We performed a comparison between OpenVPN Access Server and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Enterprise Infrastructure VPN solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."It's an ideal gateway solution for small and medium businesses, i.e., around 300 devices can be easily handled."
"The solution has good performance."
"OpenVPN Access Server is cheap, and we get to use it ourselves. It is also a stable solution."
"I have set the default routes to the VPN server so that all traffic is encrypted."
"There is support for multi-factor authentication."
"The most valuable thing about OpenVPN Access Server is its ease of use."
"The solution is user-friendly and easy to implement."
"It can scale well."
"It is much easier to scale and troubleshoot compared to regular Windows-based VPN solutions or PPTP daemon."
"I like that it's free."
"The scalability of the solution is excellent."
"The solution has all its capabilities in a single cloud delivery platform which is great and it provides overall good protection."
"The Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) offered by Palo Alto is a good reporting tool. It gives insights into how things are going within the network. It takes all the data from the users' endpoints and does an analysis, and it suggests changes as well."
"It has predefined or preconfigured rules, which are getting periodically updated. They are providing continuous improvements and periodically updating all search queries that they are looking for. That is one thing that helps us to stay vigilant and focused. If we query our AWS account for any breaches or vulnerabilities with any of the cloud tests, and it alerts us based on these predefined rules. It also provides an option to configure our own rules, and based on these rules, it can query the cloud trail logs, pull the information, and trigger alerts in real-time. I haven't explored this feature much because there are multiple accounts, and we don't have enough time to explore this feature. It also provides multiple integrations. When vulnerabilities or breaches are happening, you should be aware of them immediately. It provides integration with tools such as Slack, PagerDuty so that you can get alerted as soon as the high severity stuff comes up. For example, you have a security group that has allowed public traffic on port 22. As TechOps, you should be aware of this immediately. You cannot scan each machine or look into all security groups to identify it. So, Prisma helps us and alerts us when this kind of high-priority stuff comes up. It has different statistics, analytics, and graphs for data. The description of alerts is also pretty good. They describe what are the possible causes for this and what are the solutions. From Prisma Cloud, you can directly go to the AWS account. When you click on an alert, a resource, or a resource ID, it takes you to the AWS console where you need to log in. If you are already logged in, it will take you to that instance directly, and you can fix the issue there. I have found this feature very useful."
"The solution's most valuable features were the model's reduced complexity on the client side and its capability to provide security."
"The tool's consolidation is pretty quick."
"Monitoring is the most valuable feature because we can easily monitor all kinds of stuff coming over the network. We can check the dashboard and work accordingly."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to join your network and provide access through the VPN."
"There must be a more easy-to-use GUI."
"The security needs to be improved because it was a complaint that our customers had."
"The product’s connectivity is very slow. It could be faster."
"The server configuration file needs to be improved, it's the biggest problem in the configuration process."
"It would be nice with all these features, if they could send some examples of each one; just small sample scripts to look at and say, "Oh okay, I could expand on this." That would help us a lot."
"It could be faster. It could also be more stable."
"This solution should improve the connection speed and the user interface. The stability of this solution should be improved as well."
"The stability of the solution could improve."
"I want the tool to be faster. We have experienced connectivity issues while using OpenVPN and FortiClient."
"There is room for improvement in the multi-environment visibility, especially around containers."
"It wasn't so satisfying to work with it. There is room for improvement in the policy management. It is difficult to cover the entire scenery through Palo Alto products."
"My clients would like to see a more feature-rich product."
"It is a managed firewall. When you run into issues and have to troubleshoot, there is a fair amount of restriction. You run into a couple of restrictions where you don't have any visibility on what is happening on the Palo Alto managed infrastructure, and you need to get on a call to get technical assistance from Palo Alto's technical support. You have to get them to work with you to fix the problem. I would definitely like them to work on the visibility into what happens inside Palo Alto's infrastructure. It is not about getting our hands onto their infrastructure to do troubleshooting or fixing problems; it is just about getting more visibility. This will help us in guiding technical support folks to the area where they need to work."
"Sometimes, we encountered a portal crash. When we told Palo Alto they said it might be the browser or cache, but I think they need to improve it on their side."
"There should be a dedicated portal or SASE-based solution. They're trying to add a plugin but it needs a dedicated portal because it is now an enterprise solution for multiple organizations. People should be able to directly log in to a dedicated page for Prisma Access, rather than going into a Panorama plugin, and always having to update the plugin."
"The one thing that I've been a little bit disappointed with is when we have had to open cases with Palo Alto about Prisma Access issues. Versus their other platforms, like their firewalls, where we tend to get really quick responses and very definitive answers, the few tickets I've had to open for Prisma Access have taken them longer to respond to. And they haven't necessarily given me the kind of answer I was looking for, meaning a fix to the problem."
"The documentation is generally good, but they could provide a more detailed description of all the configuration steps. I have to search for information or call support. Palo Alto could add more knowledge base articles about configuration with screenshots and walkthroughs. That would be helpful. When configuring a product, you want to see examples of how it is done."
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OpenVPN Access Server is ranked 1st in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN with 45 reviews while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 5th in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN with 59 reviews. OpenVPN Access Server is rated 8.4, while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of OpenVPN Access Server writes "An easy-to-use tool with which its users can access networks from home or external locations". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks writes "Integration with Palo Alto platforms such as Cortex Data Lake and Autofocus gives us visibility into our attack surface". OpenVPN Access Server is most compared with Fortinet FortiClient, Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client, Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, Check Point Remote Access VPN and Sangfor EasyConnect, whereas Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Netskope , Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Internet Access and Prisma SD-WAN. See our OpenVPN Access Server vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks report.
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