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AWS Firewall Manager vs Palo Alto Networks Panorama comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

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

AWS Firewall Manager
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
6th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
93
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of AWS Firewall Manager is 3.4%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 8.2%, up from 7.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Palo Alto Networks Panorama8.2%
AWS Firewall Manager3.4%
Other88.4%
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Venda E - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Option Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Centralized security policies have streamlined audits and ensure consistent protection by default
One area for improvement is the reporting and customization option. The compliance reports are helpful, but having more granular insights or export options would make it even easier to use during audits. Also, support for more third-party integration could improve flexibility. Another improvement I need to see is a smoother setup experience. Some of the initial configuration steps, especially around the organization and permissions, can feel complex. A more guided setup or clear UI explanation would make it easier for teams to adopt quickly. One more improvement would be better alerting options. Right now, we mostly rely on AWS Security Hub or CloudWatch for detailed alerts. Having more built-in, real-time notification directly from AWS Firewall Manager would make it easier to monitor policy violations without extra setup.
Richard Dombo - PeerSpot reviewer
Application Support Administrator at Meridian Port Services
Monitoring and managing multiple firewalls has become more efficient through centralized oversight and reliable logging
I would say that while Palo Alto Networks Panorama reporting capability is functional, it is not really intuitive. The presentation is not really as advanced as what an advanced solution would have provided. I would like to improve the dashboards on Palo Alto Networks Panorama, especially because I work in an environment where my managers are not really that technical. They do a great job leading us, but they do not have a technical background. If the dashboard could be improved to suit more executive use cases when it comes to reporting, that would be excellent. It is basic as far as I am concerned, and from an executive standpoint, it is not really that good. I would rate Palo Alto Networks Panorama as a product nine or 9.5 out of ten because there is always room for improvement, especially on the dashboard. I think if they could improve the dashboard, I would give them ten out of ten because from a technical standpoint, the dashboard is good, but at an executive level, it is not really that good. I usually struggle when doing presentations to my bosses because the dashboard and reporting from Palo Alto Networks Panorama are not as polished as they could be.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We work with compliance monitoring in the product, which is helpful for identifying framework-based misconfigurations, as it can tell you where to deploy firewall policies based on the frameworks."
"The product is highly reliable."
"Once this solution is set up, we hardly have to touch it."
"The most valuable feature is scaling, which allows you to deploy one configuration and scan and deploy it across the network. The automated policy application feature also streamlines security operations."
"The most valuable feature is the centrally managed rule."
"After implementing AWS Firewall Manager, we reduced our manual security configuration effort by around sixty to seventy percent as the policies are now centralized, managed, and automatically enforced."
"The interface is intuitive and it is easy for the users."
"Also, the strength of the community is invaluable."
"Everything about the reporting and everything about Palo Alto Networks Panorama is good."
"Palo Alto is very user-friendly."
"It has shared profiles for all gateways. If I do not have Panorama, I need to create a separate profile for each and every gateway by logging into that particular gateway, but with Panorama, I can create a shared profile and just push it down to each and every gateway connected to it."
"The solution is easy to use."
"It allows administrators to manage all firewalls from a single interface, reducing the time and effort required for configuration."
"One valuable feature is centralized management. We are able to manage it centrally for two to three remote offices, our head office and our data centers. So, it is very simple to manage."
"It is extremely flexible and scalable."
"I like the quality of this product, and it performs. It's the best solution in the IT business."
 

Cons

"I would like to see AWS add some UTM features to the firewall. It would also be great if AWS Firewall had native IPS/IDS. They have the separate IPS/IDS, GuardDuty."
"For AWS WAF, we have seen cases where it allowed suspicious HTTPS headers even if they carried malicious payloads."
"The system should be more customizable."
"It needs to be more employee-friendly, and the security management could be more efficient."
"AWS Firewall Manager should be open to manage other third-party appliances as well."
"The areas of improvement are definitely platform resiliency, as we have seen outages on the AWS backbone, and whenever there is an outage on the AWS backbone, it impacts all the services hosted on that region, so we expect regional resiliency."
"This solution is suitable for a small-scale enterprise and may not scale up to a very high volume of traffic or a large number of servers."
"Enabling and configuring the logging is not that straightforward."
"It would be beneficial to improve the capabilities of Panorama to handle logs more efficiently, potentially reducing the need for additional local collectors. Adding more predefined dashboards as features would enhance the monitoring and reporting capabilities."
"Its scalability can be improved. It is too expensive to scale it in the way Palo Alto wants us to scale. Scalability is one of the main reasons why our customer is looking for alternatives. It is too expensive to scale. Its redundancy also requires improvement, but it seems that in the latest version, redundancy is improved, and you can have more than two devices in an HA pair. So, they are heading in that direction. It would be good if they combine their dynamic list functionality in a much better way with Panorama and include it as out-of-the-box functionality. Palo Alto supports the dynamic list functionality for some basic threats, but there is a lot of scope for improvement."
"Price is probably one of the biggest things that we struggle with, specifically with Palo, and that's across their whole portfolio."
"The customer support needs to be better. Sometimes we need to wait for hours before getting someone from the product team or someone from the Palo Alto customer support to get on a call if we are facing some issue."
"Sometimes technical support is slow to respond."
"The licensing costs are quite high."
"The product does need a bit of configuration. It's not quite ready to go out of the box."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has some bugs that could be fixed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"From what I've heard from my colleagues, it appears that the pricing is competitive, which influenced our decision to choose this option."
"The AWS Firewall Manager is a little on the costly side."
"The licensing is on a pay-as-you-go basis and we are billed monthly."
"It is a cost-efficient product."
"The pricing model is reasonable for this class of solutions."
"Pricing is high compared to other vendors in the same space. Licensing is also fairly high for different functions to be added on."
"The licensing is not cheap. There are always hidden costs. You have support costs, or maybe you need to buy more optics on how the solution fits into the rest of your environment. It is possible some of the rest of your environment will need to change too."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is high. There is a pay-per-use model."
"Initially, Palo Alto looks expensive, but if you dig deeper then you will find that it is very comparable, or even cheaper than other solutions."
"My company pays for the licensing cost of Palo Alto Networks Panorama yearly, and it's all-inclusive, so there's no need to pay extra for some features."
"Palo Alto is expensive and there are many cheaper firewalls, but they do not work as well."
"Sometimes the company prefers to give a license to test the product in our environment before we go to the customer. But the customer should buy his own license, and that's the system here. The system is different between one country and another. Some countries say that the IT solutions provider should provide the license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
11%
University
7%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business34
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise46
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for AWS Firewall Manager?
The pricing is reasonable and follows a pay-as-you-go model, which makes it cost-effective for scaling the environment. There is no significant setup cost since the native AWS services and licensin...
What needs improvement with AWS Firewall Manager?
AWS Firewall Manager could be improved with more granular policy customization for better visibility through enhanced dashboards and reporting. Simplifying the initial setup and providing clearer d...
What is your primary use case for AWS Firewall Manager?
My primary use case for AWS Firewall Manager is to centrally manage and enforce security policies across the multiple AWS accounts and resources within our organization. It helps to streamline the ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
We did not purchase Palo Alto Networks Panorama through the Azure Marketplace. We purchased it directly through Palo Alto.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
From a monitoring perspective, if we could improve on data retention and keep it for quite a long time, such as 90 days of data retention, that would be good for us to manage our CPU usage, as we c...
What is your primary use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
My main use case for Palo Alto Networks Panorama is to manage our firewalls. We have around 450 firewalls, and we manage them through Panorama. Configuration entry is the primary focus of our use.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Firewall Manager vs. Palo Alto Networks Panorama and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
896,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.