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Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics [EOL] vs Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention 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

Cisco Secure Cloud Analytic...
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Palo Alto Networks Advanced...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Intrusion Detection and Prevention Software (IDPS) (6th)
 

Featured Reviews

Olivier CHAMBELANT - PeerSpot reviewer
Beneficial cloud deployment
Opening a ticket with support can be difficult but once it is open the support does a good job. They want us to provide a lot of information, such as the order number and when it was bought. It takes a long time, they can improve by having a faster response time.
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced protection enables us to confidently secure against evolving threats
Palo Alto Networks can improve Advanced Threat Prevention by catering to the growing adoption of AI and agentic tooling. The Threat Protection modules should have the necessary intelligence to protect against those types of threats, as AI will be there to do a human job; this is an evolving area. From an Advanced Threat Protection perspective, the technology associated with Palo Alto Networks, such as their sandboxing environment, is quite good. However, Palo Alto needs to focus on how to bring that technology to end users and how easy it is to use, especially in a hybrid environment where users work from various locations. While Palo Alto excels in certain setups, they need to improve the user experience in distributed working conditions.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"When it comes to scalability, there's no size limit. It varies based on licenses and requirements."
"The tool's best feature is its ability to monitor network traffic. It will also inform users whether the traffic generated by a network is legitimate. The tool helps to capture and analyze the network traffic."
"It tells you if there is any communication going to command and control servers, or if there is any traffic that violates your internal policy, or if any data hoarding is happening where data is being dumped from your machine to outside of the environment. It provides all such meaningful reports to help you understand what's happening."
"Monitoring the traffic, making sure you have the visibility."
"The logs in Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud are very good when doing the API integration in the team. It is able to give you important information for the correlations."
"The product helps me to see malware."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is scalable because it is on the cloud."
"The most valuable features are the simplicity, transparency, and overall ease of management."
"The initial setup was straightforward. It's quite easy. Deployment took one to two weeks."
"Most of the features of Palo Alto Threat Prevention are alright. I recommend features like content filtering, IP address, & intelligent firewalls. The reporting feature is very good."
"For those who want a next-gen firewall that's easy to configure and easy to operate, I think you should go for Palo Alto."
"One of the most valuable features is the anti-malware protection."
"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention is the market leader as far as security gateways and endpoint protection. Additionally, the threat database that is used is one of the best."
"We are currently using the URL filtering feature, which is the most popular."
"It effectively prevents malware, ransomware, and other attacks."
 

Cons

"When I used to work on it, I just didn't see anything new happening for about a year and a half. Providing newer data and newer reports constantly would help. There should be more classifications and more interesting data."
"The initial setup is a bit complex in terms of deployment and configuration"
"The product's price is high."
"The initial setup of Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is complex."
"If we migrate these things to an event or send us an email if there is any critical event, I would like to configure these things on the initial launch. Because if a system is compromised, there will be a lot of data movement from one post to another post to the outside. Then, we should also get an alert on email as well. We have since we have integrated these things. But a direct email for critical alerts should be there. So, I would like to enhance the critical event configuration."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud could improve the graphical user interface. It could be a more user-friendly graphical user interface. so that. Not everybody's a cyber security professional, most of the customers that I deal with are not very skilled. The terms that they use in the solution are quite understandable for a normal CIO."
"The product needs to improve its user-friendliness. It is very tricky and you need to study it before using the standard functionalities."
"The price of licenses should be lowered to make it less costly to scale our solution."
"The cost involves the price of the hardware, which is expensive. However, most of the Palo Alto solutions are expensive."
"Palo Alto's maintenance needs to be improved."
"Sometimes when you want to group a set of ports, and communicate with Palo Alto, you cannot group TCP and UDP ports together. This needs to be adjusted."
"While Palo Alto excels in certain setups, they need to improve the user experience in distributed working conditions."
"The documentation needs to be improved. I need better information about how to configure it and what the best practices are."
"Right now we are focusing on email. If Palo Alto can increase the features related to email filtering and the new malware, it would help us protect our systems."
"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve the commercial offing. Other solutions, such as Fortinet provide better commercial features."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The price of Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is expensive."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud is an expensive enterprise solution."
"Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention could improve by having consistent pricing at system levels."
"The cost involves the price of the hardware, which is expensive. However, most of the Palo Alto solutions are expensive."
"It is an expensive solution and I would like to see a drop in price."
"It's not too expensive."
"The pricing has improved with the newer generation of their Firewalls, but the price could always be lower."
"Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention is quite competitive, offering extensive threat detection and prevention capabilities, though it is priced higher than some alternatives."
"There is an initial, expensive investment but the return is good."
"The product’s pricing is expensive for small companies."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
33%
Government
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
University
9%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud?
When it comes to scalability, there's no size limit. It varies based on licenses and requirements.
What needs improvement with Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud?
There are two areas of improvement. Firstly, extend the log retrieval limit to at least three months. For example, there is a limit on the number of log messages that can be received. So, I would l...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud?
We are using Cisco Secure Cloud Analytics, also known as Cisco's WatchCloud, to monitor user activity in the cloud. Specifically, we are looking for users who are uploading or downloading data beyo...
Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?
Arbor would be the best bid, apart from Arbor, Palo Alto and Fortinet have good solutions. As this is an ISP, I would prefer Arbor.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Palo Alto Networks Threat Prevention?
Palo Alto Networks Advanced Threat Prevention requires an add-on license and is considered expensive compared to competitors like Cisco AMP and FortiGate ( /products/fortinet-fortigate-reviews ) fi...
 

Also Known As

Cisco Stealthwatch Cloud, Observable Networks
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Options, Schneider Electric, Washington University in St Louis, Gotcha, Kraft Kennedy, PartnerRe, Sumologic, Veterans United, AFGE, Agraform, Artesys, Dynamic Ideas Financials, Department of Agriculture and Commerce
University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, SkiStar AB, TRI-AD, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
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