We compared Cato Networks and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Comparison Results: When comparing Cato Networks and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cato Networks is praised for its easy setup, simplicity, and speed. It offers useful features like always-on VPN, web filtering, and antivirus capabilities. However, it lacks advanced networking features and a web application firewall. In contrast, Prisma Access is highly regarded for its user-friendly interface, security features, and integration capabilities. It may be difficult to use and configure, and its pricing is considered higher. Customer service and support for both products have received mixed feedback, with potential for improvement in response time and expertise for Prisma Access.
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The solution is stable."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"Cato offers all the functionality found in other solution. The life cycle management is always very stable."
"I haven't had any trouble, and practically forget that I'm using it."
"The query and the SD-WAN are useful features of the solution."
"The visibility control and security aspects are amazing."
"It is a stable solution...it is a scalable solution."
"It is quite simple and easy to use."
"The most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"When I first encountered Cato, I didn't know how to use it, but after a week of training, I could onboard our systems to it, so the solution was easy to learn and navigate."
"The most valuable features of the solution stem from the fact that it offers stability and scalability while being a very secure product."
"Prisma helped us build a moat around our production systems. It's now impossible to log into our production from a non-MDM laptop. Prisma Access provides decent security overall."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to change the gateway. For example, if there's a problem with a specific region or vendor, we can make modifications. The solution is scalable, and there are different gateways that can be created depending on the demand."
"It protects all app traffic so that users can gain access to all apps. Unlike other solutions that only work from ports 80 and 443, which are predominantly for web traffic, Prisma Access covers all protocols and works on all traffic patterns... The most sophisticated attacks can arise from sources that are not behind 80/443."
"You have the ability to create your own expressions for your data. Palo Alto understands that DLP is not the same for all consumers. You might have a particular need to fulfill, and they give you the opportunity to create a custom expression to match the specific format that you have. For a confidential file property that you have in your files, you can add a metadata field. It gives you that opportunity to create that."
"The always-on feature is fantastic for the users. They don't have to think about it. When they go to a coffee shop to do work, there's no need to remember to toggle the VPN on. We'll protect them. URL filtering is the same at home as it is in the office."
"The Autonomous Digital Experience Management (ADEM) offered by Palo Alto is a good reporting tool. It gives insights into how things are going within the network. It takes all the data from the users' endpoints and does an analysis, and it suggests changes as well."
"Prisma integrates well with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake. My company has been also using Prisma Access in-house for nearly a year, and it integrates seamlessly."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The product must evolve into the endpoint domain."
"The tool needs to be more granular. Its reports are not very in-depth."
"For a packaged solution, needing external intervention or a system integrator to get other features not offered by Cato Networks could be an area for improvement. Cato Networks does what it's meant to do and is even overstretching capabilities when introducing new features. The product can only have very few features added on top of what its currently doing. Managed service providers can deliver the extra features you'd need. It's a set of managed services, and what Cato Networks does is very comprehensive. So, for the time being, when the actual incarnation of the SASE solution is deployed, Cato Networks is a very effective product. Naturally, technology will evolve, so everybody knows that in three, four, or five years, there will be a new kid on the block, a new game. Still, at the moment, Cato Networks only needs to improve a little regarding SASE delivery. The product is doing very well, but one feature the Cato Networks team is doing right is preparing for the future through deploying the SSE 360, so the security service is at that edge. It's an excellent strategy to prepare for the future. SSE 360 is what Cato Networks should invest in the most to keep prospering."
"The product may be complex for users with few years of experience."
"They should add more sophisticated security features. It should also be integrated into the cloud."
"I am located in South Korea, and I can say that most people here have no idea about Cato Networks. I think Cato Networks should promote its network services in various countries."
"The price could be better."
"They should include a web application firewall feature in the solution."
"We are using the SaaS offering. We use our applications for microservices. We use Twistlock to scan containers, and it displays these results in Prisma, which is a good feature because we can see vulnerabilities with respect to these containers. We can see everything in a very detailed manner. However, when you have different environments for a single application, such as DEV, QA, PROD, and TEST, all these environments run multiple containers, which can lead to a very high number of containers. In such a scenario, it shows you the alerts for all those containers that have vulnerabilities. If you show the results of all the containers that share the same image, it is not going to add any value. Therefore, they should narrow down the alerts based on a container. It should show information for a single container. Otherwise, the person who is looking at the results gets the impression that he has to fix all these issues. This is something that they can improve."
"Sometimes, we encountered a portal crash. When we told Palo Alto they said it might be the browser or cache, but I think they need to improve it on their side."
"The product's price is an area of concern where improvements are required. The solution's price should be lowered."
"The tools' scalability is subject to some limitations when done on-premise due to the need for additional licenses. However, in other scenarios, increasing scalability involves expanding infrastructure to accommodate more third-party VPN access. It is scalable as long as you pay the money. Also, it needs to improve security."
"The documentation is generally good, but they could provide a more detailed description of all the configuration steps. I have to search for information or call support. Palo Alto could add more knowledge base articles about configuration with screenshots and walkthroughs. That would be helpful. When configuring a product, you want to see examples of how it is done."
"The user interface could be better. They need to work a little bit on the console. It is similar to their firewalls but not exactly. They need to clean it up a bit."
"There is some particular traffic that the security team wants to filter out and apply their own policies and they cannot."
"The solution needs to be more compatible with other solutions. This is specifically a problem for us when it comes to healthcare applications. They have proprietary connection types and things of that nature that make compatibility a challenge sometimes."
More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Cato SASE Cloud Platform is ranked 5th in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 21 reviews while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 58 reviews. Cato SASE Cloud Platform is rated 8.8, while Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cato SASE Cloud Platform writes "Useful remote worker VPN, centralized management, and simple on-boarding process". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks writes "Integration with Palo Alto platforms such as Cortex Data Lake and Autofocus gives us visibility into our attack surface". Cato SASE Cloud Platform is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Cisco SD-WAN, Fortinet FortiGate, VMware SD-WAN and Cisco Umbrella, whereas Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Netskope , Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Internet Access and Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway. See our Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks report.
See our list of best Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) vendors, best Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) vendors, and best ZTNA as a Service vendors.
We monitor all Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
