We compared Prisma SD-WAN and Prisma Access across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Prisma SD-WAN provides deep application visibility, centralized control, and the option to utilize local breakouts for internet connections. Prisma Access stands out for its ease of use, advanced security features, and global performance.
Room for Improvement: Prisma SD-WAN has room for improvement in various areas such as routing behavior, alerts and monitoring, and event analysis. Prisma Access could benefit from enhancements in error handling, latency, and integration with other cloud architectures.
Ease of Deployment: Some users experienced issues with existing traffic paths while setting up Prisma SD-WAN, which required several hours or more to resolve. Similarly, the setup process for Prisma Access varied in complexity and duration based on the size and requirements of the organization. While some users found it straightforward, others mentioned the need for expertise and assistance.
Service and Support: The feedback about Prisma SD-WAN's customer service varies. Some customers appreciated the support team's expertise, while others have noticed a decrease in the quality. Prisma Access's customer service has received mixed reviews. Some customers expressed a desire for better technical support, while others have had positive experiences with prompt responses and knowledgeable engineers.
Pricing: Prisma SD-WAN is less expensive than some solutions like Cisco, but Zscaler is even cheaper. Prisma Access is a more expensive solution, but users say the price is justified by its quality and features.
ROI: Prisma SD-WAN reduces costs and downtime while helping customers meet audit requirements. Prisma Access excels in identifying security concerns, seamlessly integrating with various products, and delivering instant value.
Comparison Results: Prisma SD-WAN offers useful features like in-depth application visibility, centralized control, and flexibility in WAN management. It has room for improvement in terms of routing behavior, documentation, and device reliability. Prisma Access is praised for its strong security features and ease of administration. It faces challenges with its user interface, configuration, and geographic coverage. Prisma SD-WAN is considered more affordable than other solutions, while Prisma Access is seen as higher-priced but justifiable for its quality.
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The solution is stable."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"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."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"The tool's consolidation is pretty quick."
"It supports auto-scaling for mobile users. It auto-scales depending on the mobile user traffic. For example, if 1,000 people are working from home today, and tomorrow, the number increases to 2,000, it is not going to be an issue."
"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."
"I like it because it's very easy to use. You install the client and you have to know your gateway, but that's something we give to our users. Beyond that, it takes about three seconds to train them on how to use it. And it just works well. That's great for us because it means less administrative time."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is a seamless solution."
"The features I find most valuable is WildFire, user integration, and the basic technology features."
"From the main controller, we can administer the customer's devices, QoS, network, and traffic. We can monitor it and we can change and create policies as well as upgrade the software. We can totally control a customer's network from one site, the Prisma SD-WAN portal."
"Prisma SD-WAN is intuitive. We have a better idea of the different tools we can use and jump between the menus quickly."
"Prisma's analytics provide a lot of valuable data. I like the internet health chart that shows latency, dropped packets, MOS for data quality, etc. It also runs a continuous speed test in the background. I've used it multiple times to troubleshoot internet connections when the service provider has attempted to claim nothing is wrong with the circuit. It gives me data to send them showing we're not getting the speed we should, or there is constant packet loss."
"If the MPLS goes down, there is a really smooth transition for a branch site to take traffic over the Internet. It will advertise the routes of that site in a jiffy."
"Prisma supports all of the applications we're currently using."
"The security offered by the solution is pretty good."
"The gateway is available on the cloud which allows you access from anywhere and still connects to your home gateway."
"It is flexible to use the internet connection via local breakouts without going to data centers."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"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 is some particular traffic that the security team wants to filter out and apply their own policies and they cannot."
"The cloud setup is straightforward, and the onboarding process is much better, but the on-premises initial setup is slightly complex."
"They can add some new characteristics. For example, when an incident triggers, they can automatically send a template for a particular match that is related to the policy. We don't have that right now. It is something to improve. There could be more automation for certain actions. For example, for a particular group, it can send an administrator alert to their manager. It was one of the concerns of our customers."
"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."
"My clients would like to see a more feature-rich product."
"The solution’s stability could 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."
"Prisma SD-WAN's technical support should be improved."
"Prisma SD-WAN should provide more flexibility and scalability on the hardware."
"The tool needs to work on price and complexity."
"The only con is the pricing because it's more premium."
"We are incorporating their zone-based firewalls. Prisma SD-WAN has limited documentation on how it manipulates traffic, e.g., how it is interacting with TCP and UDP. We recently had some traffic that was black holing. We literally had to do packet captures to see that the new zone-based firewall, which runs on top of Prisma SD-WAN, was causing issues."
"I'd like to see them move more towards CASB."
"Customer support is our biggest pain point. The quality of support has gone down a little since we initially deployed this product. I don't know if this is due to turnover at Palo Alto or a lack of training. It is now taking one or two days to get an initial response that says, "Hey, we've looked into this, can you pull this data for us?" In the past, we'd immediately get a response."
"Event correlation and analysis capabilities do not help minimize the number of alarms from a single event. That is the problem. We are getting a lot of incidents, and there is some issue with the correlation. That is still a drawback."
More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 58 reviews while Prisma SD-WAN is ranked 10th in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 12 reviews. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2, while Prisma SD-WAN is rated 8.6. 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". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma SD-WAN writes "A stable tool that offers a good uptime and ensures a return on investment". Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Netskope , Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Internet Access and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, whereas Prisma SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform and VMware SD-WAN. See our Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs. Prisma SD-WAN report.
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