Compare products

Put two or three cybersecurity products side by side and see how they differ on deployment, pricing, features, integrations and compliance.

Palo Alto VM-SeriespfSense Plus2 of 3 products

Side-by-side comparison of Palo Alto VM-Series, pfSense Plus
Product	Palo Alto VM-Series by Palo Alto Networks View product	pfSense Plus by Netgate View product
Overview
What it is	Palo Alto VM-Series is a virtual next-generation firewall for cloud migration protection and public cloud perimeter defense. See features and Firewall alternatives.	See what pfSense Plus offers: commercial firewall and automated cloud backup. It is built for SD-WAN, supports cloud deployment and competes with other Firewall tools.
Product type	Virtual Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW)	Commercial Firewall & Secure Gateway
Best for	Cross-industry, Financial Services, Technology, Healthcare, Government, Telecom	SMBs, Mid-Market, Branch Sites, Distributed Enterprise, Retail
Pricing
Pricing model	Contact Vendor	Contact Vendor
Free trial	Free trial: yes	Free trial: yes
Deployment
Deployment options	Cloud	CloudOn-Premise
Deployment details	Virtual appliance; Public cloud; Private cloud; Virtual appliance deployable across public clouds and private hypervisors	Software; Virtual Machine; Cloud; Netgate hardware; AWS; Azure; Virtual
Data residency	Deployed directly inside customer cloud VPC/VNet or private data center	On-premises; AWS Regions; Azure Regions
Key features
What it offers	Virtualized PAN-OS architecture App-ID application inspection Automated cloud autoscaling Hypervisor native integration Microsegmentation between VMs Infrastructure-as-code deployment (Terraform) WildFire integration Public cloud perimeter defense	Commercial firewall Automated cloud backup Multi-gigabit routing Zero-touch provisioning VPN Firewall / NGFW Network Security SD-WAN
Platform & access
API access	API access: yes	API access: yes
Single sign-on (SSO)	SSO: yes	SSO: yes
Role-based access (RBAC)	RBAC: yes	RBAC: yes
Multi-tenant	Multi-tenant: yes	Multi-tenant: yes
Mobile app	Mobile app: no	Mobile app: no
Supported platforms	VMware ESXiMicrosoft Hyper-VKVMAWSAzureGCPOCI	Netgate AppliancesVMware ESXiAWSAzureHyper-V
Compliance	FIPS 140-2, Common Criteria, SOC 2, ISO 27001	SOC 2ISO 27001PCI-DSSHIPAA
Integrations & coverage
Integrations	AWSMicrosoft AzureGoogle CloudVMware ESXi/NSXNutanixTerraformPanorama	Netgate cloudActive DirectoryRADIUS
Industries	Cross-industryFinancial ServicesTechnologyHealthcareGovernmentTelecom	SMBsMid-MarketBranch SitesDistributed EnterpriseRetail
Regions	Global	Global
Vendor
Company	Palo Alto Networks	Netgate
Headquarters	Santa Clara, California, USA	Austin, Texas, USA
Company size	15,000+	201-500
Founded	2005	2000

Palo Alto VM-Series

by Palo Alto Networks

View product

pfSense Plus

by Netgate

View product

Overview

What it is

Palo Alto VM-Series

Palo Alto VM-Series is a virtual next-generation firewall for cloud migration protection and public cloud perimeter defense. See features and Firewall alternatives.

pfSense Plus

See what pfSense Plus offers: commercial firewall and automated cloud backup. It is built for SD-WAN, supports cloud deployment and competes with other Firewall tools.

Product type

Palo Alto VM-Series

Virtual Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW)

pfSense Plus

Commercial Firewall & Secure Gateway

Best for

Palo Alto VM-Series

Cross-industry, Financial Services, Technology, Healthcare, Government, Telecom

pfSense Plus

SMBs, Mid-Market, Branch Sites, Distributed Enterprise, Retail

Pricing

Pricing model

Palo Alto VM-Series

Contact Vendor

pfSense Plus

Contact Vendor

Free trial

Palo Alto VM-Series

pfSense Plus

Deployment

Deployment options

Palo Alto VM-Series

Cloud

pfSense Plus

CloudOn-Premise

Deployment details

Palo Alto VM-Series

Virtual appliance; Public cloud; Private cloud; Virtual appliance deployable across public clouds and private hypervisors

pfSense Plus

Software; Virtual Machine; Cloud; Netgate hardware; AWS; Azure; Virtual

Data residency

Palo Alto VM-Series

Deployed directly inside customer cloud VPC/VNet or private data center

pfSense Plus

On-premises; AWS Regions; Azure Regions

Key features

What it offers

Palo Alto VM-Series

Virtualized PAN-OS architecture
App-ID application inspection
Automated cloud autoscaling
Hypervisor native integration
Microsegmentation between VMs
Infrastructure-as-code deployment (Terraform)
WildFire integration
Public cloud perimeter defense

pfSense Plus

Commercial firewall
Automated cloud backup
Multi-gigabit routing
Zero-touch provisioning
VPN
Firewall / NGFW
Network Security
SD-WAN

Platform & access

API access

Palo Alto VM-Series

pfSense Plus

Single sign-on (SSO)

Palo Alto VM-Series

pfSense Plus

Role-based access (RBAC)

Palo Alto VM-Series

pfSense Plus

Multi-tenant

Palo Alto VM-Series

pfSense Plus

Mobile app

Palo Alto VM-Series

pfSense Plus

Supported platforms

Palo Alto VM-Series

VMware ESXiMicrosoft Hyper-VKVMAWSAzureGCPOCI

pfSense Plus

Netgate AppliancesVMware ESXiAWSAzureHyper-V

Compliance

Palo Alto VM-Series

FIPS 140-2, Common Criteria, SOC 2, ISO 27001

pfSense Plus

SOC 2ISO 27001PCI-DSSHIPAA

Integrations & coverage

Integrations

Palo Alto VM-Series

AWSMicrosoft AzureGoogle CloudVMware ESXi/NSXNutanixTerraformPanorama

pfSense Plus

Netgate cloudActive DirectoryRADIUS

Industries

Palo Alto VM-Series

Cross-industryFinancial ServicesTechnologyHealthcareGovernmentTelecom

pfSense Plus

SMBsMid-MarketBranch SitesDistributed EnterpriseRetail

Regions

Palo Alto VM-Series

Global

pfSense Plus

Global

Vendor

Company

Palo Alto VM-Series

Palo Alto Networks

pfSense Plus

Netgate

Headquarters

Palo Alto VM-Series

Santa Clara, California, USA

pfSense Plus

Austin, Texas, USA

Company size

Palo Alto VM-Series

15,000+

pfSense Plus

201-500

Founded

Palo Alto VM-Series

2005

pfSense Plus

2000