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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall 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

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
334
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (9th)
Zscaler Cloud Firewall
Ranking in Firewalls
26th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.4%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

EhabAli - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable
In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.
RonnieYazdani - PeerSpot reviewer
User-friendly CLI and efficient dashboard streamline operations with robust security features
I find Palo Alto Networks VM-Series easy to deploy, and none of my customers have had significant complaints. My customers have high certifications provided by Palo Alto Networks. The friendly dashboard and the ability to easily command and use the CLI make Palo Alto Networks VM-Series a better product. It offers robust solutions, making it valuable to my customers.
Bhaskar Rao - PeerSpot reviewer
Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues
The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

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 is the ease of configuration."
"Fortinet FortiGate appears to be scalable."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate are that it does the job effectively and protects our environment."
"The solution is highly scalable because they have devices that can handle a large amount of traffic."
"It has a good UI and overall integration, including FortiGate Manager for controlling all firewalls from a single place."
"The email protection and VPN features are the most valuable."
"It is a good source for firewall protection."
"In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable."
"It ensures that every interaction, pre and post-loan processing, undergoes a thorough inspection, leveraging VPN features and comprehensive security protocols."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the zero-trust security architecture."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is easy to maintain...From a security point of view, I find Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to be a better product compared to the other solutions in the market."
"In Palo Alto the most important feature is the App-ID."
"It helps in offering advanced protection against malware and anti-spyware, which is based on customer feedback stating the product has very good threat prevention capabilities."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"I like the ease of deployment and its flexibility. We don't need to deal with license, quotes, procurement, delivery, and installation. Everything is software-based, and it's very easy to operate."
"The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution."
"Zscaler is still a very good product."
"Once you have Zscaler running you have access to configure it however you want."
"It is a stable solution."
"Zscaler provides effective protection against various cyber threats ensuring a safe environment"
"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."
"Includes advanced tech protection."
 

Cons

"A lack of integration between our data centers."
"I mostly do administration, and I found Cisco to be the hardest major firewall manufacturer to deal with, with Fortinet FortiGate being the second hardest for me."
"In my opinion, Fortinet FortiGate could be improved by making the appliance smaller than what we have here, as it is pretty big."
"At first glance, the interface for the device is very confusing."
"The initial setup and configuration are not intuitive and require training."
"The support system could be improved."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"One area for improvement is the performance on the bandwidth demands for smaller devices, as well as better web filtering."
"The implementation should be simplified."
"It is not very easy to scale up the solution."
"They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
"The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters."
"Just sometimes it can be a bit sluggish navigating through pages. That is just purely because of Java.​"
"We don't know how it will scale once we start putting more load on it."
"Perfection is unlikely as the dynamic nature of traffic and constant changes can result in occasional bugs despite regular updates."
"Palo Alto should update their documentation to make it more readable and provide easier-to-follow instructions through videos."
"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."
"Its technical support services could be better."
"The issue right now is probably that Zscaler is not providing web browser isolation. Another solution, Menlo, offers this. For one customer, we had to send traffic to Menlo to do the isolation for us. It was requested by the customer so that they could integrate any iframe. Zscaler needs to add this type of feature in their next release."
"They do not provide a few components that are fundamental to differentiate the products"
"Because it's on cloud, it doesn't allow application of extra settings."
"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."
"I don't have the visibility of a control dashboard or a network management system."
"It would be better if they improved their policy, package visibility, and flexibility while we're creating rules for inspection. It could also be cheaper or more things could be included in the basic package. In the next release, I would like better coverage in the Asia Pacific region and better quality of service."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Fortinet bundles FortiGate with other products and because of this, the price is a little expensive to some SMB enterprises."
"The cost of Fortinet FortiGate is competitive and not expensive compared to other enterprise- grade solutions. On average, the license cost per year is around seventy percent of the firewall's purchase price."
"Their licensing costs are annual. The UTM feature license along with their support is called FortiCare. We include that as a part of the annual maintenance cost. Palo Alto or Juniper also have an annual subscription charge for UTM. Price, of course, can always be more competitive, but it is not the most expensive product. The price-performance ratio is quite high for FortiGate."
"The price could be lower."
"We pay for the solution annually."
"Fortinet Secure SD-WAN delivered the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) per Mbps among all other vendors."
"We find the most valuable aspect of this solution is the price. It is affordable, and cheaper than other firewalls."
"The pricing is justified. It's a little pricey, but what you pay for is what you get."
"The cost of this product varies from customer to customer and the relationship with IBM, including how many offerings from IBM are already being used."
"There is a need to make payments toward a yearly subscription-based model in which you need to add modules that you want to use in your company."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"For licensing, It depends how they want to use the firewall. The firewall can be used only for IPS purposes. If you only want that firewall IPSs, you will only need a license that is called threat prevention. That license, threat prevention, includes vulnerabilities, antivirus signatures and one additional measure (that I can't remember), but it includes three measures and security updates."
"It is not the cheapest on the market. The total cost for two firewall instances is $75,000. This includes licenses, deployment fees, and support for two years."
"The solution is a little bit expensive compared to other vendors."
"For what you get, it does do what it says. It is a good value for an enterprise firewall.​"
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is the most expensive tool among competitors"
"It comes at a significantly reduced cost while ensuring control and effectiveness."
"There are different subscription models available."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."
"It is expensive for small businesses."
"There are licensing costs, and I would not say that it's a cheap vendor."
"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."
"Zscaler is priced too high compared to the cost of Fortinet."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
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...
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...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...
What do you like most about Zscaler Cloud Firewall?
The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Cloud Firewall?
Zscaler Cloud Firewall is quite expensive compared to competitors. However, it offered moderate value for money.
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
No data available
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Warren Rogers Associates
Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.