We performed a comparison between Fortinet Fortigate and Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison of Results: Based on the parameters we compared, Fortinet Fortigate seems to be a slightly superior solution. All other things being more or less equal, our reviewers found Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to be one of the most expensive products on the market. Some also felt that the user interface and the documentation could be improved.
"Its performance in fulfilling our requirements has been satisfactory."
"It's a firewall that secures our internal network. I have been using it since 2013, and I find that most of the features are advanced, and very user friendly."
"Fortinet FortiGate's most valuable features are ease of use, flexibility, and most of the configuration we can be done using the GUI. When we compare Fortinet FortiGate with other solutions the firewall policy are very easy to understand."
"The main reason why I purchased the particular unit was that it had good reviews and what other people were saying as far as its completeness and its leading capabilities in terms of endpoint security was very good."
"The UTM feature is quite good. FortiAP is easy to deploy because both Fortigate and FortiAP are under the same brand. Otherwise, you need to do more work on the configuration."
"I think that the UTM features are the most value, as it truly protects my infrastructure."
"It's user-friendly and easy to operate."
"I like that you are able to manage FortiGate from the FortiManager to create a more centralized environment."
"The centralization capability is the most valuable feature of this solution as it enables us to monitor our systems efficiently."
"The structure is much faster and more sophisticated than Cisco."
"Identifying applications is very easy with this solution."
"A feature introduced by Palo Alto with the version 10-OS is embedded machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. Machine learning analyzes the network traffic and detects if there is any usual traffic coming from outside to inside. Because of Palo Alto, organizations detect around 91% of malicious attacks using machine learning. The machine learning helps customers by implementing firewalls in critical and air gap areas so there is no need to integrate with the cloud sandbox."
"Application layer firewalling has been the most valuable feature because it gives thousands of application IDs that we can use to control traffic into and out of our environment. The second most important feature has been the GlobalProtect VPN feature."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' IPS is more complete and is very good. This is a user-friendly solution that is easy to install, and it provides the best protection."
"The most important feature is the firewall. We can make rules to filter the application layer of traffic. It's a very helpful feature."
"The first time I came across these firewalls, what surprised me the most was their web user interface. It is complete and gives you a lot of information. You can do 80% of the things related to your network and firewall through the web UI. In some of the other devices, the UI is not as complete. App-ID is also very valuable in customer networks. When you're seeing a lot of traffic in your network, you can see in your web UI which users have the applications that are consuming the most bandwidth. You have a broad context, which is very good."
"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."
"Sometimes you do need to know some CLI commands, so it's a bit harder for technicians or new people that don't know it."
"The way everything is set up could be easier. Currently, people need a lot of experience and knowledge to administer it and to link it to devices."
"To some degree, it's almost a question as to why some of this stuff isn't simpler. For example, for an AP deployment, while it's integrated, the number of steps that you have to go through in order to get the AP up, seems like a lot."
"Fortigate's hardware capacities could be improved."
"I feel that the reporting needs to be improved."
"Fortinet FortiGate is a firewall solution and once it's deployed, you can rest assured that your system is secure."
"I would like to see a more intuitive dashboard."
"Technical support can be faster at responding."
"We're working with the entry-level appliances, so I don't know what the higher-end ones are like, however, on the entry-level models I would say commit speeds need to be improved."
"It's not so easy to scale out your security capabilities."
"I would like to see more in terms of reporting tools and the threat analysis capabilities."
"Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls do not provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities."
"The customer-facing side needs to be improved in terms of the engagement and involvement of support staff."
"This solution cannot be implemented on-premises; it's only a cloud solution. The price is high as well."
"The machine learning in Palo Alto NG Firewalls for securing networks against threats that are able to evolve and morph rapidly is good, in general. But there have been some cases where we get false positives and Palo Alto has denied traffic when there have been new updates and signature releases. Valid traffic gets blocked. We have had some bad experiences with this. If there were an ability, before it denies traffic, to get some kind of notification that some traffic is going to be blocked, that would be good."
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Fortinet FortiGate is ranked 2nd in Firewalls with 306 reviews while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is ranked 6th in Firewalls with 162 reviews. Fortinet FortiGate is rated 8.4, while Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Fortinet FortiGate writes "It's a reliable solution that's easy to install and cheaper than competitors ". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls writes "We get reports back from WildFire on a minute-by-minute basis". Fortinet FortiGate is most compared with Sophos XG, Cisco Secure Firewall, Netgate pfSense, Meraki MX and WatchGuard Firebox, whereas Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is most compared with Check Point NGFW, Azure Firewall, Meraki MX, Sophos XG and Netgate pfSense. See our Fortinet FortiGate vs. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls report.
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