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F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
17th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (8th), SSL VPN (5th), Remote Access (10th), Access Management (10th)
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 1.1%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is 11.2%, up from 9.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Ashish Kumar Rai - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers remote access control, good GUI and easy to configure
I'd suggest improved documentation integration directly within the GUI. Right now, finding comprehensive documentation often requires going to external websites like the community portal. In the APM interface itself, they could add direct hyperlinks to relevant online documentation. This would provide easy access to admin guides and other resources when working within the GUI.
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes us part of a bigger security ecosystem with updates taken care of for us, but pricing and support need work
There are definitely a number of things that could be improved. One of them is geographic coverage. China is still an issue because the solution does not operate there properly due to government regulations. I believe Palo Alto is trying pretty hard to get into partnerships with Alibaba and other cloud providers, but they do not have the same compelling offering in China that they have in the rest of the world. Businesses that are operating within China have to be very sure to evaluate the solution before making a buying decision. It is not an issue with Palo Alto, rather it is predominantly the result of government rules, but it's something that Palo Alto needs to work on. There is also room for improvement when it comes to latency in a couple of regions, including India and South America. They might have to increase their presence in those locations and come up with more modern cloud architectures. The third area is that, while Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"We have seen a return on investment from F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager. It provided access at a time when we didn't have it."
"Stickiness is the most valuable feature of the product."
"A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on."
"This is a product that is easy to install and integrate, and it is simple to use."
"I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) to others due to its reliability, and it is perceived as critical to security infrastructure."
"The performance of the solution is valuable."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The product allows us to create customized portals for your users."
"The solution has all its capabilities in a single cloud delivery platform which is great and it provides overall good protection."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it offers stability and scalability while being a very secure product."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is a seamless solution."
"The solution is not very complex and is easy to manage for people who may or may not have knowledge about Palo Alto Networks."
"The setup is relatively straightforward."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Access is its ability to provide enterprise-class security for both Internet and internal application access."
"Panorama provides centralized management capabilities for all our firewalls and locations so that we can manage different data centers through a single device, a very valuable feature. We don't have to log into various devices to oversee them individually."
"Palo Alto Firewall is one of the best firewalls in the world."
 

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"Its pricing could be better."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Integrating identity providers and single sign-on solutions can simplify user authentication and access control."
"The operational deployment is not great."
"F5 BIG-IP APM disconnects when you leave it for long enough, but that is natural for IT solutions to do. That's a little bit frustrating."
"F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) does not have a direction for SaaS."
"Regarding price, I'm not directly involved in purchasing, but our CIO thinks the product is very expensive. He's considering moving from the tool to Citrix NetScaler WAF because it's cheaper, and we already have Citrix for VDI. We got NetScaler almost free as part of our VDI deal. Three years ago, I convinced him to use the solution because it's better, but now, with budget constraints, he may want to switch."
"I'd suggest improved documentation integration directly within the GUI. Right now, finding comprehensive documentation often requires going to external websites like the community portal."
"I have had a lot of issues in the past few months with the agents, which was disappointing."
"In my opinion, the GUI side needs some improvement based on my usage. Sometimes, it doesn't work as efficiently as the CLI side."
"It's not really Prisma's fault, but when you try to create exceptions you don't really have those abilities. You cannot say, on the management platform, "Hey, for these users I want to create these exceptions." That is one thing that I have gotten some complaints about, and we have faced some challenges there."
"I would like the solution to support a different type of authentication. We can't configure a secondary method for our portal."
"The BGP filtering options on Prisma Access should be improved."
"Better integration with the MDM solution would be useful."
"The Cloud Management application has room for improvement. There are a lot of things on the roadmap for that application; things are going to happen soon."
"The Prisma Access could improve in terms of adding more machine learning and AI capabilities to automate tasks such as incident response."
"When it comes to the VPN, it uses the global protect VPN functionality to connect remotely, but it has a feature limitation for assigning multiple IP sub-links to different user groups. It would be much better if we are able to assign the current IP blocks for the sub-links based on the user groups."
"Prisma would be a stronger solution if it could aggregate resources by project or by application. So say we have an application we've developed in AWS and five applications we've developed in Azure. The platform will group it according to those applications, but it's based on the tags we use in Azure, which means I have to rely on development teams to tag resources properly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"Recently, they have simplified the licensing"
"I rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"The tool is a little bit expensive."
"The product is very expensive."
"I would advise choosing your options according to your company's needs. Just go for what you want and do not pay for anything extra in terms of licensing. You need to determine how much bandwidth is required in your company network, and according to that, you should pay for the license. The mobile user license is based on the number of users who are going to use the VPN solution. You need to determine how many mobile users you are going to have in your network, and you should pay according to that. There are no other costs in addition to licensing, but if you go for the consultant services of Palo Alto networks to deliver the solution for you, then you need to pay something extra. That is not a part of licensing."
"Prisma Access is one of the best compared to other products on the market. The cost is favorable, and Palo Alto provides a simple architecture, so I recommend the solution to anyone using a different product. There are no hidden costs besides the license; what you see is what you get."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution, especially when compared to other solutions like Cisco. There are no additional charges apart from the standard licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The price has been good for the ROI during these difficult times for the cruise industry. There are no hidden costs; what the product offers is what you get."
"The pricing is very friendly. It's not confusing to figure out your workload and how much you'd be paying for the solution."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks has flexible licensing models with different categories. It comes with different features which can be removed if not needed. However, its pricing is high."
"The licensing model for this product is complicated and changes all the time, making it very hard for the user to comprehend the configuration."
"The licensing cost is about 18,000 euros."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used it for student and faculty filtering on campus.
What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
In my opinion, the GUI is perfect with the configuration options provided. F5 BIG-IP has given customization options ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchas...
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM ( /categories/application-performance-monitoring-apm-and-observability )) does n...
What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
From my experience, Palo Alto is more expensive compared to solutions like Netskope and Triscale.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
F5 Access Policy Manager
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack
Find out what your peers are saying about F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
849,686 professionals have used our research since 2012.