Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls Reviews

We are a solution provider and this is one of the firewalls that we implement for our clients.

This is a difficult product to manage, so the administrator needs to have a good knowledge of it, otherwise, they will not be able to handle it properly.

The scalability is very good.

We have a small number of clients with this solution in place.

The support is good.

I have experience with multiple firewall vendors and I have seen that products from other vendors have bugs. My feeling is that Palo Alto does not have this problem.

Some of the vendors that I have worked with are Fortinet and Sophos. The setup and management of these products are easy compared to Palo Alto.

Implementing this product can be a little bit difficult. The configuration is difficult compared to other products, so it would be nice if there were videos are other instructions available. It can be very time consuming for the network administrator.

The pricing is very high.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this firewall is to follow the guide or instructions that are available. There are multiple resources and examples of use cases available on the Palo Alto website, and you can directly follow them.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

I deploy this solution for our clients. Firewalls can be used when you want to achieve SD-WAN connectivity. In a client's VPN or site-to-site VPN, it can be used to secure networks locally. If you have an extender or server room, you can secure your IT infrastructure for your servers. The solution can be installed on edge to protect your internal network. If you have services running on AWS or Google Cloud, or Alibaba Cloud, it can be deployed there. Some clients have a hybrid kind of infrastructure. I'm a service delivery engineer and network security lead and we are customers of Palo Alto. 

It's a flexible solution and integrates well with apps and other security tools like SIEM, web applications. They can share their data orchestration. It's robust and fast in terms of architecture and data processing, there aren't any bottlenecks.  

The interface could be improved visually and simplified. It sometimes feels like some of the features are hidden and not easy to find. 

This is a very stable solution. 

In terms of technical support, I've noticed that as long as you have an enterprise license the support is good. 

For a beginner, the initial setup might be somewhat complex because the interface is a bit different, so there's a learning curve. It's not that steep, and once you get it, it's okay. In terms of other solutions, the Palo Alto deployment takes longer than Fortinet, for example, because of the intricacy of the user interface. In a medium size organization, deployment can take three to four days. 

I would recommend this solution. The uptake is mostly with medium and large enterprise, it's strong there. For small to medium size businesses, the preference is usually Fortinet or Sophos. It's really about what suits the client. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

We primarily use this product to protect our network.

The most valuable feature is the application firewall.

The GUI is user-friendly.

The way that the roles are made, specifically with how you specify the path, could be simpler.

I have been working with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls for one year.

We used the product on a daily basis and have had no critical issues so far.

We have hundreds of users in the company and have not tried scaling it.

With regards to support, they have a lot of things to improve.

We also use Check Point as a firewall. Both have their advantages but for my part, Palo Alto is better because of the way it handles applications. Check Point is better if you are only using ports and TCP/IP.

The initial setup is of medium difficulty. It is not simple yet not complex.

We implement in-house with some assistance from the vendor. It took a few hours to deploy.

Palo Alto is more affordable than some competing products, such as Check Point.

In summary, this is a good product and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We use this product as our perimeter firewall.

We have a lot of confidence in this solution.

The management options are good.

There are some options available in other firewall products that are not supported, so there is room for improvement in that regard.

Technical support could be faster.

The cost of this firewall could be cheaper.

We have been using the Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall for the past five years.

This is a stable product.

This next-generation firewall solution is scalable. We have more than 500 users and we plan to continue using it.

We have had experience with technical support and it is good, although they could be faster.

Our previous firewall did not have the next-generation capability.

The initial setup is straightforward. A typical installation takes one or two days.

We deployed this product on our own and one person is suitable for the deployment.

This is an expensive product and there is a subscription cost.

This is a good product and I recommend it.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

We were mainly using it because we had two ISP links, so it was a kind of gateway device. Whenever a link went down, the firewall used to automatically switch over to the secondary link so that the internet connectivity is kind of highly available.

It worked fine normally.

The VPN connectors should be better. We had some challenges in terms of the VPN with Palo Alto Networks NG Firewall, and that's one of the main reasons why we moved to Sophos.

Its load handling can also be improved. There were challenges when traffic was high. During peak business hours, it did not function very well. There was a lot of slowness, and the users used to complain, especially when they were connecting from outside. We even reported this to the support team.

Their support should also be improved. Technical support was a bit of a concern while using this solution. We didn't get very good support from the Palo Alto team.

I have been using this solution for almost two to three years.

It was fine normally, but during peak business hours, it used to have challenges. We faced this issue at least two to three times a month.

It is not very scalable. We had around 100 users. We had around ten people in our IT team.

Support was a bit of a concern while using this solution. The support that we received was not too great, which caused a lot of issues. They were not very customer friendly.

This was the first firewall that we used. 

I didn't do the installation.

I would not recommend this solution. I am sure they will come up with better models to overcome some of the challenges that we faced, but I would definitely not recommend this particular model.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls a six out of ten.

We are a solution provider and one of the Palo Alto products that we implement for our clients is the Next-Generation Firewall. It is used to protect your workflows in cloud environments, be it Azure, AWS, or Google. It can also protect your applications' databases that are on-premises.

This firewall will scan the network for vulnerabilities and malware.

It can prevent unauthorized access to the network.

This solution has a DLP function.

They are regularly releasing new versions that include more integration with third-party services. Examples of services that have already been integrated are Splunk and two-factor authentication.

Having a better pricing model would make this product more competitive, and more affordable for our customers.

We have been dealing with next-generation firewalls from Palo Alto for more than five years.

So far, this solution has been stable.

The product is scalable and it can be integrated with third-party solutions.

We have many clients who are using this firewall.

The technical support from Palo Alto is good.

In terms of firewalls, we use Palo Alto, Cisco, and Fortinet FortiGate. 

The next-generation firewall can be installed either on-premises or in a cloud-based deployment.

The NG firewall is an expensive solution.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.

We are a system and development company, and we sell this solution and many other solutions to our customers. 

We work on all the models, not a specific one. The model depends on the sizing. We also consider future expansion of a customer's environment for deploying a model.

In general, its performance and ease of use are the most valuable. Its performance is good, stable, and reliable. The user interface is friendly and easy to use. Customers find it easy to work with and easy to learn.

They can work on the price. They are a little bit expensive, and not all customers are able to afford this solution. Taking into consideration that there is huge competition in the market and there are multiple firewall companies that are much cheaper than them and offer almost the same features, it would be good to improve the price.

I have been using this solution for three to four years.

It is stable.

It is scalable. They offer multiple platforms, such as hardware appliances as well as virtual appliances. You can deploy as many virtual appliances as you want. Palo Alto supports the latest technologies, such as micro-segmentation, and NSX integration with Nutanix Acropolis Hypervisor. They offer multiple options to cover almost every deployment scenario and architecture for most of the customers.

I don't deal with the technical support team because I am a presales person. Our technical support team handles the tickets and open tickets for support.

The initial setup is not that easy. Deployment duration depends on the complexity of the solution, that is, how many firewalls will be installed, and are there any sorts of integrations or any other solution. It also depends if it is just a single box deployment or there is an extra box or two boxes. It might take one week to two weeks depending on the environment, the complexity of the data center, and the complexity of the integration with other technologies. It may take one month or more if the implementation is huge, and there are multiple boxes to be implemented and to be integrated with other solutions.

It is a little bit expensive.

I would recommend this solution based on a customer's requirements. I sell solutions from a lot of firewall vendors. I have the flexibility to recommend based on the budget of a project. I would recommend Palo Alto or any other vendor if the environment and all the conditions are available and suitable for that deployment. A lot of times, we make POC or proof of concepts to show the customer the value of the products and how to deal with them to convince them to buy it.

I would rate Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls an eight out of ten.

I'm a network security engineer and we are platinum partners with Palo Alto. 

Initially, there were no application controls offered in the legacy firewall. Now you can log each and every application. It provides valuable control and is the main feature in addition to the security features they're currently offering. All the firewalls - Fortinet, Cisco, Palo Alto -  provide complete visibility and control over your network which you didn't previously have. Now you have user ID and you can implement URL filtering as well, there is control over your network. End user logging is far better with Palo Alto than Fortinet or Cisco, and it helps you to troubleshoot. I'd rate Palo Alto on top. It's comfortable and that's my experience. Cisco and Fortinet provide good services, but Palo Alto offers a very good product.

There will always be room for improvement. On a daily basis you get patches for everything. They build new features, apply new technologies and new applications which need to be integrated and with that you get bugs. There are always issues, whether it's hardware or software. 

I've been using this solution for five years. 

The product is generally stable but with each new update you need to get the OS bug fix. Any security device has a vulnerability which a hacker can exploit and you have to keep on patching.

I work on the system integrator side and work with multiple customers, and this is a scalable solution. 

The support level is good, but it depends on the region you're working from. In some countries, the support flexibility is very good. For others, you have different strategies. I'm in Pakistan and Palo Alto has a different strategy here in that they don't directly provide support. You have to add another vendor in between and open a case with them and if they can't resolve your query they activate to Palo Alto. In some countries, Palo Alto directly provides support and in others they can't be contacted directly. In a couple of scenarios, we got involved with an R&D team and told them there was a bug for our end users. Palo Alto escalated that case to an R&D team and they got it fixed in the following patches.

The initial setup is a very smooth process integrated with initial configuration. It's very easy. 

You could say that the cost is higher for Palo Alto, but they are a better product compared to the other principals. 

I work with Fortinet as well as Palo Alto. Palo Alto has very extensive logging that Fortinet doesn't offer. To get that with Fortinet you need to purchase FortiAnalyzer for reporting. The logging is so extensive in Palo Alto that you can generate a report and get an analysis on the same firewall. You don't need to procure anything else. The documentation of both Fortinet and Palo Alto is up to standard. They both have very extensive documentation for their products. Both of them offer the same level of knowledge base for their customers and are up to the mark. In terms of support, Fortinet and Cisco allow you to directly open a case and get an engineer on the line. Cisco follows the same model. I'm unable to do that with Palo Alto from Pakistan. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.