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Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs Skybox Security Suite comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 25, 2025

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

Palo Alto Networks Panorama
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
89
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Skybox Security Suite
Ranking in Firewall Security Management
7th
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
35
Ranking in other categories
Vulnerability Management (41st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewall Security Management category, the mindshare of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is 8.1%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skybox Security Suite is 11.0%, up from 10.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewall Security Management
 

Featured Reviews

Kim Ejby Lorentzen - PeerSpot reviewer
Unified firewall management streamlines operations across branches with prompt support services
The primary use case for this solution is the management of the entire firewall portfolio across various branches Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration. One of the key advantages of Palo Alto Networks…
NenadMijatovic - PeerSpot reviewer
Efficient in vulnerability management, stable and easy to use
Vulnerability management is the most valuable feature because it lets you focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. That's the important thing. Here in Serbia, there are not so many companies that have too many firewalls inside one company. So, they usually don't buy this model for Firewall Assurance unless there is some compliance. So you can prove that your firewalls are compliant. So, that model is not so important here in Serbia. It's for bigger companies. So, they usually buy network assurance to build the model of the network and vulnerability management to focus on the most important vulnerabilities. Moreover, Skybox can collect data for many vendors. From the endpoint protection vendors to the network equipment vendors to other security vendors. So, it supports more than one hundred vendors to collect data from them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama has simplified management by providing a unified interface for firewall management and configuration."
"Overall, the functionality was very good."
"The reporting is great."
"Panorama is very easy, easy to administrate, and easy to control."
"It has made our ROIs easier, but consolidating the correlation of data into one single point, which is pretty great."
"All of the reports and events from different locations can be managed centrally."
"It's a reliable solution."
"Palo Alto Networks Panorama is stable."
"The product's most valuable feature is vulnerability management."
"The most valuable features of Skybox Security Suite are all the modules that are provided, such as vulnerability assessments and network, and firewall assessments."
"The ability to appropriately prioritize vulnerabilities inside the environment, and then to have visibility into the traffic and rule sets of an organization, are two of the top capabilities that I recommend. Skybox is the only one that does both of those in a single platform."
"The solution's most valuable and unique assets are the vulnerability management and change management solutions because they identify mistakes in the network before implementation which reduces risks."
"instead of asking for firewall rules which may or may not be relevant, or could already be there, or could be over-permissioned, Skybox can be used to map out the resources that that application is going to use and provide the exact rules that an application would require to function correctly. If the traffic isn't able to flow for the application, if it's erring out, Skybox can be used to troubleshoot that and say, "All right, where is the traffic being stopped and why, and how do I fix that.""
"Correlates logs and threats and prioritizes; provides network maps;p provides change result context and resulting vulnerability."
"Skybox deployment is simple, and it's very useful."
"The way that it's built with three-tier architecture, it makes it very horizontally scalable, so I can have multiple fallbacks. If one machine does fall offline, there are four other machines that are doing the exact same job to pick it up"
 

Cons

"Palo Alto Networks Panorama currently lacks the capability of integrating with other software, such as AlgoSec to simplify rule management and schedule management. However, this feature has been requested by the company and it is uncertain if Palo Alto will implement it in the future. Additionally, the UI needs improvement, it is too slow."
"Aside from pricing, I don't have any issues with Panorama."
"We have had some issues in the past because integrating a new device is not intuitive."
"It should have more connection with Threat Intelligence Cloud. They can also include features related to SecOps and automation API."
"They need to do less bug-related releases and create versions that are stable for at least six months at a time. I don't find this issue in other solutions like Cisco, Check Point, FortiGate, or others. Those just provide a patch if there is a bug and we don't have to worry about downtime."
"Instead of searching their knowledge base in their website, maybe they can interact with us in the user interface to explain things better."
"In the future, it would be beneficial if Panorama could include a firewall assurance feature similar to Skybox."
"The pricing of the solution could be considered an area of improvement, as it is a comprehensive and feature-rich product that may include features that are not needed by some companies."
"Modifications and the deletion of existing policies are currently unavailable."
"The most recent update was not tested with all of the vendors before it was released, so some of the features are misbehaving."
"The initial setup with Skybox Security is hard. You need one or two strong security engineers on your team."
"The price is costly, and I hope they can reduce the cost."
"Change Manager can be improved. If they can improve Change Manager so that whatever we want to do on a firewall, we are able to do it through Change Manager, it will be helpful for us. Whenever we are doing a change, it only does them at an L3 and L4 level, but all the firewalls are at the application layer. So, whatever needs to be done on the firewall, we aren't able to get it done through Change Manager. Currently, this functionality is not there because of which we are sometimes losing customers. I can create a role on Layer 3, Layer 4, but when it comes to the application layer, such as configuring and defining URLs or other things at the application level, it can't be done through Change Manager. Customers demand that they should be able to do everything through Change Manager. They don't want to do it through some other mechanism to accomplish their complete change management policy. They don't want to use a firewall manager because sometimes, they don't have any manager. They ask if they can use our solution so that a manager is not required. If Change Manager can do all the management automatically without involving any other manager, it will be great. They can also provide better integration with other managers so that everything can be done through a central point."
"The solution needs to add more automation and orchestration capabilities. Those features would make the solution much stronger."
"The only place where Skybox has room for improvement, and they're working on releasing this, it's just a slow-go, is the UI. The user interface has historically been via a locally installed thick client. They are moving to a web-based console and it's slowly coming out."
"The stability is something that is questionable. I don't know whether it is because of the kind of infrastructure we have or because of the product in itself. We're running it on a virtual machine right now. Maybe once a month, or once in every 45 days, it requires a restart because the application fails to connect. So I have to restart the whole Skybox Manager itself, the Skybox server itself, and then connect to it from our Skybox Manager."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not a cheap solution."
"Its licensing is yearly and multi-yearly. It is not expensive."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama is expensive."
"With the URL filtering, we probably went down from around four hours in response time to about five minutes."
"The price of Palo Alto Networks Panorama should be reduced. We pay for the solution annually."
"We have a yearly license. The cost is not that high and not that cheap either."
"Although I don't have direct knowledge of the setup cost I believe it is mid-range."
"Its cost is quite high."
"I rate the pricing two on a scale of one to ten, where one is very expensive, and ten is cost-effective."
"The licensing fee is paid yearly and is approximately $100,000."
"When compared with other companies, the license is more costly."
"I've seen the pricing of every solution on the market. When you compare apples to apples, where Skybox becomes exceedingly expensive is if you look at it compared to something like FireMon that only does a fraction of what Skybox does. But if you include everything that Skybox does, it becomes way more expensive than the competition, but you're also not comparing apples to apples. If you look at FireMon, and you look at like just the firewall assurance piece, they are fairly comparable and, actually, Skybox comes in a little bit cheaper in some cases, depending on which product you're looking at."
"I would rate the tool's pricing an eight out of ten."
"With licensing, the number of network nodes becomes very expensive to the point where you have to rationalize if the tools are warranted anymore."
"The price of the Skybox Security Suite can be expensive."
"The software is expensive. I rate its pricing an eight out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Energy/Utilities Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The most valuable aspect of Palo Alto Networks Panorama for me is the centralized management of multiple firewalls.
What needs improvement with Palo Alto Networks Panorama?
The solution requires more flexibility and quicker response times. High-speed replies are crucial. Additionally, the AI module should be on-premises, not in the cloud. It should support more flexib...
What do you like most about Skybox Security Suite?
Overall, the tool has helped us reduce risks. If any step is missing, it's easier for my team or engineers to identify it. The tool provides accurate recommendations based on the data. Its integrat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Skybox Security Suite?
Skybox Security Suite has indeed helped us reduce costs. The prices of AlgoSec and Skybox Security Suite are approximately 50 percent different. The tool may require special vendor support from abr...
What needs improvement with Skybox Security Suite?
There is room for improvement in the product's user interface. It could be more user-friendly.
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

University of Arkansas, JBG SMITH, Temple University, Telkom Indonesia
ADP, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BT, USAID, Delta Dental, EDF Energy, EMC, HSBC, Johnson & Johnson
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks Panorama vs. Skybox Security Suite and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.