Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Stormshield Network Security comparison

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Stormshield Network Security

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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

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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AmjadKhan1

Head of data centers at a non-profit with 10,001+ employees

Provides inline protection with a unified view and anti-spyware capabilities

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls ten out of ten because it is the best. Our disaster recovery site utilizes Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls. We are also in the process of upgrading the firewalls at our 365 sites in Pakistan to Palo Alto Networks firewalls. While budget firewalls may advertise comparable features, they often fall short of effectively detecting viruses, threats, and ransomware. In contrast, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, combined with Cortex XDR, provide comprehensive threat intelligence and detection capabilities, ensuring superior security coverage. I recommend conducting a proof of concept before selecting a firewall. This will allow you to evaluate different options and determine which best suits your needs. While Palo Alto offers robust firewall solutions, it's essential to compare them with other vendors to ensure you make an informed decision.

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BartVan Es

IT Manager at a retailer with 1,001-5,000 employees

It's an easy, straightforward management platform to use. Their support needs improvement, as they could not help us and everything stopped working.

We are not happy with the support. It is a basic support offering. Sometimes, we have to chase support on progress, which is not good, especially on firewalls. We are an enterprise and we have firewalls on the edge. If we have an issue, I want support to be on top of issues, because for us, it's a lot of money if the firewall fails. They only give support up to a specific level, and when we like to exceed that level of support, then we need to fall back on our reseller. This is one issue. If your reseller landscape is not really up to speed, then in the most critical cases, we're depending on the reseller and not on the support of Stormshield because we cannot escalate. It's impossible for us to escalate a situation at Stormshield by ourselves. We have to fall back on our reseller. When our reseller was on vacation, it was impossible for us to act on an issue. We had just created a brand new firewall cluster to offload our website. Then, all of a sudden, we bumped into root errors on the connection which pointed to the firewall, and Stormshield support couldn't even help us fix it. Therefore, we had serious issues for a couple of weeks and it was all related to firewalls. It was a combination of unexpected or unwanted behavior and bugs. Sometimes things happen that can be due to configuration errors or something we did ourselves, which is not according to the plan, eventually we ruled everything out, and it was mainly due to the firmware on the Stormshield firewalls. The biggest issue was their support department was not able to help us, then everything stops. This is a no-go area for me. I would rate their support as a five out of 10.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."

"The most valuable feature is the policy routing and application control."

"Fortinet FortiGate is stable. It's used across all the countries, this is the way most multinationals run their system."

"The most valuable feature is the interface, which is very user friendly. We are utilizing most of the features, like content filtering. The firewall is powerful."

"The main benefit is the grouping of our security monitoring."

"Fortigate's most valuable feature is that it doesn't need a push policy when writing rules."

"The most valuable features are SD-WAN, application control, IPS control, and FortiSandbox."

"The ECC management and the GUI that offers single interface management are the most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The user experience is good and the configuration is very easy."

"There are many valuable features, such as wireless cloud features."

"They are regularly releasing new versions that include more integration with third-party services."

"The structure is much faster and more sophisticated than Cisco."

"The interface and dashboards are good."

"The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is the performance."

"The most valuable features of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are Threat Vault and AutoFocus."

"The sandboxing is valuable and they are frequently updating their signature database. We get new updates every five minutes. That makes it easy to detect new and unknown attacks."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pros

"I like how you can configure the rules. There is the task for the rules and a task for the network configuration. It also provides SMD filtering, and it can be integrated with the active directory for the users, their mission, and the VPN configuration. We are here in Sudan, and Stormshield didn't work in Sudan for more than a decade. Stormshield is a very strong firewall and very easy to configure and maintain. I am just working with the firewall solution, and we don't have any other solutions like endpoint solutions or something like that."

"This solution is quick and easy to configure."

"I can see what traffic is going on. I can easily block any programs from attacks."

"The scalability of the solution is good."

"Easily manageable in a variety of environments."

"Our organization's main concern is stability, and this is a stable solution."

"It's an easy, straightforward management platform to use."

"I like that it works fine. Stormshield is a very good solution."

More Stormshield Network Security pros

Cons

"The setup is pretty complex and not easy to implement."

"The support team for Fortinet FortiGate needs to be more customer friendly."

"Its reporting and pricing need improvement."

"If they could extend their fabric towards other vendor environments for integration, that would be great."

"From a reporting perspective, there's room for improvement. They're providing FortiAnalyzer through which one can get some enhancements, but the visibility and reporting still need slight improvement."

"The updates Fortinet provides are sometimes unstable."

"Some of the features in the graphical user interface do not work, which requires that we used the command-line-interface."

"The command line is complicated, and the interface could be better."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"Understanding the flow and application of securities can be complex, requiring navigation across different sections."

"Palo Alto claims their NG Firewalls are highly customizable, but this isn't always true."

"I would like the option to be able to block the traffic from a specific country in a few clicks."

"The technical support needs improvement."

"The dashboard needs improvement as I find it more complicated compared to Sophos."

"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls lack built-in multi-factor authentication, requiring the purchase of a third-party tool to implement this essential security feature."

"The integration with AI needs improvement."

"The pricing could be improved. They need to work on the setup over the firewall, VLAN, and PPPoE."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls cons

"With Stormshield, there are difficulties joining things, and it can be complex depending on the architecture."

"This solution has a big problem with web filtering and it needs to be improved."

"The SD card could be more secure."

"Improvement is needed in terms of the technical support of the manufacturer."

"The product must improve its pricing."

"It could be better if it were more user-friendly. It's too complicated for us to use it. The price could be better as well."

"Stormshield Network Security is quite expensive."

"Not all the fields are activated yet and we were informed that it will take at least one month."

More Stormshield Network Security cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"If you purchase a one-year subscription with the hardware and then you want to renew for the second year, it is very costly."

"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 pricing is perfect."

"The pricing is fair."

"Fortinet FortiGate is reasonably priced."

"Fortinet costs are 25% lower than the high-cost provider. There is an equipment cost and a recurring monthly cost for licenses and technical support."

"Price-wise, it's at a good price point for our market."

"The licensing scheme of Fortinet is better than Cisco. It is more logical."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"Active/Passive mode is very redundant, but they require you to buy all the associated licensing for both firewalls, which is kind of a waste of money because you are really only using the services on one firewall at a time."

"The pricing is very high."

"Although Palo Alto is expensive, its superior security functions, application identification, and overall performance justify the cost and make it stand out from the competition."

"It is a little bit expensive than other firewalls, but it is worth every penny. There are different licenses for the kinds of services you want to use. When we buy a new product, we go for a three-year subscription."

"We were very happy when they released the PA-440s. Previously, we had been looking at the PA-820s, which were a bit of overkill for us. Price-wise and capability-wise, the PA-820s hit the nail on the head for us."

"The NG firewall is an expensive solution."

"The cost is quite high."

"We always aim to reduce the pricing, as it is currently a bit high and needs to be lowered."

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls pricing and cost advice

"I think the price is good."

"The price of this solution and the price of support are ok."

"For mid-sized companies, they sell their appliances for good prices."

"We chose Stormshield for its price, as the Azure firewall was too expensive."

"The SN200 series costs between $500 USD and $600 USD per year, whereas the SN700 series costs approximately $1,000 annually."

"We bought a three-year license, and we renew it whenever it expires. The price could be better. It's always very expensive."

"The pricing could be better."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

22%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

Manufacturing Company

Government

Computer Software Company

22%

Comms Service Provider

14%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

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 a better choice, Azure Firewall or Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls?

Azure Firewall Vs. Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls Both solutions provide stellar stability and security. Azure Firew...

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...

Which is better - Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls or Sophos XG?

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have both great features and performance. I like that Palo Alto has regular threat si...

What do you like most about Stormshield Network Security?

Ease of use is the best feature of the product.

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Stormshield Network Security?

We pay for the quality we receive.

What needs improvement with Stormshield Network Security?

The product must improve its pricing.

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Comparisons

Compared 23% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

Meraki MX vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Check Point NGFW vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 13% of the time

Azure Firewall vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 12% of the time

Meraki MX vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 10% of the time

Sophos XG vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 9% of the time

SonicWall NSa vs Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Compared 2% of the time

More Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Competitors

Netgate pfSense vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 20% of the time

OPNsense vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 6% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 6% of the time

Sophos XG vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Stormshield Network Security

Compared 4% of the time

More Stormshield Network Security Competitors

Product Reports

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Fortinet FortiGate

January 2025

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls

Download Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls product report

Stormshield Network Security

Download Stormshield Network Security product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

Palo Alto NGFW, Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall

NETASQ Firewalls

Learn More

Fortinet

Palo Alto Networks

Stormshield

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls offer comprehensive security, including application control, traffic shaping, threat prevention, and load balancing, designed to secure internal networks, perimeter protection, VPN services, and cloud environments.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are a key choice for managing and protecting data centers, securing remote access, network segmentation, malware prevention, and ensuring high availability and performance for business-critical applications. Known for stability and strong security, these firewalls use application-aware identifiers and IPS/IDS subscriptions to offer advanced threat protection. The unified platform facilitates seamless integration, while GlobalProtect and centralized management via Panorama enhance ease of use. However, there are areas for improvement, including pricing strategies, training, user support, and integration with third-party applications.

What are the essential features?

Stability: Reliable performance in different environments.
Application Control: Identifies applications to manage traffic.
Advanced Threat Protection: Includes DNS security, WildFire, and machine learning.
GlobalProtect: Secure remote access for users.
Centralized Management: Managed via the Panorama platform.

What benefits or ROI should users expect?

Security: Protects against threats with robust features.
User-Friendly: Simplified interface and easy configuration.
High Availability: Ensures performance for critical applications.
Integration: Seamless with existing systems and applications.
Support: Reliable technical support and resources.

In industries like finance, healthcare, and retail, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls secure sensitive data and meet regulatory requirements. These firewalls help manage large-scale networks in these sectors, providing essential security features and maintaining high-performance standards. They are implemented to ensure compliance, protect patient information, secure financial transactions, and safeguard customer data.

NETASQ's integrated intrusion prevention engine uses protocol conformity analysis, application filtering and antivirus analysis to inspect authorized traffic flows and strengthen application security. NETASQ enables you to establish and configure user-based security policies, giving you greater control over which network resources each user is authorized to access.

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

SkiStar AB, Ada County, Global IT Services PSF, Southern Cross Hospitals, Verge Health, University of Portsmouth, Austrian Airlines, The Heinz Endowments

ACESUR group, Ministry of Education Oman, Anios Laboratories, Zain, DLM Location

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs. Stormshield Network Security