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."
"The most valuable feature is stability."
"The most valuable features of the OpenVPN Access Server are the ease of use and integration with different platforms, such as Android and Windows. I can use the solution on my desktop and mobile devices. Additionally, the solution is secure."
"It is open-source and free to use."
"OpenVPN Access Server is a simple and easy-to-use solution that I can use myself without anybody's help."
"The features I have found to be most valuable are the levels of encryption I can enact and the compression I can apply to improve throughput."
"It is very easy to look at the quality of the connection and the bandwidth and do an investigation if there are problems on the network."
"The initial setup phase of OpenVPN Access Server was fine, and it was easy."
"OpenVPN Access Server is cheap, and we get to use it ourselves. It is also a stable solution."
"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."
"Prisma integrates well with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake. My company has been also using Prisma Access in-house for nearly a year, and it integrates seamlessly."
"Security is absolutely spot-on, really top-notch. It's the result of all the components that come together, such as the HIP [Host Information Profile] and components like Forcepoint, providing end-user content inspection, and antivirus. It incorporates DLP features and that's fantastic because Prisma Access makes sure that all of the essential prerequisites are in place before a user can log in or can be tunneled into."
"Prisma helped us build a moat around our production systems. It's now impossible to log into our production from a non-MDM laptop. Prisma Access provides decent security overall."
"Panorama provides centralized management capabilities for all our firewalls and locations so that we can manage different data centers through a single device, a very valuable feature. We don't have to log into various devices to oversee them individually."
"The scalability of the solution is excellent."
"The stacked policies, event policies, and routing policies are easy to understand for someone with general knowledge."
"It protects all app traffic so that users can gain access to all apps. Unlike other solutions that only work from ports 80 and 443, which are predominantly for web traffic, Prisma Access covers all protocols and works on all traffic patterns... The most sophisticated attacks can arise from sources that are not behind 80/443."
"There must be a more easy-to-use GUI."
"If there was a Graphical User Interface to help streamline the configuration, I believe OpenVPN would probably venture more into the non-geek realm as it were."
"You do need expertise in implementation if you do the initial setup yourself."
"They should make the solution more secure by adding some firewall functionalities."
"I'd like to have more control over the users when they are accessing the network."
"The stability had room for improvement."
"It could include a configuration wizard so that users who do not follow instructions well can configure a connection."
"It is not scalable."
"The high availability deployment is not very straightforward. They can make it simpler. OpenVPN does not support some of the additional protocols that Pulse Secure and Cisco AnyConnect support. They can include support for these additional protocols."
"There can be some latency issues with the solution that should be improved."
"Its security is good. Everything is good, but the way the dashboard responds can be improved. It takes time to implement a policy. If you change only two or three lines and push the policy to make the change work, it takes 20 to 30 minutes even for a small change. That is something very irritating from the implementation perspective."
"The product's current price is an area of shortcoming where improvements are required."
"My clients would like to see a more feature-rich product."
"Palo Alto needs to improve the GlobalProtect agent to work as a secure web gateway agent, not only as a VPN agent because some companies would want only a secure gateway. They wouldn't want a full VPN. So, Palo Alto has to make the VPN agent work as a secure web gateway agent for those customers who want only the secure web gateway solution."
"The licensing model isn't flexible enough. It's an all-or-nothing model. Other providers in the market allow you to buy modules or add-ons separately. With Prisma Access, you have to purchase the same module for all users."
"When we deploy firewall rules via Panorama, we find it's a little bit slow. We have a global environment and might have 100 gateways or VPNs in the cloud. When we deploy something, it tries to deploy it one-by-one, and that can be slow."
"I haven't seen any SD-WAN configuration capability. If Prisma Access would support SD-WAN, that would help... SD-WAN devices should be able to reach Prisma Access, and Palo Alto should support different, vendor-specific devices, not just Palo Alto devices, for SD-WAN configuration."
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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 Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Netskope , 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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