FireMon Security Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

FireMon Security Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Number of Reviews
53
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
81
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Market share comparison

As of June 2024, in the Firewall Security Management category, the market share of FireMon Security Manager is 15.9% and it decreased by 12.6% compared to the previous year. The market share of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 8.5% and it decreased by 19.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
Unique Categories:
No other categories found
No other categories found
 

Featured Reviews

WL
Jul 24, 2023
Reporting helps us remove rules rather having to dig deep to do so, but some functions are tricky to use
I've been using the reports to see what is going on, and that is a helpful feature. We can track down unused rules, which helps with compliance. We can see rules that have not been used or that are duplicates or overly permissive. We can use FireMon to create reports and use that information to make changes within FireMon. I also like that we can track the kinds of changes that the network engineers are performing on the networks. We can run reports on that. We have also set up alerts and reports that come into my inbox daily. That gives me a rundown of any changes that have occurred within the environment. The solution has a good dashboard that gives you an overview of what's going on within your network in terms of compliance and the security index. The dashboard also gives you an outline of redundant and unused rules. You can run reports and make them a bit more targeted in terms of what you're looking for. That can help with the cleanup. I've also dabbled in the Policy Analyzer to see what information I can get from that.
IT
Apr 25, 2023
A comprehensive and feature-rich product that is easy to use
We require Palo Alto Networks Panorama to safeguard internet access for our users. Additionally, we need features such as URL filtering and sandboxing, among other useful functionalities The Palo Alto Networks Panorama was highly useful to us. However, it is important to consider that Palo Alto…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"In one report, FireMon tells us there are, say, 1,000 rules that can be taken out and it gives us the ability to disable those for a year and to track when we made our changes. After a year, we can go back and eliminate the rules, to bring the configuration down to an almost human-readable level."
"The most valuable features are Policy Optimizer and Firewall Manager for different brands of firewall."
"It gives us the ability to go to one place to look for potential firewall rules that are inappropriate, or which don't meet compliance. Instead of manually searching hundreds of firewalls for a policy, we can go to this one location and find the rules which are now out of compliance."
"We also use the solution’s SASE integration capabilities to extend security policy management for cloud firewall management. It helps in creating one consistent rule across multiple platforms and it improves accuracy."
"For the cleanup of firewall rules, it performs really well for us. We utilize it in our regular rule cleanup tasks, several times a year. FireMon is our primary tool when doing that, either by going through its out-of-the-box compliance rules or using it to search for certain things in our rules that we want to prune from our firewalls."
"Compared to other applications, it is user-friendly. The appearance of the menus and titles is clear and they are easy to follow. Of course, it requires some experience through using it, to go through everything, but it is not very difficult. It is an easy application to use."
"It is the single place where we go to review all of our firewall changes. The solution makes it easier for us to track all the changes made. It is a central place where we can look at all the firewall rules, because we have three different firewall vendors. It save us time and creates efficiencies by looking at the general picture."
"The most valuable feature is the reporting capability because everything that we do is a result of our being able to query a report, based on our environment and our PCI compliance efforts."
"Especially for big, worldwide clients, one of the most valuable features is being able to create some rules to place on the security groups."
"Using this solution means that you can store logs for longer periods, up to perhaps two years, depending on your attached storage."
"The solution is easy to use."
"I found it easy to learn how to pull information from the logs."
"The most valuable feature is WildFire."
"The compliance features are very effective at identifying things that need to be properly hardened."
"The management and the deployment features are most valuable. We can easily deploy and manage the devices. We can do fast deployments without moving from our office and by just providing a short description to the end-user about how to install the physical device."
"The product was great, and whenever there was a bug or issue, they released updates quickly. Additionally, their support was very good."
 

Cons

"FireMon could improve its end-user practices. As an end user, I am just trying to catch up on all the alerts. There are so many, and you still have to go through them and document what was found."
"When it comes to real-time compliance management, something that is missing is alerting on certain, predefined controls. It would be good to have a predefined set of controls which, if not complied with in a newly set up rule, would create an alert for us. That is something that is missing, out-of-the-box."
"I ran a report and FireMon suggested that certain tools were not used. When I removed them, while it didn't bring our environment down completely, a lot of our environment started malfunctioning. Our backup system did not work, nor did other things that involve internal and external communication. We are not comfortable with what it did."
"Its reporting can be improved. I am the only one who works a lot with it, and I am having problems in terms of reporting. In the case of Palo Alto, I'm okay with it, but with some of the Cisco devices, such as routers, when I provide the reports to other teams for review, they always say that the hit count is incorrect. So, I was struggling for a long time to work with them. When working with other teams, they have a lot of questions about reporting, such as how it reports, and we are still struggling with that."
"A phone app would be nice. This is the reason why it is not perfect yet."
"We've had recurring issues managing FireMon's internal backups. Sometimes, the space allocated for the backup is full, and there is no process where it deletes files that are older than I certain date. It's just waiting for the storage to get full and then it's cleaned up. It isn't something that creates serious issues for us."
"The cost of the solution is pretty expensive. It would be ideal if they could work on their pricing."
"I don't like that it comes with bugs, constant issues, and limited functionality."
"The alerts in Palo Alto Networks Panorama could improve by integration with other systems, such as a forwarding trigger system. For example, if a customer has their own system it would be helpful to have the alarms integrated."
"In the future, it would be beneficial if Panorama could include a firewall assurance feature similar to Skybox."
"A potential improvement for Palo Alto Networks Panorama could be a more competitive pricing structure."
"Price is probably one of the biggest things that we struggle with, specifically with Palo, and that's across their whole portfolio."
"Clients need to have an alarm and alert system from which they can forward the trigger. The product needs to improve its integration as well."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama could be better."
"At times we have noticed that we get into issues where Panorama is going too slow or has other little problems. The performance can suffer occasionally."
"I am observing that whenever pushing our configurations sometimes the configuration will not push properly and then we have to go to the individual firewall and save it again."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We don't license all of the devices in our network, so it does not provide us with a comprehensive visibility of all devices in a hybrid network at this time."
"The pricing is very good, very straightforward. It also came in cheaper than AlgoSec and Tufin."
"It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint... it's very simple to understand, and gives us a good bang for the buck."
"The pricing was very good during our initial year, but they increased it this year a little bit. The price is okay. It is not cheap, but it is still average."
"We pay for it yearly."
"Pricing model seems fair."
"FireMon is very expensive. I think that they charge a premium. In general, they are very pricey. Compared to their competitors, they cost a little more than the other solutions that we evaluated."
"FireMon is cheaper than AlgoSec."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama should be reduced. We pay for the solution annually."
"The product's pricing is high but flexible. It now follows the pay-per-use pricing model. I would rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"We pay approximately $3,000 a year in order to use the product."
"There is a license needed to use Palo Alto Networks Panorama. The cost is not that important, what is important is meeting all the requirements and security features."
"The licensing is not cheap. There are always hidden costs. You have support costs, or maybe you need to buy more optics on how the solution fits into the rest of your environment. It is possible some of the rest of your environment will need to change too."
"Palo Alto is costly compared to Fortinet and Sophos."
"The price of Panorama is expensive."
"Its licensing is yearly and multi-yearly. It is not expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about FireMon?
I like the Security Manager console where we can see any changes that have been made or pull the results of an assessment and control the policies that we implement.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for FireMon?
It's a good value. From a licensing standpoint, our only limitation is the number of devices that we manage. Our environment is small. We have fewer than 20 enterprise firewalls, meaning it's hard ...
What needs improvement with FireMon?
We've had recurring issues managing FireMon's internal backups. Sometimes, the space allocated for the backup is full, and there is no process where it deletes files that are older than I certain d...
What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
Palo Alto is costly compared to Fortinet and Sophos. However, the vendor is working on cost-effective models. They are working on the back end to make it more attractive for SMBs.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
If we implement Cisco or Fortinet's firewall for the first time, anybody with a basic knowledge of firewalls can set the policies and rules. The implementation is not that easy. Though Palo Alto is...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Convey, MGM Resorts International, Southwest Airlines, Alkami, Costco, Aetna, IBM, Verizon, Wells Fargo
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about FireMon Security Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
787,061 professionals have used our research since 2012.