Size and select the right firewall

Enter the site requirements once. The tool sizes on threat-protection throughput across Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Cisco and Sophos, picks the smallest model that fits with headroom, maps the licence SKUs you actually need, and draws the connectivity and zone design. Export the result to Word, PowerPoint or Excel.

4vendors

102models

63licence SKUs

Before you quote: performance figures in this tool are indicative and held for relative sizing between models. Vendors publish different numbers per test profile and revise them between OS releases — confirm the final model against the current vendor datasheet. Catalogue last reviewed 2026-09.

1. Project

Project name Customer Site Prepared by

2. Deployment

Where does this firewall sit? High availability Form factor preference

3. Scale

Protected users Staff and devices behind this firewall. User traffic profile Internet circuit (Mbps) Committed bandwidth of the primary link. Internal traffic to inspect (Gbps) East-west traffic crossing the firewall. Leave 0 for a pure edge deployment. TLS decryption 40% Share of traffic to decrypt and inspect. The biggest single performance cost. Site-to-site VPN tunnels Branches or partners terminating on this firewall. Remote-access VPN users Concurrent home or travelling users. Growth allowance 30% Expected growth over the contract term. Design headroom 30% Spare capacity so the appliance never runs at its ceiling.

5. Vendors to compare

Palo Alto Networks PAN-OS · 25 models Fortinet FortiOS · 20 models Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense (FTD) / Meraki MX · 24 models Sophos Sophos Firewall OS (SFOS) · 18 models Forcepoint Forcepoint NGFW (formerly Stonesoft) · 15 models

6. Notes Anything else the design should record

Guests see the results too. Saving and exporting need a free account.

Firewall Selector by NiyyasoftHelp