Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Reviews

We are using it for network layer protection. And we have added all the Layer 7 protection there is, such as sinkhole protection and spyware and adware detection.

When you have the advanced URL protection enabled on a Palo Alto NG Firewall, the load on the application layer is reduced. The web application firewall features are already enabled in Palo Alto and those features give you an extra layer of protection, even if you have another technology above the Palo Alto firewall. That extra layer of protection is an opportunity that we have with Palo Alto.

The most important thing is that it's really user-friendly. I have almost stopped using the CLI because I like the graphical interface. You can do whatever you want on a single screen, including all the configuration and implementation, using Panorama. You don't have to switch from one place to another. And the best part is that you can manage multiple Palo Alto devices. We do have other companies' devices and for them we need to go to the CLI. But with Panorama, you almost get everything you need. It is very important for managing all the technology and features on the device, and for adding multiple devices, on one page.

Palo Alto also gives you a lot more options to troubleshoot and fix problems. That really helps our operations team.

Another valuable feature is the sinkhole option. If a malicious packet travels across the firewall, the firewall detects it as malicious traffic but it doesn't stop the traffic then and there. That way the attacker assumes that they have been successful but they have not. It's a type of honeytrap. It allows us to keep on responding to those packets.

Also, when the firewall does network discovery it can detect a malfunction or bugs or a configuration issue. That is very important. If your endpoint system is not functioning properly, it gives you an extra layer of protection in the network discovery field. It shows you all the options and all the data if your system is not compliant.

The Single Pass architecture is a nine out 10. A single pass is always good.

Palo Alto keeps coming out with antivirus and malware updates. When we have to integrate those updates we face some problems with the cloud platform, not the on-prem setup. The device works fine, but sometimes the sync doesn't happen on time.

It's not an issue that happens all the time, just sometimes. It's not a major issue. The device doesn't go down. It is not a priority-ticket situation.

Also, while Palo Alto is doing really well, they should bring out some small devices. As of now, we have the PA-800 Series firewall and the 440 Series firewall. A small Palo Alto firewall would be helpful for low-budget companies.

For the last six to seven months I've been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for architectural purposes. My job is to build infrastructure for our clients to support their functions. I also used Palo Alto for other clients in my previous organization for almost two years.

Scalability is something that I assume is feasible when you have Palo Alto in the cloud. In that case it's feasible to scale it very well, and you don't have to manage it. You just need to order it and it can be scaled per your request.

But with an on-prem setup it can be difficult if you want to scale anything. Then you need to order the physical device and do all kinds of configuration. I haven't really worked on scaling physical devices.

Support is really nice, but they keep on adding features, so regular training is really required for Palo Alto technical support. Every other day, every week, every month, they come up with something new. Sometimes, even technical support doesn't know about an update when it is still in the transition phase. They should have short-term training to be aware of when they are launching a particular new feature.

With more and better training, they will end up saving a lot of time, because they won't have to search for information or ask their colleagues or their engineering team about new features that have been added. That way, customers will be happy.

Positive

The initial deployment is absolutely straightforward. It's a very easy configuration. You just need to follow the instructions.

And the best part is that you get a lot of training material over the internet. I used to think that Cisco gave the best training materials over the internet but I was wrong. If you have any problem, you can Google it. There will be a lot of answers for Palo Alto NG Firewalls on the internet itself.

If everything goes well and if you don't have a major configuration to implement, you just want to set it up, the maximum it would take is one to two hours, because the image deployment is very easy. Once the device is racked up properly and all the cables are connected, you just need to boot up with the latest image and start the to-the-box and through-the-box configurations. Both configurations can be done within two to three hours.

The pricing is fair enough. 

This year, the pricing has increased. They played it really smart by increasing the support license costs and decreasing the platform costs. If you don't want to go for that particular license, you can opt out. The pricing model is very helpful, especially for small companies. If they don't want URL Filtering because they don't have any URL options, they can opt out of the URL Filtering.

I haven't seen Panorama go down in my entire tenure. I've worked with different companies. For example, I worked in Cisco TAC. Cisco users used to say that Firepower, the unified platform, was down and that they could not manage anything. Even though all the other components were running, they could not do any configuration because the unified configuration page itself was down. And, unfortunately, you don't have the ability to configure anything using the Cisco CLI anymore.

But I would give a slight edge to Cicso's technical support over Palo Alto's. I would rate Cisco's support at nine out of 10, and Palo Alto's at eight. Cisco gives priority to its customers.

Before you go ahead and invest in Palo Alto, look at as many reviews as you can. Do proper research before you deploy any firewall.

If someone says they are just looking for the cheapest and the fastest firewall, I would tell them to go for the PA-800 Series and their problem will be solved. Also, for small office requirements, you could go with the PA-440. The PA-450 and 460 will be a little expensive. If your requirements are to set something up for less than 100 users, the 440 will do it.

Our company, in particular, always wants an extra layer of protection. They don't remove any extra layers of security. But an advantage of Palo Alto NG Firewalls is they are sufficient to tackle complications

Palo Alto's firewall is stable, helpful, and user-friendly.

The solution is more towards the front of the security stack.

We use both AWS and Alibaba Cloud.

The single pass architecture has helped a lot in the implementation and maintenance of Palo Alto Networks. It changed the customer's opinion on UTM platforms. In the past, when customers used UTM platforms, they feared the security features would impact the performance and slow down the network, causing some instability. However, with the single pass architecture, Palo Alto has demonstrated that you can use a lot of the security features without having an impact on the security and network performance. Therefore, most of our customers will dare to use most of Palo Alto Networks' security features.

• Application identification
• Antivirus
• Vulnerability protection
• URL filtering
• SSL VPN
• IPsec VPN

Palo Alto NGFW provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. Most of our customers are busy. They cannot afford the time to learn very complicated user interfaces and configuration procedures. With Palo Alto Networks, they offered a unified user interface for all its NG Firewall products and Panorama. I think it reduces some of our customers' maintenance time. 

Palo Alto NGFW’s unified platform has helped our customers eliminate security holes. With a unified platform, customers can deploy the NG Firewall both in the data center edge, inside the data center, and in the product/public cloud environments. They have the same user interfaces and platform, so they can be maintained by a single unified platform called Panorama. Customers can use Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls in all the places where they need to protect their environments. This helps to decrease security holes.

Over the past one or two years, Palo Alto Networks has added a lot of features into the NG Firewall products. I think this is becoming more complicated for our customers. Therefore, we could use some best practices, best practice tools, and implementation guides for some of the complicated features.

I have been using it for eight years, though my company does not use it.

Compared to its competitors, the stability of NG Firewalls is very good. We have faced some strange problems with the hardware platform or operating system. Most of these customer cases come from complicated configs and bugs. However, stability is very good overall.

Scalability is not that good. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls product is for middle-sized and small businesses. It has fixed parts and capacities for processing. Some of their higher-end products have the scalability to expand capacities, but only a few customers can afford their larger product.

I would rate it as eight to nine out of 10. Most of the technical engineers, who provide support for our customers, are efficient. There are one or two Tier 1 tech support engineers who often don't have answers.

Palo Alto NGFW’s unified platform has helped to eliminate multiple network security tools and the effort needed to get them to work together with each other. Before using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, customers might need to implement Layer 4 firewalls, IPS and possibly an antivirus, gateways, and maybe web proxies for all their devices. With Palo Alto NGFW’s unified platform, if a customer can do all the config and security policies on one platform, then this will merge all their security things onto a single platform.

The initial setup is not complex; it is straightforward. Our users only need a cable and some basic steps to configure the management interface. Then, it can set up the NG Firewall and ensure that the network and routing are working as expected in the environment. I think its steps are easier than most of its competitors. The initial setup takes one or two hours.

The full setup time depends on the features, then whether the environment or customer needs are complicated or not.

For our implementation strategy, we talk to our customers and work out documents for all their configs, which includes basic information that we need to know for implementing the firewall. Then, we follow the documents and do the implementation. We also may modify some content of the documents as the project processes.

It needs one or two employees with enough skills to manage and maintain it. They may need to modify firewalls, firewalls security rules, and possibly inspect alerts that are generated from firewalls.

By having a customer operate on a unified platform, they can do the application control, traffic control, threat protection, and URL filtering on a single platform. This effectively reduces the workload on all their networks and security tools.

Cheap and faster are the opposite sides of security. Security inspections have some technical and money costs. If you just purchase some cheap, fast firewalls, then you will lose a lot of the security features and fraud protection capabilities.

My company uses Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall, not Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. We started our cooperation with Cisco a lot longer than with Palo Alto Networks. We have been working with Cisco to expand their business in China for more than 20 years, which is why the leaders in our company might be choosing Cisco products.  

Most of our customers have been using Palo Alto Networks for a long time and do not want to change to another vendor. The unified user interface is a big benefit for them.

Palo Alto NGFW’s DNS Security is an effective way to detect and block DNS tunneling attacks, because most competitors do not have these techniques to detect the DNS tunneling on a single device. They require maybe a SIM or some analysts. So, this is something quite creative for Palo Alto Networks.

For our customers, I would tell them that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is easy to use, but probably difficult to master. It has a very easy to use interface and configuration utility, but it has a lot of advanced features that need some deep knowledge of the product.

No product can guarantee 100% evasions being blocked, but I think Palo Alto is among the top of the threat inspection vendors. From the NSS Labs Test Report, we can see that Palo Alto Networks always has a top score.

Machine learning in a single firewall is not that accurate or important for our customers. Since it will only see some network traffic, it cannot connect everything together, like endpoints and servers. Therefore, our customers do not value the machine learning techniques on a single firewall very much.

We may review the alerts generated by machine learning modules, then we can see if the alerts are real alerts, not false positives. This may tell us how efficient machine learning is.

Very few customers in China have used the Palo Alto NGFW’s DNS Security module. It is a new feature that was introduced only two years ago. Customers already know what the product can provide in terms of protection. Its DNS Security provides something that is not really easy to understand. Also, it increases the cost of the firewall because it requires another license to be implemented, and the cost is not low.

DNS Security is very impressive, and I think it will be an efficient way to block the rapidly changing threat landscape and maybe Zero-day attack methods.

Biggest lesson learnt: If you want to protect something, you need to gain visibility of the entire network. NG Firewalls provides a deep visibility into network traffic.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls as nine out of 10.

We use Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to protect our end-to-end environment.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls use machine learning embedded in the core of the firewall to provide in-line, real-time attack prevention.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls use predictive analytics and machine learning to instantly block DNS-related attacks. The data for attacks or prevention is based on a segmented mask. Palo Alto Networks also keeps signatures updated on a holiday and on the Palo Alto Network and cloud. This helps to prevent signature leaks and secures dynamic web applications.

The solution is able to detect and resolve the initial tunneling attack.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are constantly being updated with new feature packages, and the improvements are the best we have seen compared to any other product in the industry. This is due to the company's deep knowledge of technology and the field.

The solution provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. The ability to integrate all of the capabilities is good because it is ready to use right out of the box. Additionally, it is an ECPU. The security is quite robust.

The unified platform helps to eliminate security holes in our organization by providing multiple layers of security. This is important because it can help to prevent any attack.

The unified platform helps eliminate the need for multiple network security tools and the effort required to get them working together. If we are filtering traffic using any other firewall, we will be using different processing methods. However, when we use a firewall or a third-party tool, it then has access to the restriction using the firewall. We can then use this feature to centralize and combine with this.

The zero-delay signature feature handles Wi-Fi. It analyzes each file type that is downloaded during a session and then sends the file analysis signature to the file cloud. This has made our network more secure.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' single pass architecture provides greater security and performance because all security functions are consolidated into a single device.

I like the remote access and URL filtering features that are available on global products. There are also other features, such as application-based access, that allow us to provide user IDs based on the type of access needed.

The analysis of the ITS ID by Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls could be improved.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for six years.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are stable.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are scalable. We have around 10,000 users.

The technical support is generally good, but it can be difficult to get the right person on the phone.

Positive

The initial setup is moderate. We can deploy within an hour or two. The deployment requires two people. Four to five people can handle the maintenance.

We implement the solution for our clients. 

Our clients have seen a return on investment with the solution.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are expensive compared to other firewalls such as FortiGate Next-Generation Firewall.

I give Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine out of ten.

Organizations that require network security should not choose a firewall based on cost. I recommend Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to harden security posture.

I definitely recommend Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for medium and large organizations.

We use Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to protect small businesses that work within the defense industrial base.

By using Prisma Access, we can easily connect to our network from different locations around the world without having to deploy multiple firewalls. This not only makes it more convenient but also saves us a lot of expenses.

Prisma Access is the most valuable feature of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

The ability to provide secure access to people without having to carry an additional device around really benefits us in the defense industrial base.

The training provided is satisfactory, but there is certainly room for improvement. It would be great to have more comprehensive training at a lower cost, or even for free.

I would say that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide a unified platform for many, but not all.

Having everything in one pane of glass is important to me because I have a lot of responsibilities. It would be really nice to have everything in one place, so I don't have to switch around between different applications and can stay focused on one platform.

It's important to have machine learning embedded, but it's equally important to not solely rely on it. We still need human interaction to ensure proper security measures. Nonetheless, machine learning is a vital component of our security strategy.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for five years.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have been instrumental in reducing our downtime as we moved away from less robust devices. By implementing Palo Alto firewalls, we have significantly improved our network stability.

If I had to estimate, it has saved us 10 to 15 hours per year.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is a very stable solution.

I haven't encountered the need to scale the solution yet. Our current setup meets our requirements and has been working well for us. Given that we are a small company, we have not felt the need to look into scaling it at this point.

The technical support provided by Palo Alto Networks is excellent. Although I have only needed to contact them a few times, they have always been quick to respond, and their team is very knowledgeable.

I would rate the technical support a nine out of ten.

Positive

Before, we used SonicWall, but we decided to switch to Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls because they offer a much better solution and are leading the market.

I was part of the deployment team, but since I was new to Palo Alto devices, the deployment process was more complex for me. That's where the training came into play.

I had to familiarize myself with their user interface and terminologies since I was used to using a different system. It took some time for me to learn and compare it with what I've used before.

We purchased from a reseller.

It was a straightforward process. We made the purchase online and they shipped it to us. After that, it was a matter of getting it up and running.

It's difficult to determine. When looking at the ten to fifteen hours a year, it's unclear whether or not I would consider that as part of the return on investment. It's a bit challenging to assess from an IT perspective.

Reducing costs is important, especially since Prisma can be expensive. It would be great if it were more affordable.

Although the hardware can be expensive, the quality of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is excellent. While a lower cost would be desirable, we recognize the value of investing in a reliable and effective solution.

When we were moving away from SonicWall, we evaluated FortiGate and Meraki's solutions.

In my opinion, I was impressed with FortiGate's system on a chip. It was really fast compared to Palo Alto's, but I think Palo Alto has a better feature set and interface. As for SonicWall, we had several reasons for leaving. Regarding Meraki, I find their management interface not suitable for my needs, and they seem to be more of a consumer-grade or prosumer-grade product.

I am not in a position to comment on the solution's ability to secure data centers consistently across all workplaces, from the smallest office to the largest data centers since I have only used their smaller solutions.

My advice to those who are seeking a firewall solution is not to prioritize the cheapest or the fastest options, as it could be risky. Instead, it is important to invest in the best quality firewall that is within your budget. This is something that I have experienced with Palo Alto Networks, which provides a high-quality solution that is worth the investment.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine out of ten.

The experience has been amazing, with a few sessions resulting in new services that I can offer my company directly. The best part is that I can do it without having to invest in an expensive tool that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It does impact the purchases we will make throughout the year.

If I can perform 95% of the work at a lower cost, we are unlikely to consider Mandiant and spend a significant amount of money. 

We use Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to manage the villains. Basically, to protect the environment. 

I like that they are more stable than the previous ones, and they allow a lot of other features.

It would be better to have more tools to control Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. We don't have too many tools to access Palo Alto. For example, the IT team doesn't have access to it. We can see it physically and see if it's running or not. We need to contact a special team to receive that information. I would also like to see more reporting in the next release.

I have been using Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for two years.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is stable.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is scalable. We have about 250 people using it at our hotel.

We use Trustwave, a company that provides the devices. We have an agreement with them, and we're satisfied with the support.

We used to use Juniper and Fortinet.

The initial setup is pretty much straightforward. It takes us about two hours to set up and deploy this solution. It takes a team of two guys to deploy and maintain this solution.

I would recommend this solution to new users.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine.

Upstream and data center NGFW.

Security, visibility and control, you can secure your environment from many types of attacks such as virus, malware, DoS attacks, intrusions, bad URLs, bad domains with basic DNS security which it an awesome feature.Visibility, that you will be aware of the is going on inside your network, such as malicious activities, decrypt the encrypted packets, as well as policy audit review.

This solution has really helped the technical engineers to deliver the implementation faster than the before.

All of the features are good. The new release of the new basic platform provides you with a huge number of features, such as policy review, DNS security, Machine learning, Network traffic profiling, Bare metal analysis

(Malware) On-prime scanning should be considered.

Endpoint management (traps) better to be on-prime than cloud.

QoS, It should be more sophisticated than it is now.

TAC support should cover meddle east area by Arabic support, such as in France, Germany, Italy and Japanese.

I like the stability of the solution. From a stability perspective, all of them are stable. Sometimes Cisco's older versions, maybe from two years ago, were not as stable. Now, Cisco has improved its firewall and security products.

In terms of scalability, no security products are scalable to upgrade. Not ever. While assuming you are dealing with scalability, you have room to increase or to have room to expand, but actually, you don't because there is limited support. Even if you bring in the highest model, it's still limited.

Their support is very limited. It's limited compared to the competitors. They need multi-language support. Now, they provide support in English only. 

If anyone in the Middle East opens a ticket, they have to do it in Arabic but they get support in English, not in Arabic. The communication between the technical people or the campus sites to the vendors now is in English.

The initial setup was very easy. All the initial setups have become very easy. Before, the setup used to take a week to implement a firewall. Now it's a couple of minutes or one day maximum for fine-tuning. To fine-tune the firewall it can take one day, two days if you are junior. In terms of how many people you will need to deploy the solution, it depends because the firewall is not a straightforward technology like any security program. 

We used on-site security advisors.

7 years

In terms of pricing, every model has a license. For example a small model, the license around 1,000 USD. The next one around 2,000 USD. The next range is 11,000 USD to 13,000 USD. It's expensive compared to PaloAlto competitors.

Yes, was fortinet

Palo Alto's firewall protects your network against attacks, threats, and many other things. Networking can be more advanced. You can upgrade the edition of Palo Alto. There's competition between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls. Most IT security people don't know which to pick. For a basic firewall, I recommend Fortinet because it has two or three basic firewalls. I personally need a data center firewall. Datacenter firewalls I would recommend FortiGate because of the support. It provides a high level of support.

The latest Palo Alto release has many new features. It can provide you with audits, and policy auditing for a policy review. This allows you to know what's going on inside the network from a quality perspective because sometimes you can create new policies - up to one million policies. You can choose policies, and sometimes you get something by mistake. It provides you with an ability to view or do a policy review or policy audit. This is a major feature. It's a very important feature because before it was impossible to bring the visibility to the policy audits to let me know what's going on inside my policies. Now Palo Alto has provided this feature. 

In terms of advice I'd give to someone considering this solution, I'd say they should read more before going to the implementation phase. They have to read the administrative guides, and product guides before going to implementation. They have to check the platform because different versions of the platform have some new features. The technical people have to review before going to implement it because sometimes they don't need to upgrade this platform or this version. It is not a stable version. You have to read more before going to do the implementation. Ask an advisor, the vendors or call Palo Alto. You can call them, they have great coverage in any country in the world. You can ask the technical engineers what is the best design, their recommended design.

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

We use it for security purposes.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls enable efficient application search, viewing, and configuration access across various services for different user groups within our company.     

The only downside of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, in my opinion, is the relatively higher price compared to Cisco FortiGate. This is especially noticeable when deploying basic configurations and considering the cost of licenses.

I have used the solution for the past few years.

In terms of stability, the user rates it a nine out of ten.

I would rate it 10 out of 10. The current user base for Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls in the environment is one thousand users. Plans are in place to increase usage in the future, particularly with the intention to upgrade for higher speed.

The experience with tech support is positiveand they have found support helpful in addressing network issues.

Positive

Before adopting Palo Alto NG Firewalls, no other tools were used.

I cannot rate the ease of configuration on a scale from one to ten for Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls. The configurations are diverse, and it's challenging to determine a specific rating, but I find them somewhat similar and not particularly helpful.So, the deployment process for Palo Alto NG Firewalls takes about one month. This duration is due to the various steps involved in the deployment, each of which can be completed within a business day. The complexity arises from the need to connect with numerous clients and services, considering the continuous operation of the business.

In terms of price, the user finds it expensive, rating it around nine.

The overall recommendation is positive, emphasizing ease of deployment, understanding features, and suitability for the company's needs. I give Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a perfect rating of ten.

We have clients in the government and supermarkets, for example, who use this firewall for integration with EDR, NDR, CN, and IPS.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' IPS is more complete and is very good. This is a user-friendly solution that is easy to install, and it provides the best protection.

It's very important that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls embed machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention because all components are moving laterally these days. We need tools that follow the zero-trust model.

These firewalls have helped reduce downtime in our organization as well.

Palo Alto needs to improve their training. They do not invest in their partners. I have been a partner for seven years, and it is very expensive for me to certify my engineers.

I've been working with these firewalls for almost seven years.

The firewalls are very stable.

Palo Alto's scalability is not as good as that of Check Point. With Check Point, I can integrate the firewall with other products.

We do not have technical support in Brazil, so I would rate it a two out of ten. However, Palo Alto's technical support in the US is good, and I would give them a rating of eight out of ten. 

Neutral

I have worked with Check Point, but it's very difficult to configure. Palo Alto is much easier to configure, and the dashboard is very user-friendly as well.

Because I have worked with Palo Alto for seven years, the initial setup is very easy for me. However, new engineers may find the configuration difficult.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are very expensive compared to other firewalls such as Fortinet. As a result, Palo Alto is losing some of its market share. 

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls an eight out of ten because it's a good product.

I like attending RSA conferences because it gives me the opportunity to see what competitors are doing and what is new on the market.

Attending RSAC does have an impact on our cyber security purchases, but I would like to see manufacturers offer more training, certifications, labs, and demos at RSAC.