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GajShield Next Generation Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 25, 2026

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
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
588
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st), ZTNA (1st), Unified Threat Management (UTM) (1st)
GajShield Next Generation F...
Ranking in Firewalls
42nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
5.7
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks NG Firew...
Ranking in Firewalls
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
197
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 18.3%, down from 21.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GajShield Next Generation Firewall is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is 5.3%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate18.3%
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls5.3%
GajShield Next Generation Firewall0.2%
Other76.2%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Information Technology Operation/Presales at TechMonarch
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Nazish Sameer Shaikh - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Security Engineer at UNITE HERE HEALTH
Simplifies the management of complex data networks, but its technical support could be improved
Sometimes, we have to use SD-WAN support for the solution, which can be improved by adapting some features that will help our approach to network services. The solution can adapt some of the tools where we, as network engineers, can adjust to the changing application needs. Also, the solution can provide us with multiple support, allowing us to create a network segment. The solution’s technical support could be improved.
SV
Solution Architect // Network Consultant at Group S
Network security has improved and allows detailed user-based control over encrypted traffic
Bandwidth usage is not something we use much, but it depends on the SD-WAN plugin because the application load balancing is based on the SD-WAN product. That functionality does not work as it should, although the App-ID is working very well. SD-WAN functionality is working, but when you compare it with other products on the market, it is very limited. Palo Alto also has ION devices, and ION devices together with Prisma Access or Strata Cloud Manager now are more the way to go than using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls on-premises. At the moment I have some issues, but the issues are more related to the general way of working of many vendors. They implement new things very fast and it is not always bug-free. With new releases, sometimes you still have some issues. This is the main concern. If you look back five or maybe ten years ago, the products were more stable and you had more decent releases, but that is something in general for many vendors. Palo Alto is also a factor with that. They want to bring new features to the market too fast. Features are a concern because all vendors try to compete against each other. If one vendor comes out with a new feature, then other vendors do the same. Sometimes they want to be the first on the market with it, and that sometimes introduces bugs or issues with the product.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The GUI is very simple, and what is very good is that every product, regardless of size, has the same interface."
"FortiGate has a strong security topic which allows all of the Fortinet devices to communicate and share information which makes their security more powerful."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is the analytics."
"I appreciate the ease of use, ease of setup, and the different abilities it has; I have been very pleased with it over SonicWall, the interface of Fortinet FortiGate is a lot easier to use and more robust, plus their VPN option is much better."
"The best features of Fortinet FortiGate include its easy configuration and user interface."
"One of the best features of Fortinet FortiGate is that it's a very powerful equipment that gives many security features in a single box with good performance, and the user interface is friendly to use and configure."
"It is a UTM firewall with many features, helping me control users and public multi-servers easily while providing seamless, simple integration into a large network."
"I have found the IPS, antivirus, and the feature that allows you to have a firewall in the same appliance most valuable."
"If people are looking for a good solution that is priced well this solution is best."
"Gajshiled's enterprise cloud and DLP-level features give it an advantage over other products."
"GajShield has improved our mobile device-based connectivity."
"Once it is configured, it is very stable, and we don't get any calls from our clients unless they have some specific requirement, like port forwarding or something."
"The most valuable feature of the GajShield Next Generation Firewall is the user-friendly settings, dashboards, and anti-threat protection. Additionally, the solution upgrades frequently which is good because we receive new features."
"It is an easily scalable solution...The initial setup was very easy."
"GajShield has improved our mobile device-based connectivity."
"It is a stable solution."
"We like the fact that this product can provide multiple layers of protection depending on our clients requirements, and can be configured to whatever level of protection and the specific protocols that they want."
"The ease of use and the ease of configuration of our policies are the most valuable features."
"The most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is Cortex Data Lake."
"The structure is much faster and more sophisticated than Cisco."
"The basic configuration will only take 15 minutes to set up"
"Palo Alto is a lot easier especially in regards to security."
"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are Threat Vault and AutoFocus."
"The ease of updating the platform was valuable. We could easily update the OS and different modules within the platform. It was a fairly user-friendly and easy-to-use platform."
 

Cons

"To improve Fortinet FortiGate, I think they need to improve the software and make updates more quickly, rather than taking a long time to update the software or firmware."
"They can add automation for monitoring and policy optimization on the firewall. I think using AI to do some optimization on the policies would be beneficial, such as providing alerts about policies that haven't been used for a long time or identifying overlapping policies."
"The customization is a little bit difficult because we have to customize everything."
"More advanced AI capabilities would be beneficial in future updates."
"Fortinet FortiGate should improve the VPN tokens."
"The product has to be upgraded every few weeks."
"I believe one area that could be improved in Fortinet FortiGate is posturing, specifically for remote VPN users, as there are OS-based limitations I encountered with only Windows; adding domain restrictions for VPN access would make it more competitive and useful."
"We had a minor problem where there was a major system upgrade on the hardware platfrom and the Mac client was not available as soon as it might have been. The PC client was available immediately, but we had to wait a month or so, before there was a mac client. I was slightly irritated that it was not ready on time, but it was eventually resolved."
"We raised a support ticket, and the project didn't get a proper response. There was a skill issue in TAC support."
"The firewall configuration and administration screens could use some improvement."
"Sometimes, we have to use SD-WAN support for the solution, which can be improved by adapting some features that will help our approach to network services."
"We face issues with some configuration parts that we don't understand in the solution, and sometimes we face issues with the VPN connection."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall could improve the flow of the settings. If somebody's using a Cisco firewall or any other brand and they want to use GajShield Next Generation Firewall the platform's UI is a bit different. If it was more similar to the others it would be better."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall could improve the flow of the settings. If somebody's using a Cisco firewall or any other brand and they want to use GajShield Next Generation Firewall the platform's UI is a bit different."
"The UI for the administration of the firewall needs a lot of work."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall would be improved with the addition of a load-balancing feature."
"A major concern is making the licensing more accessible to enable small municipalities to afford and manage their own systems independently."
"When the primary Palo Alto Networks firewall fails over to the secondary, it requires manual intervention to bounce the IPsec for it to work properly. Unlike BGP peering, which automatically changes from idle to established, this process needs automation."
"Managing can be difficult."
"Palo Alto has introduced new features in their next-generation firewall, such as SD-WAN. However, the technique of SD-WAN implementation is not easy to understand. It is not easy to deploy at this moment. Maybe, in the future, they can improve the process and how the administrators, partners, or support team can easily deploy this SD-WAN solution on their next-generation firewall. The SD-WAN solution from Fortinet is easy to do. It does not take more than five or 10 minutes. When we talk about Palo Alto, it takes extra effort to implement SD-WAN."
"There are some advanced features that we aren't able to use, which include active IP authentication and app ID. We are facing challenges with implementing those two features."
"We are not happy with Palo Alto at all. It would be better if they provided more support for the firewall. We have a few pending issues with the configuration for each application. We cannot deploy them yet due to some support-related problems in the firewall. We have deployed a few policies for DNS spoofing and DNS attacks, but we could only block a few IP addresses through the policy. That's DNS security, and we have configured a few policies for DNS spoofing and more. URL categorization and URL filtering are not yet adequately maintained. For example, if you created a few rules in the rule-based configuration and made some rules downstairs, you will lose some of them if you give access upstairs. It's not giving us a proper solution for which route it is using. We need to apply the application-based policies and URL filtering-based policies. It creates more issues because we are not getting good support from the team."
"In the last three years at least, they have been lagging behind their competitors. The main issue is the support that we can get... You have to wait for them to get back to you and sometimes it's random. And the biggest problem I have is that you have to wait hours on the line when you're calling them to get a hold of the next available engineer."
"We need better affiliations for profiling the user."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Some of our customers are using Sophos and SonicWall due to price concerns, as they can't manage the pricing of Fortinet FortiGate."
"I think price-wise, the solution is totally reasonable since it has many products to serve, starting from small homes to massive scale sites."
"The Fortinet FortiGate security features cost approximately $1,500 a year. The firewall itself doesn't have a recurring cost. It's the security features on top of that that you pay for."
"It is a good product from a price perspective versus functionality."
"If we have an older version, the support costs get quite high."
"The Indian market is different than the European and American markets. When you compare they need to be a bit more aggressive on pricing."
"It's not the cheapest, but it's value for money. Given everything we've got out of it: the DMZ port, the VPN, and the high availability, it's a pretty reasonable price."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall is cheaper than the other products in the market. The licensing costs for the solution are on a yearly basis."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall is not that expensive, and its pricing is better than Palo Alto."
"GajShield is a cheaper solution as of now. The subscription is yearly."
"GajShield Next Generation Firewall is reasonably priced."
"It was about 15% cheaper compared to Sophos."
"The price of the GajShield Next Generation Firewall is very attractive when compared to other solutions."
"The cost is steep, but most firewalls cost a lot."
"Compared to other products, the pricing is flexible and reasonable."
"Reducing costs is important, especially since Prisma can be expensive. It would be great if it were more affordable."
"I am not sure about the specific licensing costs of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, but FortiGate and Palo Alto are generally cheaper than some high-end Cisco devices."
"The tool's pricing is similar to that of Cisco. It's a security appliance; the cost depends on your network topology and specific requirements. The suitability of NG firewalls should be chosen based on your network and what you need. If a colleague from a different company asked for the cheapest and fastest firewall, I suggest they consider options like Sophos. Sophos took over Cyberoam, which was previously a leader in NG firewalls"
"I don't know about the price of the platform or the license fees, as the finance department deals with that. I only bill for the materials involved in the design."
"It's an expensive product."
"If someone doesn't have a security platform in their network, then the following licenses will be required: antivirus, anti-spyware, vulnerability, and Wildfire analysis. There are also licenses for GlobalProtect and support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Educational Organization
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business364
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise191
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business3
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business75
Midsize Enterprise56
Large Enterprise85
 

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Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall
GajShield NGFW
Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall
 

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
Zodiac Clothing
SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments
Find out what your peers are saying about GajShield Next Generation Firewall vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
885,837 professionals have used our research since 2012.