PANW vs OKTA Stock Comparison: AI Score, Valuation, Performance and Upside
PANW and OKTA sit on opposite sides of the security consolidation trend. Palo Alto is the consolidator, offering breadth across network, cloud, and operations, and actively encouraging customers to retire point products in its favour. Okta is a focused specialist in identity, a category deep enough to defend independently but one where Palo Alto and especially Microsoft are also present. Breadth against depth.
Use this PANW vs OKTA comparison to take a view on whether security buyers keep consolidating. If they do, platform vendors capture a growing share of budget and specialists must be genuinely best-in-class to survive as separate purchases. Identity is one of the categories most likely to withstand that, but the pressure is real.
OKTA holds the edge across 4 of 5 key metrics in this comparison. OKTA leads on both 1-year return (+117.19%) and forward P/E quality (37.97x vs 90.43x for PANW), a relatively favorable combination of momentum and valuation. On fundamentals, PANW is growing revenue faster (31.10%), while OKTA maintains the higher operating margin (13.29%) — a classic growth-versus-profitability split. Analyst consensus implies meaningfully more upside for OKTA (+8.53%) than for PANW (-2.04%).
Human Wall Street analysts' price targets, typically implying a ~12-month view — a separate signal from this site's own AI Prediction Signal further down the page, which is a 5-/30-day machine-learning forecast based on price history alone.
- Want broad exposure across network, cloud, and security operations
- Believe vendor consolidation will keep shifting budget toward platforms
- Value large enterprise relationships and strong free cash flow
- Accept discounting and integration complexity as the cost of that strategy
- Want focused exposure to identity as a foundational security layer
- Value strong free cash flow and vendor-neutral positioning
- Believe identity is deep enough to resist platform bundling
- Accept slower growth and competition from Microsoft
| Metric | PANW | OKTA |
|---|---|---|
| AI scorei | 66.9 | 55.5 |
| AI ranki | #60 | #227 |
| Latest closei | $374.74 | $195.19 |
| 1M returni | +10.44% | +45.21% |
| 6M returni | +154.89% | +166.54% |
| 1Y returni | +86.72% | +117.19% |
How much would $10,000 be worth today if invested at the start of each period, with all dividends reinvested?
| Period | PANW | OKTA |
|---|---|---|
| 1Y ago | $18.53K (+85.3%) started 2025-09-25 | $21.4K (+114.0%) started 2025-09-25 |
| 5Y ago | $46.26K (+362.6%) started 2021-09-27 | $8.08K (-19.2%) started 2021-09-27 |
| 10Y ago | $150.06K (+1400.6%) started 2016-09-26 | $83.02K (+730.2%) started 2017-04-07 |
Hypothetical — past performance does not guarantee future results.
| Metric | PANW | OKTA |
|---|---|---|
| Market capi | $302.85B | $29.06B |
| Trailing P/Ei | 323.12 | 100.14 |
| Forward P/Ei | 90.43 | 37.97 |
| Price/Salesi | 15.00 | 8.60 |
| EV/Revenuei | 28.46 | 8.73 |
| Analyst targeti | $364.01 | $180.41 |
| Target upsidei | -2.04% | +8.53% |
| Metric | PANW | OKTA |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue growthi | 31.10% | 10.60% |
| Earnings growthi | 60.50% | 75.70% |
| EPS growthi | +60.50% | +75.70% |
| FCF margini | +33.75% | +33.77% |
| Operating margini | -2.46% | 13.29% |
| Profit margini | 7.95% | 9.63% |
| ROIC proxyi | 4.83% | 4.31% |
| Return on equityi | 4.83% | 4.31% |
| Dividend yieldi | N/A | N/A |
| Payout ratioi | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Dividend growth streaki | N/A | N/A |
| Betai | 0.89 | 0.76 |
| Debt/equityi | 7.70 | 0.76 |
| Current ratioi | 0.86 | 1.52 |
| Quick ratioi | 0.73 | 1.38 |
Over the past year, PANW and OKTA have moved moderately in the same direction (correlation of 0.70), based on daily returns.
Lower drawdown and smaller single-period drops generally indicate a smoother ride, though they do not guarantee lower future risk.
| Period | Metric | PANW | OKTA |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1Y | Growthi | +85.32% | +114.05% |
| CAGRi | +85.49% | +114.28% | |
| Volatilityi | 47.45% | 66.06% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 1.45 | 1.40 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 2.32 | 2.69 | |
| Max drawdowni | 36.01% | 33.70% | |
| Current drawdowni | 5.37% | 5.54% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 12.26% | 10.05% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 15.76% | 12.43% | |
| Max daily dropi | 9.28% | 10.89% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 13.66% | 21.52% | |
| 5Y | Growthi | +362.60% | -19.16% |
| CAGRi | +35.89% | -4.17% | |
| Volatilityi | 43.02% | 59.87% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.83 | 0.15 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 1.21 | 0.22 | |
| Max drawdowni | 36.01% | 83.22% | |
| Current drawdowni | 5.37% | 27.24% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 11.35% | 61.63% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 14.41% | 63.91% | |
| Max daily dropi | 28.44% | 33.70% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 28.86% | 38.52% | |
| 10Y | Growthi | +1400.56% | +730.24% |
| CAGRi | +31.12% | +25.05% | |
| Volatilityi | 39.54% | 54.79% | |
| Sharpe ratioi | 0.77 | 0.60 | |
| Sortino ratioi | 1.11 | 0.89 | |
| Max drawdowni | 47.98% | 84.57% | |
| Current drawdowni | 5.37% | 33.10% | |
| Avg drawdowni | 11.38% | 38.57% | |
| Ulcer Indexi | 14.56% | 49.06% | |
| Max daily dropi | 28.44% | 33.70% | |
| Max wkly dropi | 28.86% | 38.52% |
| Category | PANW | OKTA |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Palo Alto Networks, Inc. | Okta, Inc. |
| Sector | Technology | Technology |
| Industry | Software - Infrastructure | Software - Infrastructure |
| Core business | Broad cybersecurity platform spanning network security including firewalls and secure access, cloud security, and security operations. Pursues a consolidation strategy encouraging customers to replace multiple point products with its integrated platforms. | Identity and access management provider spanning workforce identity, with single sign-on and multi-factor authentication, and customer identity via Auth0 for developers. |
| Investor focus | Next-generation security annual recurring revenue, platform consolidation deal progress, remaining performance obligations, and margin and free cash flow trends. | Recurring revenue growth, net retention, free cash flow margin, large customer wins, and security credibility after past incidents. |
- Breadth across network, cloud, and security operations lets it absorb budget from point vendors
- Large enterprise relationships and strong free cash flow generation
- Consolidation strategy aligns with buyers wanting fewer vendors to manage
- Identity is foundational and highly embedded once deployed across an application estate
- Strong free cash flow and improved profitability
- Vendor-neutral positioning suits customers avoiding dependence on a single cloud
- Consolidation deals often involve bundling discounts that pressure near-term revenue recognition
- Firewall hardware exposure introduces refresh cycle variability
- Integrating many acquired products into coherent platforms is an ongoing execution challenge
- Competes against Microsoft identity bundled into existing enterprise agreements
- Past breaches damaged credibility in a trust-dependent category
- Growth has decelerated meaningfully from earlier years
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