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Menlo Secure vs Palo Alto Networks K2-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

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

Menlo Secure
Ranking in Firewalls
53rd
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (26th), ZTNA (28th), Cloud Security Remediation (7th)
Palo Alto Networks K2-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
32nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.4%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is 0.5%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks K2-Series0.5%
Menlo Secure0.4%
Other99.1%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701794 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees
Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition
There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.
Tejas Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Principle Cloud Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has provided strong traffic visibility and efficient policy management for advanced network environments
Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could be improved, though I don't think of much. I'm unsure how widespread the adoption for K2-Series alone is. Looking at the base Palo Alto capabilities, they are going in the right direction. K2 specifically about its efficacy with all these 5G protocols, the GPRS tunneling protocol performed without many hiccups during testing. With AI, if there is a Precision AI bundle that you're planning on exploring, then that definitely needs a significant uplift because currently it doesn't work for all the known models. There are many false positives that need to be addressed. While it's still ahead of its competitors, on the AI security side, there is quite a room for improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."
"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."
"Either you have access to something or don't have access to it, and if you do, we can ensure, 100 percent of the time, that there is nothing malicious that is going to impact our system in any way."
"The solution is invisible to our end users, so it doesn't have any impact on their work or performance."
"We are not aware of a single compromise from the web since implementing the solution."
"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."
"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."
"We have definitely seen ROI, as we save a ton of money and time because the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools prior to implementing them had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged."
"My advice to someone considering this solution would be that it's okay to spend a bit higher on your security products because Palo Alto is a bit more expensive than other products, but it is definitely worth it."
"Everything I could possibly want has already been implanted in the new version."
"The solution offers effective security features such as HIDS (Host-based Intrusion Detection System) in global products."
"As long as the solution is kept updated, it's pretty stable."
"Palo Alto detects a lot of cybersecurity threats, which has been great."
"From a security/cost-benefit perspective, it's one of the best."
"Palo Alto firewalls are scalable enough."
"I like the tool's WildFire feature."
 

Cons

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."
"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."
"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."
"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists."
"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."
"The user monitoring could still be improved."
"In terms of what needs improvement, Palo Alto is lacking abilities that other firewalls can do."
"There are a lot of bugs in this solution."
"I would like to see the threat intelligence capability integrated with other vendors such as Cisco and Forcepoint."
"The scalability of Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is good. It is good for larger environments over smaller ones."
"The password function of the solution could be improved. Additionally, some of the processes take too long to complete."
"From a cost perspective, I'd rate the solution two out of ten. I am trying to avoid Palo Alto, even though they have a very good solution, specifically due to the cost."
"When it comes to renewing the solution, they tend to try to jack up the pricing."
"Because we are using the hardware, we are not able to scale. On the VM, it is scalable, but we have got stuck on some areas."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."
"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."
"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."
"The pricing is expensive."
"The price of this solution is too high."
"This is an expensive solution, although you will get value for the price."
"We are on an annual license to use Palo Alto Networks K2-Series."
"If you compare K2-Series' quality with its price, I think it is reasonable."
"The price of the solution is expensive."
"Palo Alto Networks K2-Series is an expensive solution, the price could be reduced. They are more expensive than some of their competitors."
"It would be nice if they lowered their prices for small businesses."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
15%
Construction Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Construction Company
14%
Performing Arts
13%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which mak...
What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic access, and by doing it that way, it has multiple use cases. For example, it man...
What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?
Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some of these functions, people typically choose another technology for those specifi...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?
The pricing for the Palo Alto Networks K2-Series solution is affordable and there are no complaints about the licensing.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks K2-Series?
Palo Alto Networks K2-Series could be improved, though I don't think of much. I'm unsure how widespread the adoption for K2-Series alone is. Looking at the base Palo Alto capabilities, they are goi...
 

Also Known As

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
State of North Dakota, SEGA, Alameda County Office of Education, Temple University, VERGE, CAME
Find out what your peers are saying about Menlo Secure vs. Palo Alto Networks K2-Series and other solutions. Updated: November 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.