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Palo Alto Networks PA-Series vs Smoothwall Firewall comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
18th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Smoothwall Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
43rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.3
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Smoothwall Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks PA-Series1.1%
Smoothwall Firewall0.4%
Other98.5%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Rohit Ghorpade - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Identity-based perimeter control has improved security and supports reliable remote access
Currently, we are working with vendors such as Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, Cisco, Check Point, and Citrix. Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is a better firewall. Deep packet inspection and threat prevention basically comply with whatever traffic is incoming and outgoing through the firewall. I do not think anything improvement is required. The thing is that Palo Alto Networks PA-Series works mostly on a license-based model. If you want to utilize any feature, you have to purchase the license. For example, URL filtering requires a license purchase. It simplifies the implementation because LDAP server profile can be integrated. Basically, that simplifies the implementation of access rule or security policy.
Himanshu-Sharma - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Engineer at Qualic
Offers good scalability and monitoring features
There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages. For example, if we're creating a rule, we should be able to do everything on the same page. Just a drop-down thing or something. This would improve productivity.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I rate the stability as ten out of ten."
"Palo Alto Networks firewalls offer single-mode panel processing with live scanning."
"It is scalable. But that depends on what model you are using."
"I like the tool's security and web filtering features."
"The most effective features for threat prevention in the PA-Series are its integration with Cortex and the use of machine learning AI for advanced threat detection."
"Palo Alto has predefined applications that you can control at the application level."
"The cloud-based aspect helps significantly. It integrates seamlessly with other Palo products like Prisma Cloud, offers robust VPN protection, and it's all in one convenient package."
"Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is definitely worth the investment a company is paying to use it."
"It was easy to initially deploy it."
 

Cons

"Palo Alto should integrate artificial intelligence for security purposes in the background for well-known threats and new risks coming to the market."
"The SD-WAN feature of Palo Alto Networks is not good compared to FortiGate."
"Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7."
"Pricing flexibility could be an aspect worth considering, as it has been a concern for some of our clients."
"Currently, they are not protected with any data security when they work from home or outside the network. They surf the Internet directly and should implement a proxy or firewall to monitor the data between the endpoint and the internet."
"The product must provide multiple threat detection features."
"Utilizing these features as a unified solution can require additional setup, particularly when incorporating Panorama for centralized management, which may involve extra costs."
"The technical support offered by Palo Alto is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There is room for improvement in the UI. They can improve it by making it so that everything is in one place, so we don't have to jump around to different pages."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is a bit on the higher side."
"The tool's pricing was reasonable when we bought the product. We pay around 60,000 dollars per year."
"We have to pay a yearly licensing fee for the solution."
"The prices are pretty high, definitely on the upper end."
"Price-wise, Palo Alto offers high-price products."
"From my perspective, managing the price is important, especially because we're a small business. For larger organizations like Barclays, we provide our requirements to the client, and they place the order on BigFix. It's their responsibility to consider their budget and make decisions accordingly. We appreciate the features we get, but the cost-sharing still depends on the client."
"Palo Alto’s pricing is way higher than any other solution provider."
"With Palo Alto, even when you enable all the modules, it still provides the exact throughput they advertise."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
University
16%
Comms Service Provider
15%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise17
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
If we look at the features, then the price is good, but they do charge for the GlobalProtect VPNs. Overall, the pricing is good, but if they included GlobalProtect, it would be more valuable.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
There is room for improvement in Palo Alto Networks PA-Series in the areas where they can minimize applications and implement features that can be useful for us.
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks PA-Series?
I am using Palo Alto Networks PA-Series to ensure protection and cybersecurity by preventing and implementing network security features to safeguard networks against threats and malware. I have to ...
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Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Netgate, Cisco and others in Firewalls. Updated: September 2026.
913,806 professionals have used our research since 2012.