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Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Symantec Advanced Threat Protection 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

Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Advanced Threat Pr...
Ranking in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of February 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is 12.7%, up from 12.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
Dennis O'Reilly - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides end-to-end antivirus protection and has good stability
Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and device control. It can integrate with other Broadcom solutions, such as Symantec Messaging Gateway and Symantec DLP. If you want to send an email, it gets scanned through endpoint protection and DLP. We get all Symantec functionality in a single pane.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The graphic user interface of Palo Alto is good and it's easy to configure."
"Detailed reporting on analysis of content. The inspections are easily applied to security policy profiles and profile groups, and may be assigned on a per-rule basis."
"The most valuable feature is the Automatic Verdict, to recognize whether something is a threat, or not."
"It helps us when segmenting and securing the network and all sort of technologies, all sort of next generation needs. It's next generation phases of firewall like anti-virus, sandboxing, wifi, and VPN."
"I give the initial setup an eight out of ten."
"The solution is completely integrated with all the other Palo Alto products. I think that it is the best part for endpoint protection. The firewall features include URL and DNS filtering, threat protection, and antivirus."
"The most effective feature of WildFire for threat analysis is its collaboration with other security profiles on our Palo Alto firewall."
"WildFire's application encryption is useful."
"The product integrates well with our systems, and we have not encountered any problems."
"Real-time threat analysis is quick and takes action on threats immediately."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"You don't have to buy a separate email security platform. You can enable that using their endpoint, and I like that. You don't have to have two agents running on the same box."
"They manage to solve detection quite nicely. There is some rather elaborate detection compared to other providers."
"All of the solution's features are quite valuable for us. We especially like the threat protection it provides."
"Currently we have 800-plus nodes connected with this solution, without any issues. The solution is scalable."
"What I like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is its notification capability."
 

Cons

"It would be nice if there was an easier way to install and deploy it, such as through the inclusion of wizards."
"There are certain changes that I was expecting in the previous version, and I hope that they are soon fixed. All of the problems that I have faced so far have been resolved."
"There are more specialized solutions that compete with Wildfire. Therefore, they need to work on their machine learning and AI to be more competitive."
"The cost of the solution is excessively high."
"The support is good but they could be faster."
"​The VPN and decryption need improvement."
"The integration is almost not easy because it depends on the vendor."
"One area for improvement is the expansion of the sandbox environment to include a broader range of platforms, such as Linux, macOS, and mobile operating systems."
"It's a strange situation where the infrastructure of the consumer or customer is behind some kind of firewall and they have always used some kind of customized proxy. In this situation, the ATP has a very tough time to pass the information to the cloud and back. To fix, it requires a more elaborate and complex configuration for that particular case."
"The product's support services need improvement."
"One area for improvement could be the pricing model."
"They could enhance the solution to work across all devices, including Android, iOS, and Mac, and make it more user-friendly."
"The security features need to be improved."
"Entire threat protection is not available for the advanced features."
"There are some ‎features that would add value to this product. One of them would be a graphical presentation of threats that the system has encountered."
"An improvement could be made on the reporting because then it would be easier to collect information and submit it for compliance."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a bit higher than the other products such as TrendMicro, or FireEye."
"Palo Alto Networks WildFire is a product with a high price."
"The pricing is highly expensive."
"This is an expensive product and the market for Palo Alto in Poland could be much bigger if the pricing was comparable to Fortinet."
"​More expensive than other firewalls.​"
"The pricing is OK, it is not too expensive."
"I use Palo Alto Networks WildFire's free version."
"For the last three years, the price of Palo Alto in Vietnam has been very high."
"The price is quite expensive."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
78%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
2%
Manufacturing Company
2%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
What do you like most about Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
Symantec Endpoint Protection provides end-to-end protection. Along with antivirus protection, it has a lot of key areas, including intrusive prevention, firewall features, and application and devic...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
The price is quite expensive because a different entity has taken over the company.
What needs improvement with Symantec Advanced Threat Protection?
One area for improvement could be the pricing model. Future releases could further enhance integration capabilities with other platforms and simplify the licensing model to compete more with Micros...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
ECI
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs. Symantec Advanced Threat Protection and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.