Both vendors also provide services such as SD-WAN, AIOps and cloud firewalls. However, there are a few key differences between them.
Scalability
Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks both have top-rated NGFW capabilities. Both NGFW appliances are scalable to protect and inspect data traffic at high rates without compromising security. Fortinet's single-pass architecture allows it to detect and prevent advanced threats faster than its competitors. Both companies have diversified offerings beyond next-gen firewalls to broaden their moats against newer competitors. Fortinet turned its NGFW platform, FortiGate, into the core of its Security Fabric, which includes cloud-based security services and AI-powered threat detection tools. On the other hand, Palo Alto Networks has built its business around acquiring multiple companies and launching two new next-gen platforms, Prisma for cloud-based security services and Cortex for AI-powered threat detection. Palo Alto Networks is a diversified company that consistently generates robust sales and revenue growth while maintaining stable profits.
Automation
As the threat landscape changes, security teams need more than a firewall to detect and stop attacks. This demands various capabilities, including decryption at high-performance levels, deep packet inspection post-decryption, identification of command and control activities, malware detection, threat correlation and more. These CPU-intensive capabilities result in performance degradation when security services are enabled. Another advantage of Fortinet vs. Palo Alto Networks NGFW is that Fortinet does not suffer from this performance degradation. Their patented security processors provide a 30% higher performance than their closest competitor, with full security services enabled. Fortinet also offers a centralized management platform, Panorama, that allows you to manage all of your NGFWs from a single console. Panorama can be deployed on a hardware management appliance, as a virtual appliance or in the cloud.
Overall, users of Fortinet FortiGate report that the product is reliable and has a good user interface. It is a great choice for businesses because of its security features and its ability to be easily managed.
Advanced Threat Protection
NGFW provides advanced threat protection by offering built-in capabilities like IPS and anti-malware. These features can help identify attacks based on traffic behavioral analysis or threat signatures. Moreover, they can improve packet-content filtering up to the application layer. This helps in preventing cyber threats and avoiding data breaches. This is one of the reasons why NGFWs are becoming popular in the cybersecurity industry. Fortinet and Palo Alto Networks created next-gen firewalls, upgrading traditional versions with more powerful device filtering tools. Independent tests often rank both as top security providers. Palo Alto Networks use cases like container and cloud firewalls.
The company offers various physical and virtual NGFWs with AIOps, SD-WAN, and container security support. This includes a range of hyperscale firewalls that deliver high performance with a low footprint, enabling you to secure multiple edge devices simultaneously. This is a critical component of today's security architecture, which needs to be able to coordinate across the entire attack surface to defend against contemporary threats at endpoint, network, and cloud.
Scalability
Fortinet has diverse security products, including NGFW, SD-WAN and virtual firewalls. Their products are well suited to small and large businesses with their network edge offering, including secure ethernet switching, secure SD-WAN and FortiAIOps that deliver dynamic visibility and enable automation, threat detection, and response. They have a variety of NGFW appliances for different deployment use cases, with hardware and virtual options that include ID-based segmentation using Panorama and Prisma Cloud. In addition, they offer a wide range of WAN solutions, including FWaaS, for identity-based application control and security operations management. Their products can also protect containers, Kubernetes workloads, and others without slowing development. Fortinet's NGFWs are among the best performing on the market, as they routinely top NSS Labs' performance tests. The company's proprietary ASIC chips and FortiOS operating system help deliver industry-leading price-performance and security and networking convergence for a cohesive security architecture. The company's security fabric integration combines actionable intelligence from across the attack surface and automates the orchestration of security services with automation-driven network management and centralized monitoring.
Cloud-Based Management
Fortinet NGFW offers centralized management and automation through their FortiGate Cloud. The security platform also supports zero-touch deployment and provides enterprise-grade analytics to help IT teams better reduce cyber risk. In addition to these security services, Fortinet offers multiple support options through its FortiCare service. These include Return Merchandise Authorization, 24x7 toll-free call centers in every geographical region and online web chat for instant answers. Fortinet offers a variety of virtual and physical NGFWs with multiple features to suit your business needs. These features include full visibility and protection, AI/ML-powered FortiGuard services, automated threat detection, natively integrated proxy, hyper-scale security, and Security Fabric integration. The company continues to grow steadily and has been named a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for 2021 network firewalls and WAN edge infrastructure. In addition to these awards, the company has earned several accolades for its cybersecurity training program and has received a Frost & Sullivan Product Leadership award for healthcare. The company is also known for its strong security ecosystem and a long history of innovation.