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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 January 2025, in the Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks WildFire is 13.2%, up from 11.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Advanced Threat Protection is 2.3%, down from 2.5% 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

"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten since we never faced any issues."
"The scalability is acceptable."
"I like the analysis they apply to the unknown files, and I think they have good technology to use as a sandboxing tool. I didn't find something similar to WildFire in the marketplace."
"The solution is scalable."
"The solution is easy to use and the Panorama feature is good. The software management or the malware blocking and some authentication management system are good."
"Their technical support is outstanding and top-notch."
"The most valuable feature for us is the VPN."
"With this product, we receive the best monitoring and reports.​"
"The great advantage in using this product is it creates multiple services."
"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."
"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."
"The product integrates well with our systems, and we have not encountered any problems."
"Technical support has been helpful and responsive."
"All of the solution's features are quite valuable for us. We especially like the threat protection it provides."
"It has certainly helped out our audit efforts because we each stay compliant in terms of various security standards."
 

Cons

"The free version does not have real-time updates. It is slow."
"The only problem with this solution is the cost. It's expensive."
"I think it would be nice for Palo Alto to work without the connection to the cloud. It is 100% powerful when connected to the cloud. But, if you disconnect from the cloud, you only get 40-50% power."
"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 system performance degrades after the solution has been deployed for some time. The data that it gives us becomes a little bit slow. When you try to get some data for troubleshooting, it seems like it's working hard to extract that data."
"If Wi-Fi can be improved to offer real-time security profiling and updates, it can prevent traits unrelated to Wi-Fi."
"The support is good but they could be faster."
"Our main concern is that everything has to be synced with the WildFire Cloud and has to be checked through the subscription."
"They could enhance the solution to work across all devices, including Android, iOS, and Mac, and make it more user-friendly."
"The cloud platform needs to have improvement in terms of the user interface and the different capabilities it has available. It needs to match the other leading next-gen EDR products that are available in the market. That's the reason why we are stepping away from Symantec. Their cloud environment is just generally lacking in comparison to others."
"The product's support services need improvement."
"The security features need to be improved."
"The support has dropped down to a five out of ten."
"One area for improvement could be the pricing model."
"The administration interface needs a lot of improvement. It should be UI based, and simple. They need to improve it. It's pretty much not that friendly compared to what we were using as Bitdefender before. It's okay but is improving, actually."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price is a bit higher than the other products such as TrendMicro, or FireEye."
"It IS a bit expensive, but I think you get what you pay for. Value is there."
"The solution is a bit expensive."
"I think they should lower the price of this solution"
"The licensing fees are on an annual basis, and there are no costs in addition to the standard fees."
"It's pretty expensive but with respect to value for money, it's okay."
"This is an expensive product and the market for Palo Alto in Poland could be much bigger if the pricing was comparable to Fortinet."
"Palo Alto Networks solutions are typically on the higher end of pricing, but considering the value and integration with our existing infrastructure, it is worth the investment."
"The price is quite expensive."
"Symantec Endpoint Protection has an average price."
"Pricing is good. It is nice to have a great product at a fair price."
"Symantec Advanced Threat Protection's pricing is comparable."
"The pricing of this solution is inexpensive and affordable."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) solutions are best for your needs.
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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%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
77%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Computer Software Company
3%
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.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.