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Fortinet FortiSandbox vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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

Fortinet FortiSandbox
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
4th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
38
Ranking in other categories
Threat Deception Platforms (7th)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
9th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiSandbox is 10.7%, up from 8.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

Kiarash Heydari - PeerSpot reviewer
Light and powerful solution design; useful to have
My impression is that the initial setup process is quite straightforward. If you know what you're using it for, the initial setup can be quite easy and the solution is not that hard to use. When it comes to the steps taken for the implementation, you would select the OS you're using and when the files are sent to the appliance you check, and in the appliance configuration, it must be like the visual governance environment. You must set up the OS you have so that appliance can scan or analyze your file. To maintain this solution, you must always have at least one all-around person tuning this solution.
AshwaniTyagi - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced protection and good integration capabilities with good reliability
We use Palo Alto Networks VM-Series to offer services to our customers as a managed security service provider. We provide solutions and services to our customers across the globe. For example, if I want to host a firewall in the cloud or somewhere where the physical appliance is not a possibility…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"What I find most valuable, is that it is easy to use."
"The dynamic behavior analysis is excellent. We have many attacks caught by the FortiSandbox as zero-day attacks. Additionally, the administration is simple and can be customized to fit your companies needs."
"The solution is very good because it catches a lot of threats in emails."
"The adapter is beneficial as it allows integration with various devices, not just Fortinet."
"The most valuable feature was the EDR, endpoint detection and response."
"The scanner office document as well as PDF are useful. The most valuable thing is that you can emulate different operating systems without having the danger of getting something infected. It emulates several operating systems, and as a result, you either get the file or you don't get the file."
"he solution's GUI is good."
"Overall, it works fine. Its interface is also fine."
"Palo Alto is easy to use. The UI is very easy to understand and does not require any certification or highly skilled technician to handle the firewall. It is very user-friendly and straightforward out of the box."
"It has a good performance which helps you with the stability of your virtual environment."
"The technical support for the solution is very good."
"I recommend going with the VM series, as it integrates advanced technological standards on a single platform and supports Kubernetes and Docker, which other vendors often don't offer."
"The most valuable feature of the solution is the zero-trust security architecture."
"With the improved visibility we now have, the traffic is being properly monitored, which means that we are better able to manage it. These are improvements that we saw very quickly."
"The most effective features of the solution for threat prevention are Layer 7 inspection, SSL decryption, IPS, and the web filtering profile."
"It gives us the ease that we are secure. We have set up the proper things that help make our data safe."
 

Cons

"Fortinet FortiSandbox can improve by decreasing the time of analysis response. Other solutions have a better response time, such as WildFire."
"For the MSSPs, it would be great if the product could display all the threat chains on a dashboard since it is an area where the tool is currently lacking."
"Product could include a user interface and be made simpler for customers to configure."
"It would be better if we could integrate FortiSandbox with endpoint security solutions."
"For additional features, maybe a form of execution pain files in a non-virtual environment because it has threats that identify when it is being run in a virtual machine."
"The main area of concern in Fortinet FortiSandbox is its detection capabilities."
"I don't know if it is viable to do an improvement like this. When there are passwords in the password-protected files, it can't scan them or do things like this. I don't know if an algorithm or something else could make it better. Nowadays, many legitimate office documents have passwords."
"If you were to compare prices between vendors and manufacturers, you would see that the lowest equipment in the Sandbox line is quite expensive for a new customer."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"We have ran into issues with Palo Alto’s limitations for resolving large IP lists from DNS lookups, as well as the antivirus interfering with App-ID."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"On the cloud side, they need to come up with more HA solutions to support the multi-region."
"Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"It'll help if Palo Alto Networks provided better documentation."
"Enhancing the ease of accessing technical support would be useful."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is not expensive at all."
"We are on an annual license to use the solution. We have an additional feature that is integrated with S5, which is working well."
"The price of Fortinet FortiSandbox is expensive."
"The price is competitive."
"The solution is affordable."
"Fortinet FortiSandbox is a nominally priced product, so I would not say that it is a very cheap tool."
"The license for Fortinet FortiSandbox depends on the use case."
"FortiSandbox is a subscription that can be purchased from Fortinet directly. Only using FortiSandbox as features purchased as a subscription in the cloud."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is notably cheaper than other firewall vendors, except Fortigate."
"The VM series is licensed annually."
"Sometimes, it's cheaper to buy a new firewall with licensing instead of renewing the licenses of an old firewall."
"I know Palo Alto is not cheap. They have been telling me, the members of the finance team, it is not a cheap solution. It is a solution whose target is that no matter how big your organization is, small, medium, or large, it is about the maturity of your security team or infrastructure team whom you want to work with."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"The pricing was expensive but it was comparable to the competition."
"Based on the customer budget, they can choose from 12-month, 36-month, or 60-month licensing models."
"Because the solution was getting deployed on AWS, it was the best place to go and it was available there."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiSandbox?
The real-time analysis capability of FortiSandbox is beneficial for email analysis.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiSandbox?
I think it's affordable. For the six to seven months of usage, the cost has been reasonable.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiSandbox?
We sometimes face a delay in email scanning due to not having multiple virtual machines. Improvements could be made in dynamic scanning, scanning all email components such as URLs and attachments, ...
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...
 

Also Known As

FortiSandbox
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Lush, Barnabas Health, Options, Riverside Healthcare, Hillsbourough County Schools, Columbia Public Schools, Schiller AG
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiSandbox vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.