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Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection comparison

 

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 WildFire
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
16th
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 April 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is 12.5%, up from 12.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.0%, down from 2.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
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

"The most valuable feature of this solution is how it keeps up-to-date with viruses."
"Detailed reporting on analysis of content. The inspections are easily applied to security policy profiles and profile groups, and may be assigned on a per-rule basis."
"What I like about Palo Alto is that it is a complete product, with everything in it."
"The most effective feature of WildFire for threat analysis is its collaboration with other security profiles on our Palo Alto firewall."
"Using WildFire has reduced the number of viruses and the amount of malware that comes into our system, which means that I don't have to rely on the end-users to identify it."
"Being an application-based firewall, this is one of the critical focus factors along with the threat prevention services it provides."
"The most valuable features of the solution are user-friendliness, price, good security, and cloud-related options."
"I like the analysis they apply to the unknown files, and I think they have good technology to use as a sandboxing tool. I didn't find something similar to WildFire in the marketplace."
"The product integrates well with our systems, and we have not encountered any problems."
"The technical support services are excellent."
"What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability."
"You don't have to buy a separate email security platform. You can enable that using their endpoint, and I like that. You don't have to have two agents running on the same box."
"The most valuable feature is NetFlow threat protection."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"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 Application Control code and the easy integration are valuable features."
 

Cons

"​The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"High availability features are lacking."
"Improving detection on non-Windows formats would be beneficial as there are many samples, such as Linux or ransomware for macOS."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve by adding support for manual submission of suspicious files and URLs. Additionally, it would be an advantage to add rule-based analysis. Currently, it uses only static and AI. We need to be able to analyze archive files."
"The global product feature needs improvement, the VPN, and we need some enhanced features."
"The support is good but they could be faster."
"​They provide a medium level of technical support."
"I don't think it needs to improve anything, except maybe the speed to deploy the changes."
"Scalability could be better."
"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."
"It's a strange situation where the infrastructure of the consumer or customer is behind some kind of firewall and they have always used some kind of customized proxy. In this situation, the ATP has a very tough time to pass the information to the cloud and back. To fix, it requires a more elaborate and complex configuration for that particular case."
"There are limits with respect to blocking files by hash value or blocking IP addresses, and these limits should be removed."
"It should be able to collect information if the agent is disabled."
"Symantec appliances need improvement. The whole appliance environment is a robust system and it needs a massive amount of storage space. If you have to increase or speed up the background storage it's a pretty complicated process. The scalability and sizing is critical, and if you do it wrong you run into issues pretty quickly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing and licensing option should be categorized for various countries such as for Bangladesh."
"The pricing is highly expensive."
"​More expensive than other firewalls.​"
"Pricing could be improved."
"The physical appliance is around €3,000 or €4,000, and then, you have the licensing for a year for around €3,000."
"It's comparable to what the competition is. It is probably a little lesser than what the competition is because, as a state government, we go for whatever the lowest cost is."
"For the last three years, the price of Palo Alto in Vietnam has been very high."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire is an expensive product."
"The price is quite expensive."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
76%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Manufacturing Company
2%
Computer Software Company
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
What do you like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
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 devic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
The price is quite expensive because a different entity has taken over the company.
What needs improvement with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
One area for improvement could be the pricing model. Future releases could further enhance integration capabilities with other platforms and simplify the licensing model to compete more with Micros...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.