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Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs VMware NSX comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.4
Prisma Cloud improves security by automating compliance, reducing alerts, and increasing efficiency, despite high costs and initial challenges.
Sentiment score
7.4
VMware NSX saves costs by reducing network needs, enhancing security, and achieving ROI within a year when deployed effectively.
Before, we had a few staff members who monitored our environment, but now the alerting and other processes happen automatically, so there is a good ROI in terms of resources.
It eliminates the need for additional hardware, making it a financially and technically sound investment.
It helped reduce risks and sped up threat detection.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.1
Prisma Cloud's support is responsive and knowledgeable, though some users face delays and communication issues, varying by region.
Sentiment score
6.7
VMware NSX support is generally reliable but varies in responsiveness and expertise, with improvement needed in certain regions.
Whenever I have issues with the solution, I will get an immediate response from the product team and they will try to close the issue as soon as possible.
When you send them a message, you get a response in a minute or two.
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.
Our technicians have a good support experience from the company.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
Prisma Cloud offers scalable management across multi-cloud environments, excelling in integration and enterprise growth, despite some functionality challenges.
Sentiment score
7.7
VMware NSX is scalable across large infrastructures, praised for adaptability, hardware independence, and seamless integration in various environments.
It's very scalable and very easy to use.
It's the type of tool that is constantly improving, and its scalability suits our environment well.
Nowadays, all cloud solutions are scalable; scalability should be a given feature and does not need to be asked for.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.0
Prisma Cloud is stable and reliable, with high ratings for scalability and minimal impact from occasional glitches or disruptions.
Sentiment score
8.0
VMware NSX is stable and mature, praised for robust performance and dependability, despite occasional minor upgrade issues.
I cannot recall any downtime with the solution.
I would rate it a ten out of ten for stability.
I haven't seen any outages with Prisma Cloud.
 

Room For Improvement

Prisma Cloud needs improvements in UI complexity, pricing, customization, integration, identity management, and support for more cloud environments.
VMware NSX needs enhancements in integration, automation, deployment, and support to address complexity, pricing, and user-friendliness challenges.
Currently, it requires programming knowledge, so if someone without hardware programming knowledge could customize certain features to their requirements, it would be very helpful.
It is a SaaS solution, but some of my clients have a local regulatory requirement, and they want to install it locally on their premises.
From a developer's perspective, especially for organizations like banks developing their applications, ensuring API security before deploying them to the cloud is crucial.
 

Setup Cost

Prisma Cloud offers flexible licensing, valued for its features and consolidation, with costs based on consumption and workloads.
VMware NSX pricing is higher than competitors, complex, and may discourage smaller organizations due to potentially unused features.
A strategy to optimize costs will save you money.
The licensing model for data security should be compared to the native security offered by AWS and Azure.
Prisma Cloud is remarkably expensive.
VMware NSX is a little higher in price compared to the competition.
 

Valuable Features

Prisma Cloud enhances security with multi-cloud integration, automated forensics, CI/CD integration, and comprehensive visibility across hybrid environments.
VMware NSX offers micro-segmentation, automation, scalability, and integration, enhancing security and flexibility across virtual environments and clouds.
Prisma offers visibility to developers and high-level leadership because the dashboard is excellent and the alerts are comprehensive.
This alerting system allows me to take the necessary steps to secure it before any attack can occur, making it the best preventive measure for our cloud.
Its ease of integration is valuable because we need to get the solution out of the door quickly, so speed and ease matter.
The most powerful feature of VMware NSX is the micro-segmentation that allows us to separate the different protocols our application works with.
 

Categories and Ranking

Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto N...
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
108
Ranking in other categories
Web Application Firewall (WAF) (5th), Container Security (1st), Cloud Workload Protection Platforms (CWPP) (1st), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (2nd), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (1st), Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) (1st)
VMware NSX
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
101
Ranking in other categories
Network Virtualization (2nd), Cloud and Data Center Security (2nd), Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) (6th), Network Detection and Response (NDR) (8th), Network Automation (5th), Microsegmentation Software (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Data Security solutions, they serve different purposes. Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks is designed for Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and holds a mindshare of 19.6%, down 21.1% compared to last year.
VMware NSX, on the other hand, focuses on Network Virtualization, holds 46.6% mindshare, up 45.8% since last year.
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM)
Network Virtualization
 

Featured Reviews

VISHWJEET GAIKWAD - PeerSpot reviewer
Works very well for multi-cloud environments and is more cost-effective than cloud-native tools
Some of the clients onboard individual cloud accounts into Prisma Cloud. When any new service comes into the AWS, Azure, or any other cloud, Prisma Cloud generates a warning about the new service and any missing permissions to be able to ingest the logs. We then manually run a Terraform template for Azure or a CFT template for AWS. It is a manual task that we have to do as and when needed. It is a repetitive and manual task. They should find a way to automatically update the role with the CFT or Terraform template. It would be best if this task is automated. When an account is onboarded, if it is missing any permission, it should automatically be updated with the required permissions and policies. If they can do something from the AI security perspective, it will be helpful. I am not sure if it has any AI capabilities, but it would be helpful to have AI integration for finding out issues and remediating alerts.
Tarek Nader - PeerSpot reviewer
It extends Layer-2 scalability on Layer 3
NSX extends Layer-2 scalability on Layer 3, covering the vRO and extending the capability on Layer 3 by decapsulating using a new mechanism. NSX-V was designed to use with VMware products and Success 360, providing more flexibility toward different levels of cloud, containers, and components. NSX-T gives you the ability to stretch your network across different view locations. If you have multiple sites, you can connect them using NSX-T.
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831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
17%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What is your primary use case for Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks ?
Prisma Cloud helps support DevSecOps methodologies, making those responsibilities easier to manage.
What Cloud-Native Application Protection Platform do you recommend?
We like Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks, since it offers us incredible visibility into our entire cloud system. We are able to easily see where our container vulnerabilities lie and and where cl...
What do you think of Aqua Security vs Prisma Cloud?
Aqua Security is easy to use and very manageable. Its main focus is on Kubernetes and Docker. Security is a very valuable feature and their speed of integration is very good. The initial setup was ...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
There are some very major differences between both the Products and to name a few. -Cisco ACI have physical network gear (9K Switches) where the Code runs in ACI Policy Mode & the UCS server wh...
What are the biggest differences between Cisco ACI and VMware NSX?
Once you know your way around the Cisco ecosystem, using Cisco ACI is not so difficult. It is a global product, so when you change one interface, changes are automatically reflected on every switch...
What do you like most about VMware NSX?
The product has valuable features for security and network extension.
 

Also Known As

Palo Alto Networks Prisma Cloud, Prisma Public Cloud, RedLock Cloud 360, RedLock, Twistlock, Aporeto
VMware Nicira, Lastline Defender
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amgen, Genpact, Western Asset, Zipongo, Proofpoint, NerdWallet, Axfood, 21st Century Fox, Veeva Systems, Reinsurance Group of America
City of Avondale, Lumeta, Kroll Ontrack, Heartland Payment Systems, Baystate Heallth, Exostar, Tribune Media, iGATE, NTT Communications, Synergent, California Natural Resources Agency, Bloomington Public Schools, Columbia Sportswear, Join Experience S.A, Schuberg Philis
Find out what your peers are saying about Prisma Cloud by Palo Alto Networks vs. VMware NSX and other solutions. Updated: September 2023.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.