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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 1, 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

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
15th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (14th)
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
24th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.7%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series2.7%
Symantec Advanced Threat Protection2.2%
Other95.1%
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

MuhammadNadeem - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Network Engineer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Has supported urgent deployments and enabled inline threat protection but pricing and features could be more flexible
I am not using Palo Alto Networks VM-Series mostly, but based on my experience, there are some deficiencies in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Having those features missing, we are not proposing Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to all customers. However, for urgency and for some solutions that customers need for some of their other sites and subdivisions, we are providing the same.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber SecOps Principal at Dotcom Security
Provides end-to-end antivirus protection and has good stability
Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device control. It can integrate with other Broadcom solutions, such as Symantec Messaging Gateway and Symantec DLP. If you want to send an email, it gets scanned through endpoint protection and DLP. We get all Symantec functionality in a single pane.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Overall, I give Palo Alto Networks VM-Series a rating of nine out of ten."
"We now know a lot more detail about what our users are doing on the network."
"Overall, I rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series an eight out of ten. I am happy with its performance and rich features."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is very easy to use because, after installation, its intuitive web interface makes all the traffic very well filtered and gives me all I need."
"It is very stable. It is fairly easy to use."
"The product provides more visibility into our traffic."
"I would recommend the product, and tell people, "Go for it." It has not disappointed us for the purpose that we use it."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series's most valuable feature is the visibility of the environment."
"Currently we have 800-plus nodes connected with this solution, without any issues. The solution is scalable."
"It has certainly helped out our audit efforts because we each stay compliant in terms of various security standards."
"Technical support is very responsive. You just have to open a ticket. They respond in a timely manner. Their response is good. I'm satisfied."
"The great advantage in using this product is it creates multiple services."
"What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability."
"They have a very simple and easy implementation; they have been around for a long time, and they have been very easy to deploy, support, and manage."
"The incident management on the solution is very good. You get a lot of detailed information about an incident. You also get a lot of documentation in connection with the CVI or integration."
"The stability is excellent."
 

Cons

"There is a need for two-factor authentication, particularly for VPN and CloudProtect."
"It has to be more scalable for the deployment of VMs on the cloud."
"Just sometimes it can be a bit sluggish navigating through pages. That is just purely because of Java.​"
"There are various reports that come with the box or with the VMware, but you can only run them daily."
"The flexible throughput in Palo Alto Networks VM-Series can be improved"
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"The disadvantage with Palo Alto is that they don't have a cloud-based solution that includes a secure web gateway."
"It is not very easy to scale up the solution."
"One area for improvement could be the pricing model."
"The product's support services need improvement."
"There are some ‎features that would add value to this product. One of them would be a graphical presentation of threats that the system has encountered."
"Not ideal for advanced threat protection."
"The cloud platform needs to have improvement in terms of the user interface and the different capabilities it has available. It needs to match the other leading next-gen EDR products that are available in the market. That's the reason why we are stepping away from Symantec. Their cloud environment is just generally lacking in comparison to others."
"The support for new OSs and older OSs could be a little tighter. They need to be more upfront about what protection services they're going to provide on new OSs. I haven't seen the Windows 11 version out yet. It is either already released in Beta, or the Beta will be released soon. There could be a little bit more advanced updates on what they're doing to help protect Windows 11 environments. They can let us know in advance so that we know it is going to be protected. We can't roll out the new OS without putting end-point protection on it. So, they should tell us what is their support model for that, and what are they doing to protect Windows 11. They're not telling me, and that's a criticism. The same issue is applicable to all the other antivirus tools. It is not just Symantec; all of them have this problem."
"I think SonicWall and McAfee are better solutions."
"It also needs network-based threat protection for shared folders and files."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is not bad. They have a yearly renewal fee, and the pricing is exactly where we expect it to be."
"Initially, pricing was high. Later on, we were able to negotiate the pricing and get something that fits our budget."
"Do not buy larges box if you do not need them. Rightsizing is a great task to do before​hand."
"Palo Alto is more expensive than other products."
"Palo Alto definitely needs to be more competitive compared to other products. The problem that I have faced is that the price of licensing is very high and not very competitive."
"Purchasing on the AWS Marketplace was simple, effective, and easy."
"The pricing for Palo Alto is quite high compared to FortiGate, which is more affordable. I don't have the exact figures as my manager handles that, but from my research, Palo Alto's licensing costs are significantly higher."
"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"The price is quite expensive."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
13%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Marketing Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business31
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise24
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise13
 

Questions from the Community

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...
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 overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?
The pricing is more on the expensive side, but it is justified due to its functionality, reliability, and throughput, even with all features enabled. In comparison to FortiGate ( /products/fortinet...
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Warren Rogers Associates
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,574 professionals have used our research since 2012.