Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Overview
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is the #2 ranked solution in our list of top Advanced Threat Protection tools. It is most often compared to Azure Firewall: Palo Alto Networks VM-Series vs Azure Firewall
What is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series?
The VM-Series is a virtualized form factor of our next-generation firewall that can be deployed in a range of private and public cloud computing environments based on technologies from VMware, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, Citrix and KVM.
The VM-Series natively analyzes all traffic in a single pass to determine the application identity, the content within, and the user identity. These core elements of your business can then be used as integral components of your security policy, enabling you to improve your security efficacy through a positive control model and reduce your incident response time though complete visibility into applications across all ports.
In both private and public cloud environments, the VM-Series can be deployed as a perimeter gateway, an IPsec VPN termination point, and a segmentation gateway, protecting your workloads with application enablement and threat prevention policies.
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Buyer's Guide
Download the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: February 2021
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Customers
Warren Rogers Associates
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Video
Pricing Advice
What users are saying about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pricing:
- "Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
- "It is not the cheapest on the market. The total cost for two firewall instances is $75,000. This includes licenses, deployment fees, and support for two years."
- "The price of this solution is very high for some parts of Africa, which makes it a challenge."
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Reviews
Filter by:
Loading...
Filter Unavailable
Loading...
Filter Unavailable
Loading...
Filter Unavailable
Loading...
Filter Unavailable
Loading...
Filter Unavailable
Order by:
Loading...
Search:
reviewer1267734
Executive Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
An excellent solution for the right situations and businesses
What is our primary use case?
Palo Alto VM-Series is something we recommend as a firewall solution in certain situations for clients with particular requirements who have the budget leeway.Pros and Cons
- "The Palo Alto VM-Series is nice because I can move the firewalls easily."
- "It has excellent scalability."
- "The product needs improvement in their Secure Access Service Edge."
- "They made only a halfhearted attempt to put in DLP (Data Loss Prevention)."
- "Palo Alto is that it is really bad when it comes to technical support."
What other advice do I have?
My first lesson when it comes to advice is a rule that I follow. When a new version comes out, we wait a month. If in that month we are not seeing any major complaints or issues with the Palo Alto firewall customer base, then we consider it safe. The client base is usually a pretty good barometer for announcing to the world that Palo Alto upgrades are not ready. When that happens, making the upgrade goes off our list until we hear better news. If we do not see any of those bad experiences, then we do the upgrade. That is the way we treat major revisions. It usually takes about a month, or a…Goran Aleksic
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to launch, scalable, and technical support is good
What is our primary use case?
We are a service provider and I work on both shared firewall and dedicated firewall solutions for our customers. The primary focus is firewall threat protection. The rest of the features are used, albeit not too much. At this moment, it is not an overly complicated or advanced solution.Pros and Cons
- "What I like about the VM-Series is that you can launch them in a very short time."
- "The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters."
What other advice do I have?
I don't have too many complaints as I compare the virtualized version to the physical one. Perhaps I haven't noticed any issues because we use the proper hardware, and it was strong enough to carry the workload and remain quite responsive. My advice for anybody who is implementing the VM-Series is to be very well prepared and test it in advance. Make sure to scope it and understand the performance implications. Also, be sure that the core features are understood and are supported on the VM. Then, test it before implementation or migration. This is a very good product but I can't rate it as…
Learn what your peers think about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: February 2021.
464,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.
reviewer1448568
IT Infrastructure Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Good stability, good support, and many useful security and threat prevention features
What is our primary use case?
It is deployed on the Azure cloud to inspect the outbound traffic, but in the near future we will be working to inspect inbound and Azure Express Route traffic as well.Pros and Cons
- "Using Palo Alto Networks Panorama, we were able to deploy a single point of management and visualization of the firewall infrastructure in cloud, on-premise and integrated with Azure to automate scale up. Its security features, i.e. anti-malware, threat prevention, URL Filtering, VPN, and antivirus are the most valuable. The ID-User integrated with AD and 2FA features are also very useful to provide secure access to servers and some users in the company. "
- "At the beginning of the implementation, we had some difficulties with the scripts, but Palo Alto Networks support together with a local partner finally fixed it."
What other advice do I have?
Good support from the brand and local partner in Chile.reviewer1415211
Senior Manager Network Engineering at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Good control over traffic with an advanced packet inspection engine, but it needs to include a secure web gateway
What is our primary use case?
I am a firewall expert, although my job is not on the management side. I take care of the routing and switching aspects. We have approximately 1,000 firewalls in the company.Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is that you can control your traffic flowing out and coming it, allowing you to apply malware and threat protection, as well as vulnerability checks."
- "The disadvantage with Palo Alto is that they don't have a cloud-based solution that includes a secure web gateway."
What other advice do I have?
This is definitely a product that I can recommend. Overall, it is a good product, although it would be better if they offered a cloud proxy. I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.
Kofi Otchere
ICT Infrastructure Specialist (E-Transform Project) at Ministry of Communications and Information
Easy to use with good application and URL filtering
What is our primary use case?
The Palo Alto VM-Series is a firewall that is part of our security solution.Pros and Cons
- "The interface with Panorama makes it very easy to use."
- "The command-line interface is something that some people struggle with and I think that they should have an option to go straight to the GUI."
What other advice do I have?
I have been using Palo Alto since version 6.0, and I am currently evaluating the latest one, version 9.1. My advice to anybody who is considering this solution is to try the trial version first. It is good for 30 days and it can actually be used because it is the full product. You can test all of the scenarios and try the next-generation features. You can use features like the VPN GlobalProtect and actually see it work. The same with URL filtering and antivirus. Overall, this is a great next-generation firewall. I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.
Md Rezwan Ashique
Technology Specialist at Accretive Technologies Pvt Ltd
Great templates and very stable but needs more documentation
What is our primary use case?
We primarily use the solution for IT. I am from the Palo Alto Partner end, so I am not using it deliberately. I usually deploy to clients in various industries, including the payment gateway industry.Pros and Cons
- "In Palo Alto the most important feature is the App-ID."
- "The solution needs to have more easily searchable details or documentation about it online, so it's easier to Google if you have queries."
What other advice do I have?
We're partners with Palo Alto. We're using the latest version of the solution. We have a VM-Series via Palo Alto and K2K and the hardware Series. I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.VishalGilatar
IT Security Head with 1,001-5,000 employees
Easy to set up, powerful IDS and IPS functionality, and helpful policy compliance reporting
What is our primary use case?
Palo Alto VM Series is a firewall that makes up part of our security solution, handing IPS, IDS, and other security measures.Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable features are web control and IPS/IDS."
- "I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
What other advice do I have?
I highly recommend this service compared to other vendors. It has everything included in one platform including IPS, IDS, and antivirus. By using the Palo Alto initial configuration, it is going to block many threats from day one and it is pretty easy to do. You don't have to have an in-house technical team that is capable of doing that. You don't require that kind of knowledge, which is important because many people don't understand IDS, IPS, or file blocking. They need experience. With Palo Alto, a normal person with perhaps a year of technical experience will understand how to configure the…Goran Aleksic
Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Easy to launch, scalable, and stable
What is our primary use case?
We mostly use it for threat protection. Currently, I'm working on virtual solutions, and it is deployed on the cloud. We have three people who work with this solution. I have previously worked on the shared firewall as well as dedicated firewall solutions, where we deployed it on-premises as well as on the cloud.Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature is that you can launch it in a very short time. You don't have to wait for the hardware to arrive and get it staged and installed. From that perspective, it is easy to launch. It is also scalable."
- "It would be good if the common features work consistently in physical and virtual environments. There was an integration issue in the virtual deployment where it didn't report the interface counters, and we had to upgrade to the latest version, whereas the same thing has been working in the physical deployment for ages now. It seems that it was because of Azure. We were using VMware before, and we didn't have any such issues. We do see such small issues where we expect things to work, but they don't because of some incompatibilities. There also seems to be a limitation on how to do high availability in a virtualized environment. All features should be consistently available in physical and virtual environments. It is not always easy to integrate Palo Alto in the network management system. We would like to be able to compare two network management systems. They can maybe allow monitoring an interface through the GUI to create a reference or do a baseline check about whether your network monitoring system is actually giving you the correct traffic figures. You need traffic figures to be able to recognize the trends and plan the capacity."
What other advice do I have?
I would advise getting very well prepared by defining the scope and testing it in advance. Make sure that you understand the performance implications and that the core features are supported on the VM, and they are tested before the implementation or migration. I would rate Palo Alto Networks VM-Series a nine out of ten.See 7 more Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Reviews
Popular Comparisons
Azure Firewall
Fortinet FortiGate
Cisco ASA Firewall
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Juniper SRX
Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls
Check Point NGFW
CyberArk PAS
Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall
Check Point Virtual Systems
Check Point Infinity
Kerio Control
Huawei NGFW
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros
sharing their opinions.
Quick Links
Learn More: Questions:
- Which is the best IPS - Cisco Firepower or Palo Alto?
- Which is the best network firewall for a small retailer?
- When evaluating Firewalls, what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?
- If you could go back, would you change your decision to buy that firewall and why?
- What is the best way to prevent DoppelPaymer Ransomware?
- Can you recommend a solution to replace Cyberoam 200ing Firewall?
- Best firewall models for 750 to 1000 users
- Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
- What are the threats associated with using ‘bogus’ cybersecurity tools?
- Comparing network security vendors and devices