Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks pros and cons

Vendor: Palo Alto Networks

4.1 out of 5

61 reviews
91% willing to recommend

1,472 followers

Pros & Cons summary

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks offers cloud security with URL filtering, application control, SSL, and DLP, while providing enhanced security for remote access. Integrating with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake, it supports auto-scaling for varying traffic but has challenges such as setup complexity, slow support response, and policy delays. Issues with GlobalProtect latency, documentation, and a rigid licensing model necessitate improvements in AI capabilities and multi-vendor integration for better competitiveness.

Buyer's Guide

Get pricing advice, tips, use cases and valuable features from real users of this product.

Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks provides comprehensive security features like URL filtering, application control, SSL, and DLP ensuring robust protection in cloud environments.

It ensures stable and scalable security infrastructure, which is vital for businesses with fluctuating or growing demands.

Zero Trust Architecture and advanced security measures like WildFire and user integration significantly enhance network protection and access management.

Easy setup and straightforward deployment processes expedite the initial implementation and ongoing maintenance, saving time and reducing complexity.

Geographic dispersion over platforms like Google and AWS mitigates common network issues such as latency, facilitating smooth and efficient operational performance.

CONS

Palo Alto should provide more detailed guides for troubleshooting, similar to Cisco's support approach.

Prisma Access requires better integration with non-Palo Alto products, especially for companies using multi-vendor environments.

Pricing for Prisma Access is high and requires revisions for better competitiveness.

Issues exist with compatibility in healthcare applications due to proprietary connection types.

GlobalProtect faces limitations in assigning multiple IP sub-links to different user groups and can encounter latency issues.

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pros review quotes

PD

Global Network Tech Lead at Thoughtworks

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.

Read full review

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at tejain@deloitte.com

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.

Read full review

Nikolay Dimitrov

Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM

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.

Read full review

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Free Report: Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Senior Service Delivery Engineer at Netdata Innovation Center

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.

Read full review

MI

Associate Director at Cognizant

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.

Read full review

TT

Senior Network / ITOps Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 201-500 employees

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.

Read full review

MY

Senior Network Consultant at FIS

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.

Read full review

reviewer1702776

Senior Security Engineer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees

Oct 31, 2021

Prisma's most valuable feature would be its ability to identify bad or risky configurations.

Read full review

TA

Network Administrator Specialist at a government with 501-1,000 employees

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.

Read full review

NP

Senior Network Security Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 29, 2021

The scalability of the solution is excellent.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 61)

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Cons review quotes

PD

Global Network Tech Lead at Thoughtworks

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.

Read full review

Sr. Cloud Security Architect at tejain@deloitte.com

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.

Read full review

Nikolay Dimitrov

Cyber Security Engineer at Paysafe / IBM

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.

Read full review

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Free Report: Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Reviews and More

Learn what your peers think about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.

816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.

Senior Service Delivery Engineer at Netdata Innovation Center

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.

Read full review

MI

Associate Director at Cognizant

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.

Read full review

TT

Senior Network / ITOps Engineer at a leisure / travel company with 201-500 employees

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.

Read full review

MY

Senior Network Consultant at FIS

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.

Read full review

reviewer1702776

Senior Security Engineer at a manufacturing company with 501-1,000 employees

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.

Read full review

TA

Network Administrator Specialist at a government with 501-1,000 employees

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.

Read full review

NP

Senior Network Security Lead at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees

Mar 29, 2021

There is some particular traffic that the security team wants to filter out and apply their own policies and they cannot.

Read full review

Show 10 more reviews (out of 60)

Product Categories

Product Categories

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Enterprise Infrastructure VPN

ZTNA as a Service

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Cisco Umbrella vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Lookout vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Netskope vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Skyhigh Security vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

iboss vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Appgate SDP vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Prisma SD-WAN vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

FortiSASE vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Axis Security vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

See all alternatives

Product Categories

Product Categories

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Enterprise Infrastructure VPN

ZTNA as a Service

Popular Comparisons

Popular Comparisons

Cisco Umbrella vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Lookout vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Netskope vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

VMware VeloCloud SD-WAN vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Skyhigh Security vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

iboss vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Appgate SDP vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Prisma SD-WAN vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

FortiSASE vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

Axis Security vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks

See all alternatives

Related questions

318

What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?

118

How does Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks compare with Zscaler internet access?

98

What is the difference between point solutions (SD-WAN, NGFW, SWG, VPN) and SASE?

111

What questions do you need to ask when choosing a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution?

5

When evaluating Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), what aspect do you think is the most important to look for?

10

Has anyone ever heard of secureaccess.com?

20

What is the difference between SASE and SD-WAN?

215

What is the difference between SASE and CASB?

32

What SASE solution does your company use?

32

Why is SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) important?