Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Reviews

We use these firewalls to manage wastewater systems for over a hundred municipalities across the country. As a result, we exclusively use them in the operational technology (OT) space.

One of the key benefits is that it enables us to secure environments that may pose more significant security challenges.

The centralization capability is the most valuable feature of this solution as it enables us to monitor our systems efficiently. Additionally, the firewalls are excellent, with straightforward configuration and comprehensible interfaces that our engineers can set up with ease.

The cloud firewall solution offers a unified platform that integrates social security capabilities, but it comes at an additional cost.

I think having the ability to see the big picture is important for us, and that's not always easy to achieve. 

As for how important it is for us to have Palo Alto NG Firewalls and defense machine learning at the core of the firewall for real-time attack prevention, I think it's a bit premature to say. There are many players in that field currently, and I would prefer to see them get it right before jumping in just for the sake of being there.

A major concern is making the licensing more accessible to enable small municipalities to afford and manage their own systems independently.

I have had experience working with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for a minimum of three to four years.

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

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are very scalable.

As far as I know, the technical support for this solution is excellent. 

My team has used it a few times and has always been satisfied with the service. I have never received any negative feedback regarding the support lines.

I would rate the technical support an eight or nine out of ten.

Positive

A lot of the municipality's systems rely on Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to stay online, and we've found that they provide better uptime compared to most other solutions.

Our downtime has been reduced by 80 to 90% with the implementation of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

I was not involved in the deployment process.

We have seen a return on investment. By centralizing our monitoring of systems, we have been able to make our lives easier.

The licensing leaves a lot to be desired. 

We buy the license and then we can't transfer the license without paying an exorbitant fee to our client if they leave us, and that just seems to be a bit of a pain point for us, and there's really no way to partner effectively to make that more reasonable.

We continuously review firewalls, whether it's Check Point or Fortinet, or Cisco. But Palo Alto has been the best for us.

As most of our environments are in the cloud, we don't have a lot of experience in securing data centers.

If a colleague at another company is only looking for the cheapest and fastest firewall, I would advise them that Palo Alto Networks is not the right solution for them. 

While it may not be the most affordable or the quickest to set up, the investment in Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls is well worth it in terms of reliability and security. 

Choosing a firewall based solely on cost and speed may result in a false sense of security and leave the organization vulnerable to breaches and downtime.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls an eight out of ten.

These are gateway firewalls to the Internet for every site. At a majority of the sites, we use the firewall as our gateway for the network below.

Previously, we used them just for the Internet firewall and Internet security side. However, in the last year or two, we have started to migrate them as the gateway routers, e.g., as gateways for the networks below. They are doing Internet firewalling as well as firewalling for the networks below.

We are using the PA-220s, PA-440s, PA-820s, PA-3250s, and PA-5250s. We are using all of those hardware models. Then, we are running the PAN-OS 10.1.3 on those.

We have around 40 locations worldwide. At minimum, we have one Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall at each location. At some of the larger sites, we have two Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls in HA configuration. Then, at our headquarters and disaster recovery site, we have two at each site.

The WildFire feature that they offer is very nice to have. The URL filtering that they offer has been a great help to us as well. We have found with the URL filtering that they offer that we are able to categorize what traffic can go outbound to the Internet from our internal network. By doing the URL filtering, we are able to say that we are not allowing gambling, adult content, or certain URL categories that we just don't want to allow. Then, with WildFire, that helps detect any viruses coming inbound or on east-west traffic inside of our network.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls embeds machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention, which is very important. I got an email saying that there was going to be a new 400 series firewall, and it was talking about the ML and AI features that it is offering. That is very exciting to see coming for all our firewalls.

We have the Palo Alto Next-Gen firewalls as well as Cortex XDR for the antivirus side. We are making use of Cortex XDR and Data Lake to correlate the data. We definitely see the benefits of having all that in one unified platform. Some of my colleagues are able to see how certain malware security incidents can correlate to how the virus or malware came into the network, then how it traversed our network based on the XDR information.

I can manage 1,000 firewalls from a single pane of glass.

I am looking to have the machine learning see how a virus or malware will morph, then prevent that from happening. That seems invaluable at this point.

We have a lot of the older firewall models, i.e., the PA-220. It seems that with newer operating systems the PA-220 is becoming slower than when I first bought it. It is not really an issue for users who are passing traffic through the firewall, but more from the management access of it.

We have had them for about three years.

I have had some issues here recently, but it has been more operating system issues. As far as the hardware goes, they have been very solid. Out of the last three or four years that we have utilized Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls. I have only had one time where I had a hardware failure on it that had to get a replacement.

It is very scalable. The Panorama management tool makes it very easy to add a new firewall. You can add one, 10, or 100 firewalls, deploying them quickly and keeping the same security posture that you had in place previously with other devices.

I have not noticed any trade-offs from security versus network performance at all. I think they are both running very well. We haven't lost network performance with an increase in security or vice versa.

The entire company is using the solution. We are a manufacturing company who manufactures electronic interconnects. We have our own marketing department, engineering, learning development, HR, accounting, and IT. Thus, we have a broad spectrum of users who are using the solution.

We actually have a very small staff. There are only five of us who are actively administering the Palo Alto environment. We have around 40 locations worldwide with just over 8,000 users globally.

We are using it at every facility. We are using it as a gateway router as well as our next-gen firewall. We have no plans to change all that. We are pretty happy with how we are configured. So, I think we will keep that trajectory.

The technical support is very good. I am very happy with the tech engineers. They have always been quick to respond and very knowledgeable about the issues that I have had. They help me get those issues resolved quickly. I would give them 10 out of 10.                                

Positive

It gives us added security compared to our previous firewalls. They were very cumbersome to manage, and they had no central management. By switching to Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls, we made use of the Panorama management tool to manage all our firewalls. The management side is much easier. Also, it provides visibility from their monitoring to be able to see the traffic. Whereas, I was not able to see that before with our previous firewall manufacturer.

With our previous firewall vendor, the maintenance was running to the end of its contracts. Therefore, we were looking to switch anyway because we just weren't happy with that hardware. Our implementation strategy was basically to replace all the old firewall hardware with something new. At the time, we were pretty happy with what Palo Alto Networks was offering.

The setup is very straightforward. I am familiar with other firewalls and the configurations for them. Switching to the Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls was pretty seamless.

The initial deployment of the first site, switching from the old firewalls to the Palo Alto Network NG Firewalls, took about two to three days configuration-wise. Actually switching over from the old firewall to the new firewall was pretty seamless because we can preconfigure the firewall and then replace the old firewall with it. There were no issues.

Our VAR helped us do some research on what firewalls would be the best for us. We did our own testing, and we liked this solution. That is why we ended up going with it.

We do have other tools that we are phasing into the Palo Alto unified platform environment, bringing in Cortex XDR as well as looking at SIEM products. So, we definitely see the benefit of the unified platform. We have been able to cut down on some of our other hardware. So, it is definitely saving us costs as far as combining different hardware into one hardware device.

We have not had to replace hardware routers nor purchase additional hardware. So, that has provided a little bit of an ROI.

The Palo Alto solution is actually not expensive. It was comparable to the old firewall manufacturers that we were using. From the benefits that we have gotten out of the Palo Alto products, it is well worth the difference in cost, even though the difference in cost is not much at all. I would highly recommend Palo Alto products to anyone.

I just started getting in some of the PA-400 series a couple weeks ago. As far as pricing goes, it was not that much more than the existing hardware platform or the existing firewall that we had in there, i.e., the PA-220. It was not much more expensive and the performance was way better, as far as the management of the firewall itself. The management of those firewalls has greatly been increased.

When we were looking to switch, we narrowed it down to two or three. Then, we obviously decided to go with the Palo Alto product. Palo Alto had better specifications for their hardware.

I would highly recommend the solution as well as looking at the new PA-400 series product line with the machine learning and AI. That is a very good feature that is now available.

The biggest lesson for me was to not skimp out on hardware based on pricing.

I would give this solution 10 out of 10. I am very happy with the product.

We use Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls in our offices and data centers.

Embedded machine learning within our firewall core has enhanced our business performance by enabling us to process higher volumes of data more efficiently. Single-pass parallel processing and machine learning provide real-time insights, allowing us to maintain a strong security posture.

There is no trade-off for the single-pass architecture. The firewall meets the standards and expectations.

The most valuable features are Wildfire, URL filtering, and IPS.

Palo Alto's support could be improved. Compared to Cisco's community portal, its support resources appear lacking.

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

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are stable.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are scalable.

We previously used Cisco but found it not on par with Palo Alto, especially with throughput. Performance is essential, and Cisco was lacking in this area.

From a technical standpoint, our engineers have significantly reduced labor hours by utilizing Palo Alto, resulting in a substantial return on investment.

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

We have a large number of users within our organization.

We have a maintenance team for Palo Alto.

For organizations with budget constraints, Fortinet is a viable alternative; however, if budgetary limitations are not a concern, the Palo Alto PA-440 Firewall is recommended.

We use the solution to access clients.

I like the configuration of the product. The configuration is quite simple to understand. The product is easy to manage.

The solution has a lot of features. However, there are no deep configurations available. The functionalities are limited. Other products offer more customization.

I have been using the solution for the last five years.

The product is stable.

The product is currently being used by three of our customers. We provide them with dedicated VMs.

The local support is good. The response is slow when I try to reach out to technical support on the customer portal. It might be because the tickets I raised were P3 or P4 tickets. However, I do not get proper responses for P2 tickets either. I get a good response when I call support directly.

We also use FortiGate, Check Point, Forcepoint, and SonicWall. We use the tools based on our clients’ requirements.

The initial installation was easy. It was not difficult for me because I am familiar with many products.

The solution is worth the money. However, there are other tools that provide features similar to Palo Alto but are less expensive.

The solution’s cost is a little high compared to other products.

I will recommend the tool to others. It is a fine product. If someone is looking for DLP and other features, the product might not suit them. The product has good URL filtering features. Overall, I rate the solution a seven or eight out of ten.

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 for our network security. We deployed the solution on both the cloud and on-prem.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls machine learning secures our network against threats that evolve rapidly.

The DNS security feature is already commonly used for authentication by clients, with many threats being pushed from the inside to the outside. DNS security helps improve our network.

The DNS security feature is integral in protecting against DNS tunneling.

The solution provides a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' unified platform helps us eliminate security threats. We use all the Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' features including the UTM, WiFi, and VPN feature to protect our network. 

Both the network performance and security of the single-pass architecture are good. 

There are many valuable features, such as wireless cloud features. The IP and signals are updated regularly, and all UTM features provide good basic gateway-level security.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide real-time attack prevention is a basic requirement for our private security network.

The bugs can be improved.

I have been using the solution for eight years.

The solution is stable. We encounter small bugs sometimes but they are not a problem.

The solution is scalable.

The technical support is good.

Positive

For experienced people, the initial setup is straightforward. Cloud deployment can be challenging for someone new. The deployment takes around one hour.

We implement the solution for our clients.

I give the solution a nine out of ten.

Our clients are enterprise-level.

The PA400 series has good performance and security.

I recommend Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls to others.

We use this solution as our external firewall and VPN.

The fact that I can perform several security functions in one device at wire speed is a valuable feature. I don't have to slow down my business transactions, and I don't have to inconvenience my users with 16 different solutions. I can have it all in one box, and it protects my organization at wire speed.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls catch a lot of things that other firewalls may not catch and support more current security practices. We get updates several times a day from WildFire, and the firewalls do a great job of keeping us protected.

Within their domain, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. This is critical because I don't want to deal with multiple devices. I want to do it all with as few devices as possible and have it all work successfully.

It's very important that these firewalls embed machine learning into their core because the only way to keep up with the changing threat environment is to keep learning about it.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are the gold standard right now for securing data centers consistently across all workplaces, and I'm using them across all of my locations. They provide a consistent experience for the management team as well as the end user.

Surfacing actionable intelligence right away could be better. You have to dig far to get some of the information. If the solution could surface the two or three things out of the 10,000 a day that we really need to deal with, it would be helpful.

I've been working with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for about 20 years.

It is a rock-solid solution in terms of stability. You very rarely have to worry about it. If there's a problem, it's usually because a rule got configured incorrectly.

Across the product line, the NG firewalls scale very well. Within the individual units, however, there are some limitations. It's not always clear to resellers as to what those limitations are. Therefore, as your organization grows you may start to bump into those limitations unexpectedly.

Palo Alto's technical support is pretty good and is among the best. We have called them several times, and they've been on it. Sometimes, it can take a bit longer for them to understand an issue, but overall, I would rate technical support at eight.

Positive

We have used several firewalls including Cisco, Fortinet, and Check Point. We chose Palo Alto because it's the only one that brings it all together in one platform and lets me manage it. It also removes the complexity of what I have to manage and deal with.

The initial setup is fairly straightforward. You put the firewall in with whatever might be there right now in learning mode, and then you can figure out where the holes are.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls have prevented a number of things from happening. We would not have been able to prevent those things from happening had we had other firewalls.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls are the Cadillac standard, and you do pay Cadillac pricing. However, the protection is worth the steep price. 

If you're looking for the fastest firewall, Palo Alto needs to be on your list. They seem to be the only ones that perform at wire speed right now. If you want the cheapest firewall, you will be able to find cheaper options, but you won't find better options than Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls.

Overall, I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a nine on a scale from one to ten.

The biggest value of RSAC is being able to see everything I don't know anything about. It helps me keep up with where the industry is going.

Also, attending RSAC impacts our organization’s cybersecurity purchases made throughout the year. I chat with my existing vendors when I attend and have conversations with those my team recommends. We then make purchasing decisions based on what I see at RSAC.

We started using this solution as a basic firewall, and then, we ended up with URL filtering, IPS, and decryption.

It increased visibility, and we can see things that we couldn't see before and are able to decrypt as well. We can actually see what's going on in our network.

Decryption is one of Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls' best features because we can decrypt by category. For instance, we can decrypt everything except for bank traffic so that we don't interfere with the passwords and two-factor authentication of those checking their bank accounts at work. We can still monitor for malware and other threats that come through a secure channel. It's seamless for users. The URL filtering and IPS are both great as well.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls provide a unified platform that natively integrates all security capabilities. WildFire stops a lot of viruses and malware that come in from the outside. In addition, when you decrypt the traffic you'll be able to see a lot that you couldn't before. You can then integrate that into a SIEM and have visibility into all the different things that are going on. Integration with WildFire provides sandboxing and tells you if it's malicious content or not. Then, you can do URL filtering for the endpoints. All of this data goes into the SIEM. Thus, it's a really good, well-integrated software.

This native integration is very important to us because of the cost. When we get an enterprise license and get all these features on one device, we don't have to buy five devices or virtuals or set up a virtual or cloud farm to do the five things that the solution will do automatically, natively out of the box. We have been able to save money because we are able to get rid of our decryption software and are getting close to letting go of our filtering software.

It's important to us that Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls embed machine learning in the core of the firewall to provide inline, real-time attack prevention. This is important because those who exploit us daily use new tactics that are not seen at all times. They employ tactics that use applications that we currently use, such as PowerShell. If a PowerShell script comes in and it's decrypted, launched in WildFire in a sandbox, and blocked, it cuts our threat vector down tremendously.

When we go across all the workspaces, it's simple. The web-facing servers are protected with IPS, and the endpoints are protected with URL filtering in the sandbox and decryption. We log all of the MAC addresses, so we block hackers from getting into different websites when staff use a Wi-Fi connection off-site. In terms of securing data centers consistently across all workspaces, our whole ecosystem depends on having Palo Alto so that we can have one centralized SIEM where all the data is. Our SOC can investigate all the alerts that we get from all of these different areas.

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls need better training modules. You have to do a lot of reading prior to watching the training videos, and it's good for people who are really into it. However, often you want to use a video for a TID. You want to see how to do something rather than spend 30 minutes reading and then another 30 minutes watching the class. As a result, I take third-party training classes rather than Palo Alto's training because they are a lot better.

The training should be more accessible because if everybody has to pay for training, it makes it harder for us to get in techs who are qualified to do the work. If there are clear levels and schemes for certification, it would be great.

I've been using this solution for probably five years now.

The firewalls are always on, and we haven't had any stability problems. We haven't even had any hardware failures, and the perishables are great.

The firewall's scalability is nice because you can take a VM and put more memory in it. If you virtualize, then you can scale it out. With an enterprise license, you can load several to get all different points of your internet access. For example, one could do URL filtering just for the desktop, and another one could be an IPS in front of something else.

It's very flexible, and you can use these virtuals to contain all these different situations from an architectural standpoint without having to buy other software.

Palo Alto's technical support is great, and I'd give them a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is straightforward in the sense that when you put it in it starts doing what it's supposed to do. Then, you have to turn on all the features that you want.

We mainly worked with Palo Alto Networks. They taught us a lot and have been very helpful in getting us onboarded with all of the different features.

We see a return on our investment every day. We have threat hunters who go through the data and tell other state agencies where the problems are or what we were able to stop.

We haven't had a problem with pricing or licensing because we consolidated other software to make Palo Alto more affordable.

If you're just looking for the cheapest and fastest firewall, remember that you'll get what you pay for. Check if the company is able to support its product 24/7. You have to be able to get technical support on the phone at any time of the day or night. In addition, the company has to be able to do training on its firewall, and there has to be a job market for it so that there's an employee pool from which you can pick someone who knows the software. If it's an obscure software company, and they only have two or three people in the country who are certified on it, then it would hurt you a lot because you won't be able to call these two or three people in the middle of the night and expect them to always be there. Palo Alto has a very deep bench, so they can go globally and get you tech support at any time. That's very helpful.

The price is dependent upon how many features you use. If you have a Palo Alto ecosystem where you use Prisma, IPS, URL filtering, and decryption, it's going to be affordable because you will be able to eliminate other software. However, if you're looking to use Palo Alto as just a firewall, it may not help you that much because everybody out there competes to provide a firewall experience.

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

The value I get by attending an RSA Conference is being able to see new up-and-coming software. Some products are new to the market, and others are trying to get their product to market. A lot of times, these products have key features that others don't.

Attending RSAC helps to influence cybersecurity purchases throughout the year because we are able to see a product that we didn't know was available. We learn that there is software that does certain functions that we didn't even know we needed. There are some products at RSAC that may be too expensive, but there are others that we would consider because they are cost-effective and have feature sets that we didn't know about.