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Palo Alto Networks PA-Series pros and cons

Vendor: Palo Alto Networks

4.3 out of 5

37 reviews
100% willing to recommend

Pros & Cons summary

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series excels with LDAP integration for identity-based access, a three-layer architecture for quick deployment, and App-ID for security enhancement. Logging, Cortex integration, and IoT protection add value, yet licensing is costly. SD-WAN underperforms, support requires improvement, and continuous updates may affect stability. Lacking standalone IDS/IPS and email security, pricing is high and rigid, affecting buyer consideration.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series excels in integrating LDAP for fetching user identities, enabling access based on identity.

Its three-layer architecture and scalability allow quick deployment and less downtime.

Application-based policy enforcement and App-ID feature enable accurate protocol identification, enhancing security.

Comprehensive logging and monitoring make troubleshooting easy, offering robust threat prevention with machine learning and advanced threat detection.

Integration with Cortex and other Palo products, including Global protector VPN, offers seamless security and IoT protection.

CONS

Licenses are considered too costly compared to competitors and should come with bundled options.

Technical support needs improvement as it can be slow and requires multiple escalations.

The SD-WAN feature is deemed inferior to FortiGate, and standalone IDS/IPS or email security solutions are lacking.

Continuous updates might cause users to feel uncertain about the stability of the product.

The pricing and licensing models require attention as they are considered expensive and inflexible.

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Pros review quotes

Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Mar 18, 2026

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is basically integrated with LDAP to fetch the identity of the users and we provide access based on the identity.

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Project Engineer at IT Solution

Mar 16, 2026

With the help of Palo Alto Networks PA-Series, we are saving money, time, and multiple other resources.

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Global Network Engineering Technical Lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Oct 21, 2025

Integrated threat intelligence has empowered my organization to adapt to threats by taking a lot of the burden off us; there's just no way we would see the same breadth of knowledge that a vendor or manufacturer would have.

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Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Free Report: Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Palo Alto Networks PA-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.

902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Nazish Sameer Shaikh

Senior Network Security Engineer at UNITE HERE HEALTH

May 10, 2026

Palo Alto Networks PA-Series is definitely worth the investment a company is paying to use it.

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Senior Network Engineer at Just In Time Group (Sri Lanka)

Apr 26, 2024

Palo Alto has predefined applications that you can control at the application level.

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AK

Asisstant Manager at Yaskawa America, Inc

Jun 20, 2025

The best features of the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series firewall include Global protector VPN workings, and content filtering is easy to manage and operate.

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Operations Specialist - MX Operations at Bank Alfalah Limited

Dec 17, 2024

It functions very well in data centers.

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IT Senior Network Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 27, 2024

When I compare the tool with other firewalls, it’s the most powerful. It's the most powerful security engine. All the traffic going to the Internet passes through it as the first layer of protection. Because of its good performance, we also use it for decryption.

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GC

Gopinath Chennupati

Senior Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 25, 2023

A valuable feature that we can consider is the deployment time, which is significantly reduced, almost 90% faster compared to other solutions. This leads to quicker deployment and less downtime.

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reviewer2279679

Senior Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 19, 2023

It has its own logging system. You can go to monitoring and check the logs to see if a connection is getting blocked. You can use multiple types of logs to check if a file or a port is getting blocked or if there are any TCP resets from the source or destination. It's easy to troubleshoot with the monitoring and logging it provides.

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Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Cons review quotes

Cloud Network Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Mar 18, 2026

Licenses are too costly. As I compare with Check Point or other OEM, the licenses are too much more costly and they should work on bundled licenses.

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Project Engineer at IT Solution

Mar 16, 2026

Because they have a separate license for VPNs and do not provide any type of quick support, which is why I have rated it nine instead of a perfect score.

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Global Network Engineering Technical Lead at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees

Oct 21, 2025

However, they are expensive and there might be some sticker shock if you just looked at them for the price.

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Palo Alto Networks PA-Series

Free Report: Palo Alto Networks PA-Series Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Palo Alto Networks PA-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.

902,417 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Nazish Sameer Shaikh

Senior Network Security Engineer at UNITE HERE HEALTH

May 10, 2026

There is room for improvement in Palo Alto Networks PA-Series in the areas where they can minimize applications and implement features that can be useful for us.

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Senior Network Engineer at Just In Time Group (Sri Lanka)

Apr 26, 2024

Palo Alto can improve the web application firewall (WAF) feature at layer 7.

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AK

Asisstant Manager at Yaskawa America, Inc

Jun 20, 2025

There are no AI integrations in the Palo Alto Networks PA-Series firewall. I would like to see something in the future, but as of now, it is not required.

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Operations Specialist - MX Operations at Bank Alfalah Limited

Dec 17, 2024

I experienced some problems with AWS cloud parameters connected to Palo Alto firewall.

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IT Senior Network Security Engineer at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees

Mar 27, 2024

I had opened a case before with the tool because I could not create a wildcard for the security address. We can create wildcards for security addresses in Fortinet, but this feature doesn't exist in the product.

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GC

Gopinath Chennupati

Senior Network Security Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Oct 25, 2023

I have found that the tool works well for me, but there are areas where security testing and protection could be improved, especially in virtual or cloud environments. However, in this project, once we deployed it, we haven't encountered any issues. The cost is currently manageable, but as we migrate fully into the cloud, additional features like capacity upgrading and improvements to hardware resources will be necessary, especially since our equipment consists of older generation switches and routers. So, I'm looking for additional capabilities in these areas.

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reviewer2279679

Senior Network Engineer at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees

Sep 19, 2023

There seem to be some issues with TAC (Technical Assistance Center) or Palo Alto support. Anytime you open a case, a level one engineer joins, and then you have to escalate it to level two or three. The support system has changed in the past few years, and that's something they need to look into.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 36)

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