireMon provides comprehensive details within the policy manager. It alerts us to firewall rule additions or changes that violate compliance policies. It supports various firewall platforms, including Checkpoint, Zscaler, Fortinet, Cisco, and AWS, and provides centralized management for all configured policies through a single console. FireMon Security Manager provides many features, like whether my firewall is compatible with required standards such as NTP and SNMP. Each compliance included in our RFPs is shown in the UI of FireMon. It gives robust and clear dashboards, making it easier to understand risks because the policies have ratings showing usage, and the number of hit attacks. It streamlines our compliance reporting processes by providing comprehensive risk and compliance assessments. It offers a range of features, including verification of firewall compatibility with protocols like NTP and SNMP, and detection of signal charges. FireMon effectively addresses all compliance requirements outlined in our RFPs. For instance, it can determine if firewalls or proxies within a stack are configured in Secure Mode or Active-Active mode. FireMon Security Manager enables us to generate reports on all these aspects, ensuring thorough compliance monitoring and documentation. FireMon Security Manager is robust and can help automate firewall policy changes across large multi-vendor enterprise environments. FireMon Security Manager helps automate firewall policy changes across various environments, including on-premises, cloud, hybrid, SASE, and SD-WAN. It also simplifies cleaning up firewall rules in our environment. The time required to accurately create, approve, and deploy firewall policy rules has been reduced. Tasks that took 30 minutes can now be completed in just five minutes using FireMon. FireMon provides immediate visibility into our policies through a robust and clear dashboard, making it easy to identify errors or misconfigurations based on the policy rating.

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Kim Ejby Lorentzen

Senior Principal Solutions Architect, HPE Aruba Networking - Full Stack Platform Expert at Danoffice IT ApS

Unified firewall management streamlines operations across branches with prompt support services

The primary use case for this solution is the management of the entire firewall portfolio across various branches Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration. One of the key advantages of Palo Alto Networks…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most effective feature is the general reporting on compliance."

"The most valuable feature for me is its capability for cleanup and managing the complexity of security products."

"The Security Manager part of FireMon... gives me an eye on everything that's out there, everything that I cannot see. Because I'm not a network admin, I cannot go to a firewall itself, but at least I have FireMon so that I can go in and view everything that I want to view. And I can eliminate whatever I see that is wrong,"

"The automation that the platform provides to create tickets reduces human error and more generally, reduces the operational overhead."

"I've been using the reports to see what is going on, and that is a helpful feature. We can track down unused rules, which helps with compliance. We can see rules that have not been used or that are duplicates or overly permissive."

"The ease of use is the most valuable feature. There are a lot of products out there, but the ability to navigate through and use Firemon is very good."

"It provides us with a single pane of glass for our on-prem environment, to see configuration. We have not implemented into the cloud yet. We can search for an object group and see where it lives on any firewall in the enterprise or find security rules, no matter what firewall they're on."

"The most valuable feature of FireMon is its ability to configure multiple devices and consolidate them into a single desktop, which allows us to manage all of our security devices, such as Palo Alto and Zscaler, from one place."

More FireMon Security Manager pros

"I find this solution valuable for full monitoring, centralized control for reporting, and centralized management."

"The product features allow the capacity to take effective, advanced security measures."

"I like its flexibility."

"You don't need an overly experienced workforce to handle Palo Alto. It's very easy to use."

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration."

"I found logging and management features the most valuable in Palo Alto Networks Panorama. Another good feature of the product is that it lets you define global firewall policies and templates."

"The product was great, and whenever there was a bug or issue, they released updates quickly. Additionally, their support was very good."

"The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pros

Cons

"FireMon could improve its end-user practices. As an end user, I am just trying to catch up on all the alerts. There are so many, and you still have to go through them and document what was found."

"Sometimes, there is a problem related to the sizing itself. If we have many devices added or if the firewall complexity is huge, we might experience some lag in processing. It may relate to the hardware specifications."

"We've had recurring issues managing FireMon's internal backups. Sometimes, the space allocated for the backup is full, and there is no process where it deletes files that are older than I certain date. It's just waiting for the storage to get full and then it's cleaned up. It isn't something that creates serious issues for us."

"The stability has been fairly decent, but there have been a few issues. My coworker has had some issues in the past where he has had to work with support."

"The cost of the solution is pretty expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on their pricing."

"Its reporting can be improved. I am the only one who works a lot with it, and I am having problems in terms of reporting. In the case of Palo Alto, I'm okay with it, but with some of the Cisco devices, such as routers, when I provide the reports to other teams for review, they always say that the hit count is incorrect. So, I was struggling for a long time to work with them. When working with other teams, they have a lot of questions about reporting, such as how it reports, and we are still struggling with that."

"A phone app would be nice. This is the reason why it is not perfect yet."

"The training for configuring new users or operators is confusing because the UI is not user-friendly and has room for improvement."

More FireMon Security Manager cons

"There is room for improvement in the graphical user interface (GUI), which is becoming outdated, especially the NAT section."

"It is very hard to understand the platform. It is not easy and user-friendly. You need a lot of experience to use Panorama. It is very complex, and you must know exactly what to do. I would like to have a more user-friendly product. FortiManager is comparatively very easy to use. It would be good if Panorama improves in terms of user-friendliness. It is also harder to use than Palo Alto Firewalls."

"A potential improvement for Palo Alto Networks Panorama could be a more competitive pricing structure."

"I would like to have better analytics."

"A bottleneck in Palo Alto Networks Panorama is the licensing. The licensing model for the product is complicated. Another area for improvement is the PDF report generation because you'll notice that it's missing some details."

"The integration between Strata Cloud Manager and Panorama could be enhanced to allow customers to stay on Panorama for many years while still utilizing Strata Cloud Manager for deployment."

"They need to do less bug-related releases and create versions that are stable for at least six months at a time. I don't find this issue in other solutions like Cisco, Check Point, FortiGate, or others. Those just provide a patch if there is a bug and we don't have to worry about downtime."

"The ability to add scheduled jobs would be a significant improvement. Panorama has the ability to push out OS updates, but it would be nice to be able to schedule those updates so not to affect the site during normal business hours."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Pricing model seems fair."

"We don't license all of the devices in our network, so it does not provide us with a comprehensive visibility of all devices in a hybrid network at this time."

"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."

"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."

"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."

"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."

"We pay for it yearly."

"This is an expensive solution. The cost of three modules for three years was approximately one million."

More FireMon Security Manager pricing and cost advice

"The pricing is pretty average. On a scale of one to ten, I would rate it a five."

"The pricing model is reasonable for this class of solutions."

"Palo Alto is expensive and there are many cheaper firewalls, but they do not work as well."

"We're a reseller, and we're an MSSP. So, we get some extreme discounts."

"Sometimes the company prefers to give a license to test the product in our environment before we go to the customer. But the customer should buy his own license, and that's the system here. The system is different between one country and another. Some countries say that the IT solutions provider should provide the license."

"If I were to rate the pricing of Palo on a scale of one to five, with one being really high and five being a good, reasonable price, I would rate Palo as a three."

"There is a license required to use this solution and it is paid annually."

"Everyone, I suppose, would like the price to be improved. Price is always a good thing to change."

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama pricing and cost advice

See which vendors are best for you

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

19%

Financial Services Firm

16%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FireMon?

I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?

Comparatively, FireMon has a very good price and is below the general competition in cost. I have not seen any additional fees beyond the general contract fees for the usage I have. So, I have not ...

What needs improvement with FireMon?

For one company I work with, I use Fortinet, and FireMon is not able to understand the zones that Fortinet uses. Part of that compliance piece does not provide me with the necessary information. An...

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

The setup cost is too high.

What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?

The solution requires more flexibility and quicker response times. High-speed replies are crucial. Additionally, the AI module should be on-premises, not in the cloud. It should support more flexib...

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Comparisons

Compared 40% of the time

AlgoSec vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 38% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 11% of the time

ManageEngine Firewall Analyzer vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 3% of the time

RedSeal vs FireMon Security Manager

Compared 3% of the time

More FireMon Security Manager Competitors

AlgoSec vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 22% of the time

Tufin Orchestration Suite vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 18% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate Cloud vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 12% of the time

AWS Firewall Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 11% of the time

Skybox Security Suite vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Compared 6% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks Panorama Competitors

Product Reports

FireMon Security Manager

Download FireMon Security Manager product report

Palo Alto Networks Panorama

Download Palo Alto Networks Panorama product report

Overview

The increasing complexity of networks, driven by the constant influx of new devices, applications, and cloud services, presents a daunting challenge for managing firewall policies and rules. A typical enterprise environment has millions of rules, and just one simple misconfiguration can lead to devastating consequences like compliance violations, outages, and data breaches.

FireMon’s Security Manager is a purpose-built network security policy management (NSPM) platform that automates the management of firewall and cloud security policies to eliminate policy-related risk, accurately and quickly change rules, and meet internal and external compliance requirements.

Reduce Risk Manage risk with real-time visibility and control
Manage Change Avoid misconfigurations, accelerate business, and improve security
Enforce and Maintain Compliance Avoid violations, avoid risk, and avoid fines

FireMon

Panorama network security management provides static rules and dynamic security updates in an ever-changing threat landscape. Reduce administrator workload and improve your overall security posture with a single rule base for firewall, threat prevention, URL filtering, application awareness, user identification, file blocking and data filtering.

Palo Alto Networks

Sample Customers

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia

FireMon Security Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama