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Palo Alto Networks CN-Series vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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
6.8
Number of Reviews
590
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)
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
33rd
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Ranking in Firewalls
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (12th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 17.2%, down from 21.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is 0.3%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is 2.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Fortinet FortiGate17.2%
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series2.0%
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series0.3%
Other80.5%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Abhinandan Yadav - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Engineer at Arrow PC Network Pvt Ltd
Unified security and sd-wan have improved uptime and cut wan costs for multi-site branches
Users report stability issues in certain versions, which requires regular updates. Real-world attacks have also highlighted the need for urgent patching of vulnerabilities.Fortinet FortiGate, while a powerful and feature-rich web firewall, could improve in areas like firmware stability, documentation, and ease of use. The learning curve can be steep for some users. For beginners, support quality can vary, and frequent updates with occasional vulnerabilities call for careful patch management. However, once Fortinet FortiGate is configured, it remains highly reliable and efficient. Customer support needs improvement, as I find it very slow, with reports from other users reflecting that customer support is inadequate.
Ahmed_Shalaby - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Cyber Security Engineer at Beta Information Technology
Application control excels and integration with monitoring system boosts efficiency
I am an integrator working with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series and Panorama. I have been involved with the implementation of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent. Application control is one of the most valuable features. Its monitoring capability…
AV
Cyber security consultant at L&T Technology Services
Enhance cybersecurity for large enterprises using advanced threat management
An improvement could be the integration of security intelligence with Palo Alto cloud via APIs. This would allow IOCs, domains, and hash values to be automatically entered, reducing manual entry. Integration with CSIRT across all use levels would make it easier for administrators to stay updated on the blocked entities without manual intervention.

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 features of Fortinet FortiGate are the rules and quality of service."
"I love the interface."
"The ECC management and the GUI that offers single interface management are the most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate."
"I never encountered any stability issues; it is a very stable product."
"It is a safe product."
"It performs very well."
"The most valuable features of the FortiGate firewall include SSL inspection, VPN functionality, and threat intelligence features for preventing threats."
"It is a good and very useful product for me."
"The stability of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is excellent."
"The app inspection is very helpful for network security."
"The most valuable feature is that you can launch it in a very short time. You don't have to wait for the hardware to arrive and get it staged and installed. From that perspective, it is easy to launch. It is also scalable."
"We use the product on our Azure network firewalls."
"We haven't had any security issues since deploying it."
"Centralized management is valuable because it allows us to configure settings in one location and apply them across all three locations."
"In the newer version, there are 3850s, all of them are scalable. They fit better into the medium or small businesses."
"The tool's cloud version makes application migration easy."
"The most valuable features are the User ID, URL filtering, and application filtering."
"It is an easy-to-scale product."
 

Cons

"The support costs and licensing are sometimes so expensive."
"It can be a little bit more user-friendly in terms of policy definition and implementation. It seems a little bit complicated, and it could be simplified."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG can't be used on its own, and you have to get FortiAnalyzer."
"While FortiGate is cheaper than most other solutions, we're seeing increased license renewal costs. Most of our clients are asking for more significant discounts because the price is going up."
"We can't identify which users are causing challenges when we have issues."
"The price could be improved."
"Improvements could be made when companies expand and need better equipment and more licenses."
"My only complaint about FortiGate is a lack of QinQ VLAN tunneling."
"Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive."
"I'd like to see more IOPs features."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series needs to improve its order process."
"Enhancing the ease of accessing technical support would be useful."
"In the next release, I would like to see better integration between the endpoints and the firewalls."
"I find it difficult to reach technical support at Palo Alto Networks."
"There should be an option for direct integration with the Azure platform."
"Palo Alto should update their documentation to make it more readable and provide easier-to-follow instructions through videos."
"The DLP functionality or data classification can be improved in the solution's basic firewalling."
"The firewall itself is very complex. You have to do a lot of research, look through all the documentation, consult, and figure out how to use it."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It has been two years. I don't remember the actual price, but it was affordable. We buy the boxes and then use the license for three years."
"The price for the device and software is high. However, the solution is of good quality and has a lot of features."
"I think the price of Fortinet FortiGate is very reasonable."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate when compared to other solutions is high. However, my knowledge of the price is from third parties and I am not sure how accurate it is. I typically work in the technical area of my organization."
"The price for the Fortinet FortiGate is reasonable. Secure SD-WAN is free of charge. If you have their firewall, it's free of charge. It's very tempting."
"The price of Fortinet FortiGate could improve, it is expensive."
"The price of FortiGate is reasonable as I plan to buy new switches. The initial gadgets are already booted, and the pricing seems normal on the market. As for additional costs, I haven't subscribed to many extra features, so I'm only using what I need. Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us."
"Fortinet prices are around $600 for the small 40F model, and for licenses, the simplest option is about $300 for a year. They sell licenses that can last for 1, 2, 3, or 5 years."
Information not available
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is an expensive product but the best one in the market."
"It is a little bit of crazy if you compare it to Vanguard, Sophos, or even Cisco. The newest version of Cisco, the Next-Generation Firewall of Cisco, is less expensive than Palo Alto. It is more comparable to Check Point."
"The VM series is licensed annually."
"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."
"The box, if you do not want to buy the threat prevention license in the box, you can buy it only with the support license. It is for the support of the hardware. It works like a simple firewall. It integrates what it calls user IDs and application IDs. If you do not buy any other license, only the firewall, Palo Alto will also help you improve a lot of your security."
"The pricing and licensing of this product on AWS for a three-year commitment is a great deal, if you can plan that far ahead."
"The price of this solution is very high for some parts of Africa, which makes it a challenge."
"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
Computer Software Company
11%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
No data available
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business366
Midsize Enterprise135
Large Enterprise192
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise16
Large Enterprise24
 

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 ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?
The pricing of Palo Alto Networks CN-Series is quite expensive, rating around eight on a scale of one to ten for cost.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?
Palo Alto Networks CN-Series could improve on its pricing as it is quite expensive. The SD-WAN implementation using P...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks CN-Series?
I am an integrator working with Palo Alto Networks CN-Series ( /products/palo-alto-networks-cn-series-reviews ) and P...
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...
 

Also Known As

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation 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
Information Not Available
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks CN-Series vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
886,719 professionals have used our research since 2012.