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Hillstone E-Series vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 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

Hillstone E-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
40th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (10th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (19th)
Palo Alto Networks NG Firew...
Ranking in Firewalls
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
200
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Hillstone E-Series is 0.8%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is 5.2%, up from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls5.2%
Hillstone E-Series0.8%
Other94.0%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

TahirMahmood - PeerSpot reviewer
IT Manager at Zubair Feeds
Offers good features like URL filtering, IPS, and IDS to users
We received an update for the tool in July. The update was provided for the tool as there was a problem with the firewall, where too much memory was consumed, and the firewall was hanging a lot. When we updated the tool's features, everything became okay. The tool only had some memory-related problems. It took the tool a month to fix the issues.
Nitin Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network & Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt.Ltd.
Strong threat prevention has reduced phishing and malware while I monitor traffic in depth
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offers application and user awareness, which allow me to control traffic based on threats. The product includes threat prevention, advanced threat prevention, and deep packet inspection that really helps prevent issues in our network. Deep packet inspection inspects full traffic content, even inside applications and encrypted sessions. Deep packet inspection makes a very practical difference day to day because it lets me see and control what is actually inside the traffic, not just the open port or IP. I have real visibility of which application is running instead of just seeing HTTPS. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls WildFire sandboxing is really good at detecting and blocking zero-day malware automatically, along with its GlobalProtect and DNS security features. Using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls positively impacts my organization by providing strong security, better visibility, faster response, and simplified operations. After deploying Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls in our network, it blocks malicious traffic and prevents compromises that occurred before Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. I can now block outside IPs to prevent issues. After Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls installation, I reduced 60 to 70 percent of malware and phishing attacks. Its threat prevention and DNS security features detect these attacks, block malicious domains, and reduce manual efforts for the security team.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable feature of the solution is the ransomware protection that the tool offers."
"Working with the Hillstone E-Series has, from a remote perspective, allowed me to give my clients secure connectivity from a remote location to their offices or their servers."
"The most valuable feature of the Hillstone E-Series is its user-friendliness."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It only took a few hours to deploy."
"Very reliable solution with good scalability and straightforward implementation."
"With Hillstone, TCO and ROI are very good, it's an easy sale."
"The installation is easy, we have not had any complaints from our customers."
"The solution is very stable."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, combined with Cortex XDR, provide comprehensive threat intelligence and detection capabilities, ensuring superior security coverage."
"The user ID, Wildfire, UI, and management configuration are all great features."
"The most important part of this solution is its reliability, as it just works without any fancy features."
"Compared with Check Point, it's excellent."
"All the features are valuable, but my main one is the straightforward and well-designed GUI. I'm over 50 and have been in this business since the internet started. I'm not a GUI guy; I prefer using the command line. The product's GUI is excellent, and so is the threat intelligence. It's also straightforward to configure and flexible. The solution even has good networking, such as VLAN and subinterfaces, which is great because, in my experience, if the firewall is good, then the router usually isn't and vice-versa, but Palo Alto has both."
"The way that the new hardware handles URL filtering, threat protection, and GlobalProtect has been pretty solid."
"It's very important that Palo Alto NG Firewalls embed machine learning into the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. That increases our security posture... The firewall is able to capture it and flag it and it is easy to mitigate as soon as we see something like that happening, to secure the environment more, in real time."
 

Cons

"The solution doesn't have a web proxy built into the system like Sophos. This is something they should work to change."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"Having frequent live webinars on a monthly basis would really help."
"The room for improvement would be the SSL VPN license cost."
"Support from Hillstone E-Series has a shortcoming that needs improvement."
"The tool only had some memory-related problems."
"The tool needs to improve its price."
"The current usage reporting is very basic. I would like to be able to access more granular data."
"We are not happy with Palo Alto at all. It would be better if they provided more support for the firewall. We have a few pending issues with the configuration for each application. We cannot deploy them yet due to some support-related problems in the firewall. We have deployed a few policies for DNS spoofing and DNS attacks, but we could only block a few IP addresses through the policy. That's DNS security, and we have configured a few policies for DNS spoofing and more. URL categorization and URL filtering are not yet adequately maintained. For example, if you created a few rules in the rule-based configuration and made some rules downstairs, you will lose some of them if you give access upstairs. It's not giving us a proper solution for which route it is using. We need to apply the application-based policies and URL filtering-based policies. It creates more issues because we are not getting good support from the team."
"Palo Alto can do a little bit better when it comes to the User-ID part. I've been facing problems related to double authentication."
"The integration with AI needs improvement."
"The biggest thing that needs to be improved with them is their training."
"Scalability is the main disadvantage of Palo Alto. They call themselves a firewall with router capabilities but it's not a router and it requires a good bandwidth in VPN which could become a problem because you have to scale to really big hardware."
"Once in a while, they have new features being released that can be buggy. My criticism is more general to all sorts of network or security devices. In general, everybody is releasing less-tested software. Then, it usually ends up that the first few customers who get a new release need to end up troubleshooting it."
"Could also use better customer support."
"Palo Alto also has ION devices, and ION devices together with Prisma Access or Strata Cloud Manager now are more the way to go than using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls on-premises."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The cost per year for licensing, and hardware, is approximately $850 for the basic plan."
"The licensing model is very complex with many subcategories of licenses you can purchase. They could make it more simplified for customers to understand."
"Hillstone's pricing is economical and neither very high nor very low."
"The tool's pricing is reasonable. It depends on the model. The product's pricing is around 600 USD. You need to buy a software license to activate the features. You need to pay around 150 USD for that."
"The tool is expensive, especially considering all the necessary licenses for centrally managing firewalls. For medium-sized companies like ours, it's often not feasible within our budget constraints. We pay around €200k yearly for all our firewalls. Additionally, we received a quote of over €1 million per year for Prisma Access. There is a significant cost difference compared to other options, where it's around €200k per year."
"The cost is quite high."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' price is expensive."
"It's pretty good."
"It's cheaper to replace the equipment every three years than to upgrade. We have done two refreshes of their appliances. What I have seen is that the initial hardware cost is low, but you need a subscription and you need maintenance plans. After every three years, if you're trying to renew your maintenance or subscription, that can be very costly. It's cheaper to just get a newer solution with a three-year subscription and maintenance. It's cheaper to replace your hardware completely with a new subscription plan and a new maintenance plan than to renew the maintenance subscription on existing hardware."
"Palo Alto NGFW is relatively expensive compared to the competition."
"Its price can be better. Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"Palo Alto is a more expensive firewall solution than others."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise1
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business77
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise89
 

Questions from the Community

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What is a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?
Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firewall is easy to use and provides excellent support. Valuable features include int...
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 kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat signatures and updates. I also appreciate that I can just import addresses and URL...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Bank of China Macao, Instituto Tecnológico Bolivariano, Ministry of Labor in San Salvador, FEDCO
SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments
Find out what your peers are saying about Hillstone E-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,322 professionals have used our research since 2012.