Network Firewall Comparison
Fortinet Fortigate Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) deliver industry-leading AI/ML-powered security and networking convergence thanks to organic innovations in FortiOS that tie critical functions together as a unified system. Our proprietary ASIC architecture provides the industry’s best price-performance for faster security, quicker response, and higher ROI.
Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation Firewalls consistently outperform competitors like Palo Alto Networks
Network Firewall Comparison
| Feature | Fortinet Fortigate | Palo Alto Networks |
|---|---|---|
| Innovation | ✓Fortinet is a leader in cybersecurity innovation with over 1,200 patents issued globally and 925 in the U.S. (Q3 2022). | ✗Palo Alto Networks only has one-third the number of U.S. patents as Fortinet, 335 (Q3 2022). |
| Market Share | ✓Fortinet ships almost 40% of security appliances purchased globally each quarter. | ✗Palo Alto Networks ships less than 5% of the world’s security appliances. |
| Convergence | ✓FortiGate NGFWs organically converge networking and security with built-in SD-WAN, ZTNA application gateway, 5G Wireless WAN, and more. | ✗Palo Alto Networks is unable to offer converged networking with NGFW. Their SD-WAN is a third-party product that does not integrate with NGFW. Palo Alto Networks is unable to offer integrated LAN, WLAN, and 5G. |
| Price/Performance - Firewall | ✓Fortinet delivers performance that is on average 5 to 20 times faster than the industry average, including Palo Alto Networks. | ✗Palo Alto Networks' single-pass architecture is very cumbersome for pure firewalling. It's so slow that the company does not put this KPI on its data sheets, making it hard for customers to compare. When upgrading from PAN-OS 9.1 to 10.2, the performance degrades approximately 20%. |
| Price/Performance - SSL Inspection | ✓With over 90% of traffic encrypted, high-performance SSL inspection with DPI and TLS 1.3 is critical. Fortinet delivers top performance and publishes the specs on our data sheets. | ✗Palo Alto Networks SSL inspection is extremely slow and can cause a performance degradation of over 60%. Palo Alto Networks has not published specs for its 4th generation models. |
| Security Services | ✓Fortinet offers a wide range of ML- and AI-powered security services. We receive better security effectiveness results with independent third-party security testing labs, along with BreakingPoint Strikepacks. With best-of-breed security efficacy, there are fewer disruptions and business continuity is assured. | ✗Palo Alto Networks may market ML-/AI-driven products. However, they do not deliver best-of-breed security effectiveness results. |
| Latency | ✓For firewalling applications, latency can be a big problem. Fortinet's average latency is less than 10 microseconds. We also offer firewalls with an incredible two-microsecond latency. | ✗Palo Alto Networks uses commercial CPU hardware that cannot match Fortinet SPU performance. Note that Palo Alto Networks does not publish latency figures on its firewall data sheets. |
| Power Consumption | ✓For firewalling and encrypted applications, Fortinet uses an astonishing one-tenth of the power consumption of the industry average, including Palo Alto Networks, Check Point, and Cisco. | ✗Palo Alto Networks uses 4x more power consumption when compared to Fortinet for firewalling and encryption applications. |