We use Prisma Cloud for cloud security management. We use the CSPM and compute modules.
Lead Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
Helps to improve remediation time, visibility, and control
Pros and Cons
- "I like the scanning features provided by Prisma Cloud, including the image scan and source scan."
- "It provides all the cloud details but is not entirely linked to the compute model."
What is our primary use case?
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi and hybrid cloud environments, which is moderately essential to our organization.
The security automation capabilities help remediate vulnerabilities, which correlate to cost savings.
After a few months, the benefits of Prisma Cloud became apparent. We have begun integrating the Prisma Cloud alert or inventory module into the computing environment. This is a positive development as it enhances tool interoperability and consolidates a significant amount of previously inaccessible data.
Prisma Cloud can secure 60 to 70 percent of the entire Cloud-native development life cycle.
Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control we need regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environment becomes. This improves our compliance posture.
Prisma Cloud provides 70 percent of coverage in a single tool to protect our cloud resources and applications.
It has helped save our organization around 20 percent, protecting our cloud resources and applications.
Prisma Cloud compliance monitoring helps us improve our overall compliance posture.
What is most valuable?
Prisma Cloud's most valuable features are its ability to detect vulnerabilities as they occur and its CSPM function, which provides a complete inventory of assets.
I like the scanning features provided by Prisma Cloud, including the image scan and source scan.
What needs improvement?
Prisma Cloud needs to improve its reporting. If they report a Go vulnerability and claim that Prisma Defender hasn't released a patch, it won't help us. However, if they report that Prisma Defender has released a patch, that is beneficial. Reporting the Go vulnerability within Defender is ineffective because I cannot directly fix a Go vulnerability.
The integration with other tools can be improved. It provides all the cloud details but is not entirely linked to the compute model.
There needs to be more transparent communication when they will have downtime.
Buyer's Guide
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
July 2025

Learn what your peers think about Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.
863,641 professionals have used our research since 2012.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud for over two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Prisma Cloud nine out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud five out of ten because it is dependent on vendor resources rather than its own. For example, image scanning is entirely reliant on us.
How are customer service and support?
The technical team requires a lot of information for every ticket we submit, and if there is ever an out-of-the-box issue, they don't respond to us or take a long time to respond.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I previously used AWS tools and Tenable products, but we switched to Prisma Cloud because of its real-time vulnerability identification.
How was the initial setup?
Initial deployment is straightforward and takes one to two hours when all required information is available. However, if complete requirements are missing, manual deployment of all agents is necessary, which is a significantly time-consuming process.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Prisma Cloud is affordable.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud eight out of ten.
We have over 100 users.
Our environment is complex. Prisma Cloud is deployed across multiple locations using many tools.
Prisma Cloud requires a lot of maintenance for upgrades and Defender.
I would recommend Prisma Cloud to others. The scanning and runtime are one step ahead of the competition.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner

Works at a comms service provider with 1-10 employees
It provides a lot of vulnerability data, some of which is unreliable
Pros and Cons
- "One feature we like is the amount of data Prisma gives us. Some infrastructure and platform vulnerabilities that in the cloud are hard to detect, and we were unaware of some of these. It's critical to shed light on these. For example, you create virtual machines and forget about them, but when you revisit them, some vulnerabilities may be detected."
- "Prisma could improve the data quality. One challenge is that when an application is deployed on multiple virtual machines, we get an alert for each machine, but the biggest challenge is container flapping. When containers go up and down, we get 100 alerts on one day, but it reports 20 the next day. The numbers keep changing, and the app owners tell us, "You reported a hundred vulnerabilities from my app, and today, you report 20. I haven't made any changes in production, so is your data correct or not?""
What is our primary use case?
We have a console set up in Prisma that scans all the cloud environments and collects data about platform, infrastructure, and app vulnerabilities.
How has it helped my organization?
We are responsible for app vulnerabilities, and 90 percent of the vulnerabilities were detected by other products before Prisma scans. Other scanners also do some of the same things. Prisma's ability to consolidate and identify the uniqueness of the vulnerability is a huge help. Based on the different scans, we can determine duplicate vulnerabilities.
Prisma provides visibility regardless of how complex or distributed my cloud environment becomes. It adds value, especially from the infrastructure and platform side. From an application perspective, there were many other challenges.
I wouldn't say we can protect everything with Prisma. It identifies the issue but doesn't resolve it. Protection is something else that we have to do in the cloud environment.
We use Prisma to scan for vulnerabilities and place them in a centralized repository where they are assigned a severity. Based on that severity, App Runner will get time to fix it after something is already in production.
What is most valuable?
One feature we like is the amount of data Prisma gives us. Some infrastructure and platform vulnerabilities in the cloud are hard to detect, and we were unaware of some of these. It's critical to shed light on these. For example, you create virtual machines and forget about them, but when you revisit them, some vulnerabilities may be detected.
Prisma allows us to adopt a preventative approach. We can scan some containers before they go into cloud production. The only caveat is identifying the cloud environment in a production or non-production environment.
What needs improvement?
Prisma could improve the data quality. One challenge is that when an application is deployed on multiple virtual machines, we get an alert for each machine, but the biggest challenge is container flapping. When containers go up and down, we get 100 alerts on one day, but it reports 20 the next day. The numbers keep changing, and the app owners tell us, "You reported a hundred vulnerabilities from my app, and today, you report 20. I haven't made any changes in production, is your data correct or not?"
Containers can go up and down, so it can't tell whether the container is down for good or if it was only down at the time of the scan. That's one of the biggest issues we had. The second is data deduplication because we get vulnerabilities from multiple sources through Prisma scans. A vulnerability is reported by Prisma scan and software composition analysis, SAS, DAST, or BLAST scans. You've got all these different scans reporting the same vulnerability.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have used Prisma Cloud for a year and a half.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Often, we don't get the data for a particular console because it's down. While we're working to fix the issue, we get the previous data and all the other stuff.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
At my company, we have many resources, and I haven't had any issues with vulnerability. Prisma can scale vertically or horizontally very well.
What was our ROI?
I can't say whether Prisma has saved us money because that's not the goal. The objective of Prisma is to identify incidents inside the company. Reputation and data security are the two most important things to a financial institution. We spend money to prevent improper data usage or vulnerability exploitation. I don't know whether it can save money, but it protects our data.
What other advice do I have?
I rate Prisma Cloud seven out of 10. It does do a lot of things, but the data reliability and other issues make our lives more difficult. It presents more challenges than just getting the data and porting over.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Buyer's Guide
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks
July 2025

Learn what your peers think about Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: July 2025.
863,641 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Technical Lead at a consultancy with 11-50 employees
Provides visibility, runtime protection, and integration with the entire lifecycle
Pros and Cons
- "The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud for our clients is CSPM, as it helps clients gain visibility into all the assets with their cloud providers."
- "I would rate Prisma Cloud a ten out of ten."
- "The data security model needs improvement due to integration issues with certain features and cloud providers. With Palo Alto now utilizing a tool from an Israeli startup in Prisma Cloud, the integration is slow, and some features are blocked or not supported."
- "The data security model needs improvement due to integration issues with certain features and cloud providers."
What is our primary use case?
I was working with a partner of Palo Alto Networks until around two months ago. I mainly worked with Prisma Cloud in the delivery line of products for projects for clients. For example, we deployed the tool for lifecycle protection for a client in Colombia.
I worked with Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM), cloud workload protection, and the new data security module. About two years ago, for a banking client, we inserted the cloud-native firewall into Prisma Cloud.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud supports the five major CSPs or Cloud Service Providers. Specifically, in the runtime protection mode, you can protect any workload. They are changing their approach from resource-based to application-based. Prisma Cloud now has the intelligence to understand the context and the relationship between resources and groups.
I worked with the automation model, specifically on the features of app security, to prevent any issues from being deployed via infrastructure as code into the cloud environments. The auto-remediation feature enabled the developers to remediate issues directly in their visual editor with one click. Prisma Cloud is a good tool because it covers the software lifecycle. For example, you can use Prisma Cloud from your visual editor, such as VS Code or IntelliJ from IDEA. You can use auto-remediation to prevent any issue from being deployed into the cloud. It also provides run-time protection for all workloads. Prisma Cloud has a lot of features and modules. Its licensing model allows you to have more at less cost.
The integration with the entire lifecycle is the biggest benefit. You can use the tool to automate an internal process using the Prisma API. You can use all the data information to make business and technical decisions. It takes some time to realize its benefits. When we deploy the solution for a client, we have to wait about three to six months for it to mature to be able to make useful data database decisions.
Prisma Cloud has a lot of features. It can secure the entire cloud-native development lifecycle, across build, deploy, and run. At every step or phase, you can have specific controls to avoid the deployment of anything that can cause issues.
Prisma Cloud can reduce the risk and run-time alerts if you put the correct control at the correct stage. For one client, there was about a 30% reduction, and for another one, there was about a 50% reduction. Prisma Cloud gave us a table with the high-impact vulnerabilities. By closing one of them, we could reduce about 100 alerts.
It provides some reports, but with API access, you can get all the data to build your own reports or dashboards. The default reports and dashboards are good, but if you need some customized reports or dashboards, you can do that with the API.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud for our clients is CSPM, as it helps clients gain visibility into all the assets with their cloud providers.
Additionally, runtime protection is valuable for protecting runtime environments.
The RQL feature helps to do some queries in the cloud environments.
What needs improvement?
The data security model needs improvement due to integration issues with certain features and cloud providers. With Palo Alto now utilizing a tool from an Israeli startup in Prisma Cloud, the integration is slow, and some features are blocked or not supported.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In the beginning, with large-scale projects, the platform was down twice, but once the issues were identified, Palo Alto applied the correct solutions to ensure high availability and scalability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability of Prisma Cloud is good, covering both the front end and the back end. The entire solution is well scalable.
How are customer service and support?
Customer service is good in general. There are three levels of support. I have interacted with levels one and two, where initial contact is made and detailed information is gathered. They can respond with technical documentation or pass on the case to the next level because it requires the development of a new feature or changing a feature due to a bug.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have not used any alternative solutions such as Check Point, CrowdStrike, or Aqua Security.
How was the initial setup?
I worked primarily with SaaS adoption and was in charge of the deployment as part of the delivery team.
The initial setup is straightforward and does not require extensive deployment efforts, except for configuring the solution and deploying agents if necessary.
The maintenance is done directly by Palo Alto. Palo Alto is in charge of deploying new releases and updating the main components. Everything is informed to the client through the status page maintained by Palo Alto.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The pricing for Prisma Cloud is high. Providing a pay-as-you-go model or pricing options tailored for medium and small enterprises could help attract more clients.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
In my last job, we compared Prisma Cloud to other tools, and it was ahead of the competition.
What other advice do I have?
For new users, it is important to understand the specific objectives and needs to ensure a successful implementation of the solution. They should also focus on using the data to make data-driven decisions.
I would rate Prisma Cloud a ten out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Last updated: Dec 17, 2024
Flag as inappropriateWorks at a pharma/biotech company with 10,001+ employees
Has good visibility and control with helpful support
Pros and Cons
- "This positively affected our confidence in your security and compliance. No matter how complex the environment is, the the seamless integration from the top layer itself give us the immediate visibility on the number of services."
- "I don't have any specific notes for improvement; however, if they could continue to focus more on giving users the ability to create custom policies and configurations, that would be ideal."
What is our primary use case?
We use the solution for cloud security, multi-cloud environments, compliance, and governance.
How has it helped my organization?
We have not had interruptions. It helps us to prioritize and gain resolutions faster. We can see what is happening in any particular environment.
What is most valuable?
The visibility and control are very good. It offers good runtime protection. Risk prevention is also a valuable aspect.
Prisma Cloud provides security in multiple and hybrid cloud environments.
Prisma Cloud plays a crucial role as it is one of the key pillars in our security tech stack. It helps us secure the whole multi-cloud cloud infrastructure and protects the deployments, which are crucial to our production environment.
The automation capabilities are there. In the general context of automation, it offers policy customization to eliminate false positive alerts and fine-tune detection. It constantly gives us more and more facilities to fine-tune the configurations over time. The automation itself also helps save time.
The real-time protection and management of compliance (of multiple standards, such as ISO, and SOC 2, et cetera) is useful. We can custom-add policies for enhanced protection.
We began to observe benefits immediately after integration. When it comes to real-time protection or risk prevention, there were some initial drawbacks. Over time, however, when we started working on it and fine-tuning the alerts, we started seeing the results.
It provides comprehensive security from the initial phase of spinning up the instance to the termination of the instance. In that life cycle process, it is giving us visibility and control.
Prisma Cloud provides the visibility and control we need regardless of how complex or distributed our cloud environments have become.
This positively affected our confidence in your security and compliance. No matter how complex the environment is, the seamless integration from the top layer itself gives us immediate visibility on the number of services. The way Prisma Cloud is structured makes it so that even if the environment is complicated, the categorization will give us a clear picture of where we should focus, what it lacks, or which specific areas we should have more control.
Prisma Cloud provides us with a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications without having to manage or reconcile disparate security and compliance reports. Managing all of the infrastructure, security, compliance, and reporting can be done on the console itself.
The fact that Prisma Cloud is the single tool for protecting all of our resources saved us money. If we were to replace Prisma Cloud; we'd need two to three other solutions. We'd need to cover replacement and management costs. It would be 30% more expensive, at least.
Prisma Cloud hasn't reduced runtime alerts. However, it has helped us identify the true alerts. That helps save us time as we manage multiple clouds. Instead of chasing down each and every alert, we can see what matters and what doesn't. We can focus on the alerts that have the biggest impact on the most sensitive data.
We've been able to save a good amount of money using Prisma. When it comes to cloud security, it satisfies 90% to 95% of our needs and we don't need multiple solutions which would be more expensive.
What needs improvement?
We do have many feature requests and custom policies. I don't have any specific notes for improvement; however, if they could continue to focus more on giving users the ability to create custom policies and configurations, that would be ideal.
For how long have I used the solution?
I've used the solution for more than three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
We have not had any issues with stability. We've only had one or two instances where there we outages, however, it's never been down for a long period of time.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
The scalability is good. I'd rate scalability eight out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
I've contacted technical support on a regular basis. In most cases, they are pretty quick. For some, depending on the issue, it may take time. However, for us, it's not an inconvenience as we understand the physicality of the issue.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We have tried a few solutions, however, we did not deploy them. This wasn't recently. This was a while ago. We weren't completely satisfied with the capabilities.
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment was pretty easy. It wasn't too difficult. I found it fairly seamless. It was a hassle-free experience.
We tried it in a test environment (non development) for three months. They we deployed it over nine months to a year in the cloud and production environments. We had three to four people deploying the solution.
The solution does not require any maintenance after deployment.
What about the implementation team?
We did have help from the vendor.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The licensing model is based on assets. The pricing for what we are using is pretty good.
What other advice do I have?
We're a customer and end-user.
I'd rate Prisma Cloud nine out of ten.
From a customer point of view, even is a user has multiple products, they should test it out so that they are able to satisfy the requirements. Then, they can easily upgrade with additional add-ons and features. Instead of just creating the Prisma Cloud itself with too much complexity, start simple.
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Cloud Security Engineer (Team lead) at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
A reliable and comprehensive platform for protecting the infrastructure
Pros and Cons
- "The CWP module, runtime protection, and WAAS API are valuable."
- "One of the requests is that Prisma Defender for the ECS solution is only supported for Linux. It does not support Windows."
What is our primary use case?
We are mainly using Prisma Cloud for Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and for following the compliance standards as per the industry. Another use case is to get the runtime workload protection.
We are using the WAAS, CWP, application security, and CSPM modules. We are not using the DSPM module because it is not available for the India tenant.
How has it helped my organization?
All the features provided by Prisma Cloud are quite helpful for the BFSI sector and other sectors. It protects our overall infrastructure and detects any attacks or threats in real-time scenarios. It can also block any suspicious processes or things from the Internet, so it is quite helpful for the organization.
We are working for an organization with a multi-cloud environment. We have deployed Prisma Cloud in their infrastructure with AWS, Azure, and GCP. We are able to monitor all the tools and all the assets as per the compliance standards. We have deployed Defender on all the environments. We have integrated Defender with an embedded kind of application. We have been able to work with the client as per their specific requirements.
Compliance monitoring is very important for the banking sector. With Prisma Cloud, we can see the compliance status. It shows us how we are following the rules of a particular industry. It helps organizations match the industry level and ensure that their data is secure and they are following the guidelines of their particular industry.
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi- and hybrid-cloud environments. It is very important to create a secure infrastructure. Prisma Cloud has the ability to protect a multi-cloud environment with AWS, GCP, Azure, Oracle as well as Alibaba Cloud. It plays a very crucial role in the security of an organization.
For security automation capabilities, we have some integrations. We have initialized application security before deploying the infrastructure over different environments, such as prod and pre-prod environments. Every open point should be closed. If we are creating our infrastructure through any automation code, there should be no cloud security posture management alert. We have also integrated Prisma Defender at the same time with the app-embedded format to protect our workload.
Prisma Cloud has features to detect anomalies, attack paths, and escalation privileges as well. It detects the root cause and lets us know the things in our infrastructure that can lead to the attack. We remediate them and secure our infrastructure.
Prisma Cloud saves a lot of time. It provides a consolidated dashboard for our infrastructure. We have multiple accounts, and on a single page, we can see the types of issues and the resources impacted. From there, we can directly go to the cloud, and we can take action on that. It saves time. We can close an alert in minimal time. It saves about 60% of the time which also has financial benefits. There are more than 50% cost savings.
We are more aware of things. If something suspicious is happening, we can track it and take action on that. Also, if any critical issue or vulnerability is reported that can impact our infrastructure, we can take recommended action from there. It helps us to detect the root cause. If there is any data leakage or server compromises, we can get the details and investigate things in detail. We get the API call as well. We get to know which endpoints are not set or how we can secure them. We can secure the endpoints. It helps us to reduce any attacks. We are using a lot of things from Prisma Cloud.
We could realize its benefits within one week of its implementation. Before we started with the actual implementation, we had done a PoC. It took us one week to observe and understand the flow and how it can help our organization.
Prisma Cloud covers all the stages such as build, deployment, runtime, etc. It has the capability to detect, protect, and escalate at all of these stages. At the build stage, we can initiate scanning for application security. It has the capability to scan the images at runtime. It also has features to block things in real-time scenarios. It has all the features. We have already adopted all the features of Prisma Cloud.
We trust Prisma Cloud and follow all the recommended actions. If there is any module that we have not yet adopted, we do a PoC and adopt that as well. As security engineers, we have to secure our infrastructure and assets in real time. Most of the competitors are providing CSPM, but only Prisma Cloud has the features to detect and block things in real-time scenarios. That is why we believe in Prisma Cloud.
Prisma Cloud provides a single tool to protect all of our cloud resources and applications, without having to manage and reconcile disparate security and compliance reports.
Prisma Cloud provides near to real-time alerts for our cloud infrastructure. At run time, when our Defender is running, it instantly gives the impacted process in a particular environment. So far, we have reduced more than 40% runtime alerts.
We have pre-production, production, prod, and UAT accounts. We can take action on the basis of severity and close any vulnerabilities.
What is most valuable?
The CWP module, runtime protection, and WAAS API are valuable.
What needs improvement?
For Prisma Cloud, I have already raised some requests, which are in progress. I am hoping they will be implemented soon. One of the requests is that Prisma Defender for the ECS solution is only supported for Linux. It does not support Windows.
For a runtime incident, it only has the option to archive. After validating the incident, the team members should have the option to add some comments and then archive. We should be able to add comments saying, "It is a false positive." or "This is the action we have taken." We have requested a few more improvements. The Palo Alto team is working on them.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud for more than one and a half years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
It is a stable solution. We can trust it and rely on it. I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
In our organization, more than 60 users are using this solution. We have some team members working on AWS. We have some team members working on networking and we have some team members working on creating the infrastructure.
How are customer service and support?
We are using the enterprise version, and we are getting the required support. If we find something suspicious, we can raise a ticket with the support team. They are working on priority, and they are following their timeline as well. They are working properly based on the severity and agreed timeline. There is no recommendation for any kind of change.
They are quite helpful, and they are aware of the things. If something is beyond their understanding, they reach out to their internal engineering team, and they are able to help us. They are very nice.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I have used multiple security vendors. Every vendor has its specific use case. Every tool has some kind of limitation. Overall, we found Prisma Cloud to be better. It has features like template scanning, runtime scanning, and runtime blocking. Endpoint blocking is also there in Prisma Cloud.
Other products do not have all the features. Some products have only the CSPM feature. Some products have only vulnerabilities and scanning features. Some products only have API endpoint discovery features. Prisma Cloud has all the features integrated or consolidated into one platform. As a single platform, we are getting all the things. Prisma Cloud gives a consolidated report in a single platform. This is why we chose it.
How was the initial setup?
Its deployment is very straightforward. The time taken for its deployment can vary depending on whether it is a migration or a new deployment. Overall, it takes a maximum of one week.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
It is fairly priced. However, its price can be better so that small banks or small organizations can afford it and adopt it to secure their environment and data.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Prisma Cloud if you are looking for security, real-time protection, and real-time API discovery. If a client needs such a solution, we recommend implementing Prisma Cloud.
Overall, I would rate Prisma Cloud a nine out of ten.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Technical Architect at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
It helps save time, improve our security, and consolidate vendors
Pros and Cons
- "In the GlobalProtect module, we can easily guide users experiencing connection issues through the notification column."
- "Palo Alto needs to add more support staff to improve their response time."
What is our primary use case?
We use the GlobalProtect module within Prisma Cloud to ensure the security of our mobile users.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning for multi and hybrid cloud environments.
It includes automation capabilities that we can deploy if the environment is suitable.
Prisma Cloud has enabled us to migrate from multiple vendors, creating a more user-friendly experience for everyone.
Prisma Cloud enhances the security of our cloud-native development lifecycle from start to finish.
One of the advantages of Prisma Cloud's GlobalProtect module is that it provides a centralized tool for monitoring applications, user connections, and latency. Additionally, it allows us to track the percentage of availability.
Prisma Cloud saves the equivalent time of one full-time employee.
What is most valuable?
The most valuable aspect of Prisma Cloud compared to other VPNs is its security and performance.
In the GlobalProtect module, we can easily guide users experiencing connection issues through the notification column. Within that column, we can submit and escalate notifications on host entries for troubleshooting purposes. Additionally, we can troubleshoot by collecting direct logs during user data connections. On the security front, we have a wide range of SaaS-based items at our disposal. Using Prisma Cloud, we can send internet-based reminders about the option to create a VPN tunnel internally.
What needs improvement?
Palo Alto needs to add more support staff to improve their response time.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for two years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate the stability of Prisma Cloud ten out of ten.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud ten out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The support response time is slow, with resolutions sometimes taking up to two days.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Neutral
How was the initial setup?
The initial deployment is straightforward. I have experience with two deployments. In my previous job, the deployment took six months to complete. Currently, we have 15 tenants to deploy and have successfully deployed ten within the first seven months.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
The price for Prisma Cloud is reasonable.
What other advice do I have?
I would rate Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks eight out of ten. However, the delay in support time negatively impacts my overall assessment.
We have 90,000 accounts and have already migrated 50,000 users over to GlobalProtect.
Palo Alto does the maintenance.
I recommend Prisma Cloud to others, as long as the solution meets their requirements for cost, support, and number of locations.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
Cloud Native Application Protection Platform Specialist at a tech vendor with 1-10 employees
Makes it easy to monitor clients and provides good control on the runtime side
Pros and Cons
- "The thing that I like the most is that when it comes to runtime events, whenever we see an event, we are able to look through the logs. It is pretty easy to look back through everything that took place."
- "Having auto Defender upgrades so that we do not have to upgrade Defender manually would be helpful."
What is our primary use case?
I have mostly used the CSPM and CWP side of things.
For one of our clients, we used the self-hosted version that we had deployed on IBM Cloud and the SaaS version hosted by Prisma itself. For the CWP side, we used it for securing applications of our clients, doing the runtime checks, and servicing the runtime events and plug-in vulnerabilities.
For the CSPM side, the use case was more heavily for compliance on the cloud. We had Google and AWS environments.
How has it helped my organization?
Its main benefit was that it made it easier to monitor our clients. It just made everything more efficient. There was efficiency.
Prisma Cloud provides security spanning multi-cloud environments. I have not worked with a hybrid cloud environment.
I never did anything with the automated features other than being able to click and have it do the relearn process when it comes to the runtime events. If I see that an application is creating a bunch of false positive runtime events, I can put it in an automatic relearn state. It will relearn what that application does so it is not firing off a bunch of false positives. That is the only automation I have used other than the Helm option provided at the time of deployment. It does some automation when it comes to deployment. That is about it. I am not sure about the savings money-wise, but I know that every time we deploy by Helm, it saves us time. It is hard to judge the time savings because I never deployed it in a manual way.
Prisma Cloud is pretty good for helping us take a preventative approach to cloud security. We can have lock-in controls where a developer cannot deploy vulnerabilities that are critical. We can prevent them from doing it that way. It is excellent in that regard. I also like the preventive controls on the runtime side. If you see a runtime event, you could put options in place to prevent that specific command from running, or you can shut down the console, container pod, etc. It is hard to measure the time savings. However, it can take us an hour if we have to reach out to the proper team to get a pod shut down. It would also depend on how responsive they are. Having something in place to automatically shut something down does save a lot of time.
When we first started deploying it, our team was new. We had done some training, but it did take us a little while to fully grasp all the benefits of Prisma Cloud itself. It could have taken a couple of weeks to a month before we really got a good grasp of everything. I would not say that this is the case with everyone. None of us in the team had done the cloud before, so it took us longer to understand and realize the benefits compared to others.
Prisma Cloud is pretty comprehensive. On the CSPM side of things, the SaaS-hosted version seems to have a lot more capability than the self-hosted version. The SaaS-hosted version is more comprehensive than the self-hosted version.
The visibility and control that Prisma Cloud provides affect confidence in the security and compliance postures. A great thing about it is that we can set up whatever specific compliance needs the clients have. It has a lot of features already built into it. It is a simple toggle action to enable the compliance that they need to follow. It lays out what is failing. It gives you all the information that you need to work with clients to get everything compliant. It also offers some options if you want to make custom policies and things like that. If the compliance policies that clients follow are not available nationally, they can have their own compliance policies. They can put those in. It is great.
Prisma Cloud provides a single tool to protect all of the cloud resources and applications, and then there are other tools that you can download from the console, such as the twistcli tool. It is all in there, but there are different tools that you can use as well.
Prisma Cloud saves a lot of time and probably a lot of money too. That is because you can log in to one specific tool. The CSPM SaaS side of it even has more, so being able to log in on that one tool helps. You do not have to worry about different tools to take care of different security aspects. Everything built into one saves a lot of time.
We were able to reduce runtime alerts as we worked with our clients to get to that security posture maturity. There were some clients that were getting probably 25 or more different alerts a day, and we were able to bring that down by more than half. We were on the way to getting even fewer alerts than that. It was quite a bit of a reduction. It is a slow process of getting the runtime alerts knocked down depending on how big the environment is, but it definitely helps.
When it comes to the vulnerability side of things, it has built-in top ten features or top ten vulnerabilities. We can look at them and say that these vulnerabilities are being ranked by Prisma Cloud as our top ten. These are the ones that we should be focusing on. We can work with our clients to help them determine which things should be knocked out first and so on.
What is most valuable?
Runtime protection and the ability to set up policies and controls are valuable.
The thing that I like the most is that when it comes to runtime events, whenever we see an event, we are able to look through the logs. It is pretty easy to look back through everything that took place. I also like the Radar screen for seeing how everything is connected.
What needs improvement?
While you can find everything, sometimes, it is a bit difficult. I have always had a little bit of an issue or struggle using the Resource Query Language that we can use to look through and find different things. I wish it was a little bit easier. It might be just my failings in that regard, but it can be a little bit difficult to find everything. You can find everything, but it is difficult sometimes.
If there is a way for auto Defender upgrades, that would be great. They started to implement it, but I do not know if they have done it yet. Having auto Defender upgrades so that we do not have to upgrade Defender manually would be helpful. If there is a way to push the upgrades from the console, that would be one way to improve it. I had created a couple of other requests for improvements, but I do not remember them at this point in time. I know that was one of them.
For how long have I used the solution?
I started using it back in 2020 although I did a little bit of training a little bit before that around the end of 2019. It was originally Twistlock. I am not sure if Palo Alto had bought it out when I first started training with it.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I would rate it an eight out of ten for stability. Sometimes, on the SaaS version, the console would not load. It was a glitch on their end that they had to fix. We had issues with the GUI at a couple of points. We had issues whenever we were downloading the vulnerability report. It did not include all the information. Once they got some bugs worked out, it was pretty stable, but there were some issues.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very scalable. I would rate it a ten out of ten for scalability.
We had a couple of Fortune 500 clients. I do not know if we had anything that was small. A lot of them were big organizations, but some of the environments were small.
We had a client that had the SaaS version that had hundreds of different endpoints, if not more. Most of our clients were on the self-hosted version. Some of them only had four or eight different endpoints or hosts. One of them had about 50 different hosts, give or take. It was a wide array depending on the client we were working with.
When we started, there were three of us working with Prisma Cloud. There were about six of us by the time I left.
How are customer service and support?
They are pretty good, but sometimes, it does take them a little bit longer to move from level 1 support to a higher-up level when it is a technical issue that they have not dealt with before. Overall, it is pretty good.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
We also used a product called Aqua Security. We were using Aqua Security back when we were using the self-hosted version of Prisma and not the SaaS version of Prisma. We had not worked on the SaaS version yet, so I do not know if it is a completely fair comparison, but I did feel that at that point in time, Aqua Security had more features and a better layout. I do not know how that compares today. It has been a little over a year since I last touched Aqua Security, so I am not sure what updates and changes they have made.
How was the initial setup?
We had a deployment team handling the initial deployments. We worked on the upgrades after the initial deployment, which were pretty straightforward, but I am not sure about the initial deployment. It seems to be pretty straightforward, but I have never done an initial deployment.
In terms of maintenance, it is just doing the upgrades. That is really about it. It seems that they push out a patch pretty close to every month. You can upgrade to the minor versions at the very least or security patches.
What other advice do I have?
I would recommend Prisma Cloud to others. It does take a good bit of work to learn it and fully understand the complexity of it and all the features. There are still features in there that I do not even know about or have not even touched, but it is great for protecting the environment. It is easy to get into and understand some of it, but it requires a lot of learning to understand the whole complexity of it.
Its learning curve depends on what you need to do with it. I had taken a week-long class with it, and then there were other training sessions. It could take weeks, if not months, if you want to try to do all the different training they offer.
With my limited use of other platforms, I would rate Prisma Cloud a ten out of ten. This is the one that I have used the most. It is the best of the ones that I have used.
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
Solution Manager at Cyberlinx
Provides comprehensive security, enhances compliance, and integrates seamlessly
Pros and Cons
- "The two most valuable features are container security and the capability to discover workloads."
- "The regional cost of Prisma Cloud in South Africa is high and could be improved."
What is our primary use case?
We utilize the entire Prisma Cloud suite for container security, API security, and CASB. Our primary focus is on the financial services industry, including banking and insurance.
We implemented Prisma Cloud mostly for compliance to protect against vulnerabilities and weaknesses.
How has it helped my organization?
Prisma Cloud's compliance is extremely important to our customers.
Prisma Cloud offers comprehensive security across multi-cloud environments. This is crucial due to the increasing trend of cloud adoption and digital migration. However, some clients still maintain a hybrid footprint across various platforms like Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. To address this, Prisma Cloud's technology extends to secure hybrid environments effectively. Its coverage goes beyond traditional one-size-fits-all solutions and encompasses both public and private cloud infrastructures.
It offers approximately 80 percent coverage for securing the entire cloud-native stack. While they boast a robust "shift left" component through their API, other products in this space are equally competitive. However, if seeking a single solution that addresses the majority of our needs, Prisma Cloud presents a strong option, especially considering the diverse technologies within our cloud footprint. Additionally, if we choose to standardize Palo Alto across our entire infrastructure, Prisma Cloud integrates seamlessly with other modules within their ecosystem. While not claiming to be the best-of-breed solution in every aspect, Prisma Cloud consistently ranks highly in Gartner reports for most of its functionalities, providing a solid foundation for technology consolidation.
It is a leading full automation product. Their SOAR technologies offer a vast array of integrations, all well-designed and ready to use out of the box. This suggests their overall automation capabilities are indeed top-notch.
Prisma Cloud excels in its field. I believe their solution covers detection and prevention in a world-leading manner. They largely deliver on their promises, demonstrating reliable performance. Additionally, they offer excellent support resources, including comprehensive online documentation, training programs, and a robust learning management system. Their onboarding and development programs are also commendable, providing users with the resources and support they need to succeed.
Our customers' organizations are enhanced because Prisma Cloud improves their compliance posture, particularly for those with SOC teams. It provides valuable insights and seamless integration, offering peace of mind that all security bases are covered.
Although the benefits of Prisma Cloud can be observed within three to six months after deployment, this timeframe may be extended for mature clients who prioritize rapid deployment. It is during the post-deployment phase, which typically lasts three to six months, that the full range of benefits becomes apparent.
Prisma Cloud does a good enough job of consolidating technology for our customers.
It integrates seamlessly with other Palo Alto products and provides one tool to protect all cloud resources.
Prisma Cloud helps provide clarity across our entire pipeline.
Prisma Cloud helps reduce runtime alerts by 50 percent and reduces investigation time for our customers by 40 to 50 percent. There is much less lifting for the operations team.
What is most valuable?
The two most valuable features are container security and the capability to discover workloads. Many organizations struggle to track workloads that spin up and down frequently. This solution enables real-time evaluation and scanning of workloads as they come online and shut down.
What needs improvement?
The regional cost of Prisma Cloud in South Africa is high and could be improved. Since it is marketed based on a dollar base, it is primarily an enterprise product and may not be affordable for smaller organizations.
As a software development company looking to secure our cloud-hosted APIs before publishing them, we believe that Palo Alto might overstate its capabilities. We have identified competitive products in the market that offer better protection throughout the software development lifecycle. From a developer's perspective, especially for organizations like banks developing their applications, ensuring API security before deploying them to the cloud is crucial. While Palo Alto claims to excel in this area, we believe that other specialized products may offer a more comprehensive solution.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks for three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
Prisma Cloud has excellent stability. From a product perspective, they strive to stay ahead of the curve regarding vulnerabilities and other issues. I receive regular email updates, approximately four times a week, informing me of any discovered vulnerabilities. Additionally, they provide articles on new releases or micro releases for patching these vulnerabilities.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
I would rate the scalability of Prisma Cloud nine out of ten.
How are customer service and support?
The technical support team has a well-developed portal with consistently updated online documentation. The forum articles are also well-maintained and provide a massive footprint of information. Additionally, the testing forum exhibits a high level of activity, further demonstrating the abundance of available resources.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Positive
How was the initial setup?
While the product itself is not complex, its implementation can be challenging due to factors such as the customer's existing environment, security posture, and understanding of their network and ecosystem. This lack of awareness can lead to unforeseen complexities during the scoping and planning stages. However, a more mature client who is well-versed in their environment will typically experience a smoother deployment.
The deployment time varies depending on the organization's size, but it typically takes one to three months from planning to launch. While further optimization is still required after launch, the initial setup is relatively quick.
We have a well-defined philosophy that is not complex. The first phase is the planning and design stage, where we uncover all the requirements and details of the project landscape. From there, we develop a comprehensive scope of work that includes the project architecture, deployment strategy, roles and responsibilities, and a risk assessment. The client then enters the site preparation phase, where they address any necessary repairs to their infrastructure. We then conduct a site readiness assessment to ensure that everything is prepared for deployment. The fourth step is the deployment phase, which we implement in phases depending on the specific project. We typically deploy, conduct a testing cycle, and obtain sign-off. In some cases, depending on the environment, a pilot phase may be necessary. After a successful pilot, the project goes to full deployment, followed by final testing and documentation. We also offer online training to the client during the deployment phase. Additionally, we provide ongoing knowledge transfer throughout the project and beyond. Finally, we close out the project with comprehensive documentation.
Our typical deployment team includes a subject matter expert or architect, a senior engineer, and a project manager. The subject matter expert or architect may be a cloud engineer or a network engineer, depending on the specific project requirements.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
We are encountering some resistance in the African market regarding the cost of Prisma Cloud. The lack of a regional pricing model contributes to this concern, and we believe the current cost is slightly too high for the market.
It depends on our reseller or preferred solution provider. The deployment and support costs are also factors to consider. Additionally, they offer professional services for the SKUs we purchase, which includes assistance with planning, design, technology onboarding, and scoping. So, the cost goes beyond just the license fee. Typically, the additional cost for professional services to help with implementation ranges from 15 to 20 percent of the license cost.
What other advice do I have?
Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks earns a solid eight out of ten from me. The licensing models are well-designed and the technology scales effectively. While the pricing makes it an enterprise-level solution, its capabilities are technically suitable for organizations of all sizes. However, the high cost may not be financially justifiable for small businesses. Despite this, the product's technical capabilities allow it to seamlessly scale down to cater to small footprints while remaining robust enough for large enterprises.
We find that some of our customers may stick some technologies together to build their confidence as a compromise.
Our customer environments vary from 500 users and a couple of hundred workloads to 32,000 users and 2,000 workloads across multiple clouds. We typically run Prisma Cloud at an enterprise scale because of the affordability.
There are two types of support: operational and product. Product support is dependent on the supplies provided by our license. However, we also offer solution support, which sometimes involves interpreting reports and explaining what customers see. The amount of maintenance required depends on the customer's maturity, but it generally only takes a couple of hours per week. Two cybersecurity engineers are required for maintenance.
In our region, we have seen some management changes, and we find that the pricing remains extremely high and aggressive. Specifically in South Africa, Check Point has lost significant market share to Palo Alto. However, this rapid growth phase is now decelerating. The market in South Africa is limited in size, encompassing only a finite number of banks, insurance companies, and large enterprises. Many of these players have already switched to Palo Alto, leaving fewer attractive targets for Check Point. This decreased market potential will likely force Palo Alto to re-evaluate its pricing models. From a business perspective, there is often a pressure to continually outperform the previous year. This, combined with the high operating costs associated with their teams, has arguably led to a level of greed within the company, driving the pursuit of ever-increasing profits. However, the limited market size in South Africa poses a challenge to this approach. While Palo Alto enjoyed easy market penetration and rapid growth over the past four to five years, the landscape is now changing. Their previous strategies are becoming less effective, forcing them to adapt and evolve their approach to gain a foothold.
I recommend confidently reviewing Prisma Cloud, understanding your environment, and ensuring it is properly configured. Additionally, budget allocation should be confirmed.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Public Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Other
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. partner

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Updated: July 2025
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