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Google Cloud VPN vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Google Cloud VPN
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
17th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (4th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Infrastructure VPN category, the mindshare of Google Cloud VPN is 0.8%, down from 1.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is 6.6%, up from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN
 

Featured Reviews

Prashast Tripathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Customizes networks with flexible configurations and high reliability
Google Cloud VPN offers a lot of flexibility to customize, supporting dual track IPv4 and IPv6, and v6-only configurations. It supports dynamic routing, and the SLA is a key factor with a 99.999% reliability. The Cloud VPN tunnel supports up to 250,000 packets per second for both ingress and egress traffic.
Amar-Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless policy management and supports secure remote work
Our primary use case for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is to control the internet and serve as an internet proxy. Additionally, we use it for secure remote work One of the most valuable features of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is the ability to manage on-premise firewalls. We can…

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Google Cloud VPN offers a lot of flexibility to customize, supporting dual track IPv4 and IPv6, and v6-only configurations."
"Any time we had an issue with connecting the OpenVPN to a user, we just to them on the group's VPN and connected our VPN."
"The most valuable features of Google Cloud VPN are its speed, connectivity, and reliability."
"Google Cloud VPN is a reliable and easy-to-use solution."
"The most valuable features of Google Cloud VPN are its speed, connectivity, and reliability."
"The most valuable feature of the product is its compatibility with almost every network."
"A feature I've found very helpful is run time security because most of the products on the market will look at security during the build time, and they don't really look at what happens once you're going into production."
"It's great that we can make sure a machine meets the minimum requirements before users are allowed to log in."
"There are plenty of features this solution provides and the most valuable would be the complete security protection we are receiving. We are provided with similar security that the Palo Alto AWS solution has. This includes features such as a firewall and machine learning AI."
"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."
"The tool's consolidation is pretty quick."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Access is its ability to provide enterprise-class security for both Internet and internal application access."
"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 remediation process is easy compared to other platforms."
 

Cons

"The customer service and support from Google are not top-notch yet are available."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement. Additionally, cost-efficiency enhancements or service integrations could add further value."
"The logging needs improvement."
"The solution’s pricing could be improved."
"The customer service and support from Google are not top-notch yet are available. I would rate them around 7.5 to eight out of ten."
"The price for Google solutions could be cheaper. In general, I would rate it a seven."
"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."
"We are using the SaaS offering. We use our applications for microservices. We use Twistlock to scan containers, and it displays these results in Prisma, which is a good feature because we can see vulnerabilities with respect to these containers. We can see everything in a very detailed manner. However, when you have different environments for a single application, such as DEV, QA, PROD, and TEST, all these environments run multiple containers, which can lead to a very high number of containers. In such a scenario, it shows you the alerts for all those containers that have vulnerabilities. If you show the results of all the containers that share the same image, it is not going to add any value. Therefore, they should narrow down the alerts based on a container. It should show information for a single container. Otherwise, the person who is looking at the results gets the impression that he has to fix all these issues. This is something that they can improve."
"While Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on."
"It would be nice to manage Prisma Access through the cloud instead of through Panorama. You can use the cloud version to monitor Prisma Access, but it doesn't have all the features yet, and it's not 100% done."
"If you compare Prisma SaaS against other products, such as Cloud Log, it's a little bit tricky to understand, but it offers different functionality that other products don't have. From a user usability point of view, you need some training for this product, as an admin, you need a couple of demos."
"We've run into some challenges, having hit a lot of bugs over the past year in the deployment of GlobalProtect. We've had our fair share of issues that I haven't been happy with. We're working with the support organization to remediate them and waiting for updated releases. The response on getting the bugs fixed has not been what I would consider adequate for a product like this."
"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."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It's not super cheap, but it's also not unrealistically priced."
"The product pricing is high."
"It is fairly priced."
"It is not cheap. It is expensive. The good thing is that you are able to pay for what you need, but overall, it is not cheap. The pricing is not based on packages. You pay based on the features. If you want DLP, you only pay for DLP. They are very flexible. It is not cheap, but the licensing is flexible. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The initial prices of Prisma Access were okay. But as soon as you start deploying Palo Alto gear, the support prices and the recurring prices, which are the major operational costs, tend to increase over time."
"The solution is expensive."
"They price their products using credit modules."
"The pricing can be difficult because it came to us with another agreement, but it can be negotiated. I highly recommend people to compare this product's performance and pricing against BetterCloud, because I feel BetterCloud is better than Prisma SaaS if they're starting from scratch."
"Compared to other products, the price is slightly high."
"We have to pay additional costs for maintenance and support services."
"This is not an expensive product and everything is included with one license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Google Cloud VPN?
Any time we had an issue with connecting the OpenVPN to a user, we just to them on the group's VPN and connected our VPN.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Google Cloud VPN?
The price for Google solutions could be cheaper. In general, I would rate it a seven.
What needs improvement with Google Cloud VPN?
The troubleshooting guides need to be updated. We see errors but there's no proper documentation for resolving them. If Google can improve their resources on common problems and solutions, it would...
What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure access service edge (SASE) designed to deliver network security in a cloud-deliver...
What do you like most about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being user-friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
From my experience, Palo Alto is more expensive compared to solutions like Netskope and Triscale.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack
Find out what your peers are saying about Google Cloud VPN vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,168 professionals have used our research since 2012.