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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series pros and cons

Vendor: Palo Alto Networks

4.3 out of 5

64 reviews
100% willing to recommend

694 followers

Pros & Cons summary

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series offers excellent scalability and cloud integration with AWS and Azure. It enhances network traffic visibility, promoting security through advanced threat prevention features like Layer 7 inspection. Zero-trust architecture delivers comprehensive controls. Quick deployment suits growing enterprises. However, users report sluggish navigation, Java issues, and problematic integrations with AWS and third-party firewalls. Configuration management challenges and difficult technical support accessibility add to user concerns.

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 VM-Series provides enhanced visibility and control of network traffic, revealing detailed insights into applications and usage patterns.

The platform offers robust security features including malware and threat protection, contributing to a comprehensive security posture.

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series excels in scalability, allowing seamless adjustments to accommodate growing needs in mediums such as AWS and Azure environments.

The service's centralized management system, Panorama, simplifies security operations by providing a single pane of glass for comprehensive oversight.

Threat prevention features such as WildFire and application-based prevention are highly effective, providing real-time visibility and mitigation of various threats.

CONS

There are limitations when scaling and configuring Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, which could impede cloudy environments or high-demand settings.

Integration with AWS and other third-party vendors is suboptimal, posing compatibility challenges.

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series needs enhancements in multi-region high availability and better dynamic DNS features.

Zero Trust integration and clarity in policy enforcement require significant attention to ensure adequate security postures.

Current licensing and pricing structures are seen as burdensome, and improvements in this area may alleviate costs while enhancing value.

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Pros review quotes

reviewer1267734

Executive Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Sep 21, 2020

The Palo Alto VM-Series is nice because I can move the firewalls easily.

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AW

Sr. Networking Engineer at Emerson

Apr 19, 2023

I like the UI. Most things are accessible from the user interface and it is quite user-friendly. With respect to both VM-based firewalls and physical firewalls, it's easy to create updates.

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SS

Shrijendra Shakya

C.T.O at Sastra Network Solution Inc. Pvt. Ltd.

Nov 9, 2021

With the improved visibility we now have, the traffic is being properly monitored, which means that we are better able to manage it. These are improvements that we saw very quickly.

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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

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Learn what your peers think about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.

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IC

Lead Security at AutoRABIT

Nov 17, 2022

The VM-Series reports how much bandwidth a particular IP is using. You don't need to regularly log into a website, like a Cisco command, to see what kind of ACL it's getting. There isn't an ACL use portal event. You can go there and see how much my ACL has been getting me.

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CA

Christian Amaya

Support Engineer & IT Professional at SISAP

Mar 22, 2018

It is reliable and the support is very good.

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JH

Director of IT at Tavoca Inc

Jan 30, 2024

The most valuable feature is the CLI.

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Technical Lead Infrastructure at a healthcare company with 201-500 employees

Jan 21, 2018

We now know a lot more detail about what our users are doing on the network.

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SB

Network Architect at Correla Ltd.

Feb 21, 2024

In terms of security breaches, the product aids in categorizing and monitoring traffic, allowing for the identification of potentially malicisous or incorrectly formatted applications.

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GA

Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Oct 13, 2020

What I like about the VM-Series is that you can launch them in a very short time.

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Janardhan Reddy

Manager-Information Technology at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

May 2, 2022

Palo Alto’s Panorama centralized management system simplifies our security posture based on our requirements. Instead of manually pulling logs, then generating them into readable formats, it gives us the console in a readable format to view.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 64)

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Cons review quotes

reviewer1267734

Executive Cyber Security Consultant at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Sep 21, 2020

The product needs improvement in their Secure Access Service Edge.

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AW

Sr. Networking Engineer at Emerson

Apr 19, 2023

Recently, they introduced their Prisma Cloud solution. Compared to the previous technologies, like Panorama, which is used for centralized firewall management, or even the individual firewalls, it's a bit challenging to integrate the traditional firewall policies into Prisma Cloud.

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SS

Shrijendra Shakya

C.T.O at Sastra Network Solution Inc. Pvt. Ltd.

Nov 9, 2021

It would be helpful if we had a direct number for the support manager or the supporting engineer. That would be better than having to email every time because there would be less wait.

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Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

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

Learn what your peers think about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2025.

851,604 professionals have used our research since 2012.

IC

Lead Security at AutoRABIT

Nov 17, 2022

There's room for improvement in terms of integration with the load balancer. It isn't like Fortinet, which has a load balancer built into its firewall. It is effortless to integrate within the load balancer-plus-firewall solution.

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CA

Christian Amaya

Support Engineer & IT Professional at SISAP

Mar 22, 2018

From time to time, they have released some content updates that have some issues, maybe twice a year.

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JH

Director of IT at Tavoca Inc

Jan 30, 2024

The web interface is very slow, and it needs to be faster.

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Technical Lead Infrastructure at a healthcare company with 201-500 employees

Jan 21, 2018

The user-friendliness of the UI could be improved.

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SB

Network Architect at Correla Ltd.

Feb 21, 2024

The current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing.

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GA

Senior Network Engineer at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Oct 13, 2020

The one issue that I didn't like is that the SNMP integration with interfaces didn't record the interface counters.

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Janardhan Reddy

Manager-Information Technology at a computer software company with 51-200 employees

May 2, 2022

We feel that the setup was complex. So, we asked the tech team about the setup process. They explained how to deploy it in the right way, which made it very simple.

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Show 10 more reviews (out of 61)

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Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)

Popular Comparisons

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Fortinet FortiGate vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series

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