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NetWitness Platform vs Palo Alto Networks VM-Series 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

NetWitness Platform
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
36
Ranking in other categories
Log Management (35th), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) (32nd)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
66
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (12th), Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

NetWitness Platform and Palo Alto Networks VM-Series aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. NetWitness Platform is designed for Log Management and holds a mindshare of 0.7%, up 0.3% compared to last year.
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, on the other hand, focuses on Firewalls, holds 1.5% mindshare, up 0.7% since last year.
Log Management Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
NetWitness Platform0.7%
Wazuh8.3%
Splunk Enterprise Security6.9%
Other84.1%
Log Management
Firewalls Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Palo Alto Networks VM-Series1.5%
Fortinet FortiGate18.7%
OPNsense10.5%
Other69.3%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

MOTASHIM Al Razi - PeerSpot reviewer
CISO at One Bank Limited
It is a stable solution, but they should make the user interface easier to understand
The solution's initial setup takes work. We have to organize multiple paths and many features. The deployment process takes less than a week. But it takes a month to complete if we want to make the solution smarter by integrating it with various devices. I rate the process as a six out of ten.
AV
Cyber security consultant at L&T Technology Services
Enhance cybersecurity for large enterprises using advanced threat management
An improvement could be the integration of security intelligence with Palo Alto cloud via APIs. This would allow IOCs, domains, and hash values to be automatically entered, reducing manual entry. Integration with CSIRT across all use levels would make it easier for administrators to stay updated on the blocked entities without manual intervention.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Alerting Module: It provides real-time event processing language on all the logs/packets stream for advanced alerting, i.e., using SQL LIKE statements."
"Setting up NetWitness is straightforward. There are multiple connectors, including standard and specialized connectors. One purpose of the connectors is the enhanced capability integrate the custom applications. NetWitness comes with E6 appliances and application images that we use for the initial configurations and for the OS stack information. From there, you can consider the correlation rules, integrate the different log sources, and easily create correlation rules and backlog reports."
"The most valuable features are the packet decoder, log decoder, and concentrator."
"It's fully scalable. There is no limit. Of course, the license limits per day the number of terabytes. In my opinion, it's very flexible."
"The most valuable features are the threat prediction and network forensics."
"It gives the capability for the incident response team to correlate logs to identify any kind of problem like malware and incidents in a general sense, both for logs and packets."
"The most valuable features are the packet inspection and the automated incident response."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to write rules and triggers for network communication, and then being able to investigate based on that."
"In terms of security breaches, the product aids in categorizing and monitoring traffic, allowing for the identification of potentially malicisous or incorrectly formatted applications."
"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."
"We now know a lot more detail about what our users are doing on the network."
"It is an easy-to-scale product."
"Palo Alto is easy to use. The UI is very easy to understand and does not require any certification or highly skilled technician to handle the firewall. It is very user-friendly and straightforward out of the box."
"The most valuable features are web control and IPS/IDS."
"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."
"Using Palo Alto Networks Panorama, we were able to deploy a single point of management and visualization of the firewall infrastructure in cloud, on-premise and integrated with Azure to automate scale up. Its security features, i.e. anti-malware, threat prevention, URL Filtering, VPN, and antivirus are the most valuable. The ID-User integrated with AD and 2FA features are also very useful to provide secure access to servers and some users in the company. "
 

Cons

"It is not so easy to customize this product."
"The threat detection capability and centralizing and upgrading capability need to be improved. The threat alert capability needs to be improved as well because there is some lag time at present. They need to work on their database search too."
"The system looks like it is a mix of a bunch of different systems, and nothing looked like it was quite together."
"Sometimes, it gives me static when integrating Windows-based systems. It should produce a precise log of sorts as to where the problem is. For example, a few days ago because of the McAfee application firewall, I couldn't get access to the particular Windows machine. So, my team and I had to figure out by ourselves that there was a virus responsible for the obstacle. This solution should trigger a meaningful log or message indicating the reason the user or implementer can't get into the machine."
"The multi-tenant capabilities are lagging compared to IBM QRadar."
"The system architecture is complex and sometimes it’s hard to troubleshoot potential problems."
"The initial setup is complex. There are other solutions that are easier to implement."
"RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets can improve the threat level aspect, it is lacking compared to other solutions. Whenever any hacking activity or any other threat factor occurred they used to provide the coverages very fast when comparing RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets. I heard the other three solutions, from a discussion with my team members who had experience in other solutions, they used to say that. Whenever any issues happened across the globe RSA NetWitness Logs and Packets are a little bit slow improving those detection mechanisms."
"I would like to have automatic daily reporting, such as how many users have connected via SSL VPN."
"The product could provide protection above Layer 3, which gets into the application layer and provides better visibility into those aspects of application security."
"It is not very easy to scale up the solution."
"The interface is all Java-based. I would prefer an HTML5 interface."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is a complex product to work with."
"There are some delays that I have observed when my company communicates with Palo Alto's support engineers."
"The utilization monitoring and GUI have room for improvement."
"There could be dynamic DNS features similar to Fortinet in the product."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is cheap."
"In comparison to other SIEM solutions such as Splunk, NetWitness is less costly."
"The tool is very expensive, so I rate the pricing a ten out of ten. The solution has an annual subscription."
"The new pricing and licensing mechanisms are fair. I would advise always to get the full solution (i.e., not only Logs)."
"The NetWitness Platform may be affordable only for enterprise-level customers, as it may not be within the budget of small and medium-sized businesses."
"It provides tools to assist in selecting the appropriate license and usage scenarios."
"The licenses are good but the cost is very expensive."
"It’s cheaper to run virtual machines in a VMware environment."
"When you have a client compare box against box, a lot of times Palo Alto is a bit more expensive, but its network firewalls have a very rich ratio."
"This is not the cheapest firewall but it's not the most expensive of the options on the market."
"AWS is available as a AMI that you can purchase from the AWS Marketplace. Therefore, you need to purchase the licensing, since it is per AMI. Then, you deploy it on a regular EC2. Then, for on-premise, you can use both Palo Alto's software and hardware."
"Regarding pricing, I initially downloaded the product for feature comparison purposes, not specifically due to pricing concerns. However, the current licensing model can be a sore point as we're paying for features we're not fully utilizing. Simplifying the pricing structure would be beneficial, especially given the duplication of services in some cases, leading to increased costs."
"For licensing, It depends how they want to use the firewall. The firewall can be used only for IPS purposes. If you only want that firewall IPSs, you will only need a license that is called threat prevention. That license, threat prevention, includes vulnerabilities, antivirus signatures and one additional measure (that I can't remember), but it includes three measures and security updates."
"Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is notably cheaper than other firewall vendors, except Fortigate."
"Palo Alto can be as much as two times the price of competing products that have twice the capabilities."
"​The licensing is pretty much like everyone else."
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Comparison Review

VS
Manager, Enterprise Risk Consulting at a tech company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Feb 26, 2015
HP ArcSight vs. IBM QRadar vs. ​McAfee Nitro vs. Splunk vs. RSA Security vs. LogRhythm
We at Infosecnirvana.com have done several posts on SIEM. After the Dummies Guide on SIEM, we are following it up with a SIEM Product Comparison – 101 deck. So, here it is for your viewing pleasure. Let me know what you think by posting your comments below. The key products compared here are…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Performing Arts
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
University
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise20
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise17
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about NetWitness Platform?
The product's initial setup phase was not at all difficult.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for NetWitness Platform?
The pricing is comparable to others, and I consider the cost to be intermediate. Specific cost details are unknown to me.
What needs improvement with NetWitness Platform?
There is currently no need for improvement in the SIEM ( /categories/security-information-and-event-management-siem ), though there could be potential enhancements by integrating with AI.
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it kind of depends what you value most. PA is good at app control, web filtering a...
How does Azure Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks VM Series?
Both products are very stable and easily scalable. The setup of Azure Firewall is easy and very user-friendly and the overall cost is reasonable. Azure Firewall offers a solid threat awareness, can...
 

Also Known As

RSA Security Analytics
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Los Angeles World Airports, Reply
Warren Rogers Associates
Find out what your peers are saying about NetWitness Platform vs. Palo Alto Networks VM-Series and other solutions. Updated: September 2022.
881,928 professionals have used our research since 2012.