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Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks pros and cons

4.1 out of 5
Badge Ranked 1
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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks offers comprehensive security with features like WildFire, user integration, and DLP functionality on the cloud.
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) 2.0 and endpoint management provide top-notch security, integrating seamlessly with tools like Slack and PagerDuty for real-time alerts.
Prisma Access supports secure app traffic and non-web applications and offers extensive API integrations for enhanced flexibility and security.
It's stable and scalable, auto-scaling for mobile users and integrating well with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake.
The service is efficient in identifying bad configurations and security vulnerabilities, allowing for end-to-end management and control development.

CONS

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks needs improved support for custom applications and better compatibility with other solutions, especially for healthcare applications.
The frequent updates in Prisma Access should provide more information to ensure they do not impact production environments adversely.
Integration with non-Palo Alto Networks products could be enhanced to ensure seamless functionality across multi-vendor infrastructures.
Price adjustments are needed to make Prisma Access more competitive, as its current cost is considered high by users.
Prisma Access should improve its multi-environment visibility, particularly concerning containers, to reduce the volume of redundant alerts based on container images.
 

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pros review quotes

PD
Dec 7, 2021
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.
TejasJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 5, 2021
It is geographically dispersed, and it sits on top of Google and AWS platforms. Therefore, you don't face the standard issues, such as latency or bandwidth issues, that you usually face in the case of on-prem data centers.
Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2022
It supports auto-scaling for mobile users. It auto-scales depending on the mobile user traffic. For example, if 1,000 people are working from home today, and tomorrow, the number increases to 2,000, it is not going to be an issue.
Learn what your peers think about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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Gabriel Franco - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 6, 2022
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.
MI
Sep 24, 2021
Security is absolutely spot-on, really top-notch. It's the result of all the components that come together, such as the HIP [Host Information Profile] and components like Forcepoint, providing end-user content inspection, and antivirus. It incorporates DLP features and that's fantastic because Prisma Access makes sure that all of the essential prerequisites are in place before a user can log in or can be tunneled into.
TT
Aug 17, 2021
It's much faster and more secure than legacy solutions. It is also quite stable and scalable as well. We are able to see all the traffic in one place.
MY
Jan 11, 2022
Being able to use the user ID or Active Directory Group is one of the great features for control and providing more flexibility without worrying about IP addresses.
reviewer1702776 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 31, 2021
Prisma's most valuable feature would be its ability to identify bad or risky configurations.
TA
Nov 30, 2021
I like it because it's very easy to use. You install the client and you have to know your gateway, but that's something we give to our users. Beyond that, it takes about three seconds to train them on how to use it. And it just works well. That's great for us because it means less administrative time.
NP
Mar 29, 2021
The scalability of the solution is excellent.
 

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Cons review quotes

PD
Dec 7, 2021
While Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on.
TejasJain - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 5, 2021
It is a managed firewall. When you run into issues and have to troubleshoot, there is a fair amount of restriction. You run into a couple of restrictions where you don't have any visibility on what is happening on the Palo Alto managed infrastructure, and you need to get on a call to get technical assistance from Palo Alto's technical support. You have to get them to work with you to fix the problem. I would definitely like them to work on the visibility into what happens inside Palo Alto's infrastructure. It is not about getting our hands onto their infrastructure to do troubleshooting or fixing problems; it is just about getting more visibility. This will help us in guiding technical support folks to the area where they need to work.
Nikolay Dimitrov - PeerSpot reviewer
Nov 6, 2022
Palo Alto needs to improve the GlobalProtect agent to work as a secure web gateway agent, not only as a VPN agent because some companies would want only a secure gateway. They wouldn't want a full VPN. So, Palo Alto has to make the VPN agent work as a secure web gateway agent for those customers who want only the secure web gateway solution.
Learn what your peers think about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Gabriel Franco - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 6, 2022
They can add some new characteristics. For example, when an incident triggers, they can automatically send a template for a particular match that is related to the policy. We don't have that right now. It is something to improve. There could be more automation for certain actions. For example, for a particular group, it can send an administrator alert to their manager. It was one of the concerns of our customers.
MI
Sep 24, 2021
It's not really Prisma's fault, but when you try to create exceptions you don't really have those abilities. You cannot say, on the management platform, "Hey, for these users I want to create these exceptions." That is one thing that I have gotten some complaints about, and we have faced some challenges there.
TT
Aug 17, 2021
It would be nice to manage Prisma Access through the cloud instead of through Panorama. You can use the cloud version to monitor Prisma Access, but it doesn't have all the features yet, and it's not 100% done.
MY
Jan 11, 2022
When we deploy firewall rules via Panorama, we find it's a little bit slow. We have a global environment and might have 100 gateways or VPNs in the cloud. When we deploy something, it tries to deploy it one-by-one, and that can be slow.
reviewer1702776 - PeerSpot reviewer
Oct 31, 2021
Prisma would be a stronger solution if it could aggregate resources by project or by application. So say we have an application we've developed in AWS and five applications we've developed in Azure. The platform will group it according to those applications, but it's based on the tags we use in Azure, which means I have to rely on development teams to tag resources properly.
TA
Nov 30, 2021
The one thing that I've been a little bit disappointed with is when we have had to open cases with Palo Alto about Prisma Access issues. Versus their other platforms, like their firewalls, where we tend to get really quick responses and very definitive answers, the few tickets I've had to open for Prisma Access have taken them longer to respond to. And they haven't necessarily given me the kind of answer I was looking for, meaning a fix to the problem.
NP
Mar 29, 2021
There is some particular traffic that the security team wants to filter out and apply their own policies and they cannot.