Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series vs. UniFi Cloud Gateways

It is well-suited for a company needing strong edge security with ease of administration. It comes standard with many features such as VPN, Application ID and "Day-1 Config" that make the networks it protects secure from the very start. Palo is definitely a premium product and is much more expensive than other firewalls, but the value is realized immediately. The robust options for firewall rules/policies allow the administrator to apply security in new and creative ways to hit the sweet spot between security and usability.

Incentivized

Ubiquiti's wireless WAN solution is suitable for usage in businesses of all sizes. Smaller businesses may not profit as much from the integration of Wi-Fi devices due to the high expense of doing so, hence the cost-benefit analysis favors larger businesses. In big and medium-sized businesses, having access to such tools improves network security and administration by allowing for several, conceptually separate networks to be managed and made available from a single Wi-Fi access point.

Incentivized

• The PA handles VPN connectivity without missing a beat. We have multiple VPN tunnels in use for redundancy to cloud-based services.
• The PA has great functionality in supporting failover internet connections, again with the ability to have multiple paths out to our cloud-based services.
• The PA is updated on the regular with various security updates, we are not concerned with the firewall's ability to see what packets are really flowing across the network. Being able to see beyond just IP and port requests lets you know things are locked down better than traditional firewalls.
• It is a great overall kit, with URL filtering and other services that fill in the gaps between other solutions without breaking the bank.

Incentivized

• Automatically load balances based on band. Makes it simple to spread out users.
• Updates can be set to automatic or manual. Automatic uses rolling updates, happens every time we update the controller.
• Continually add new features and improvements with their FREE software upgrades

Incentivized

• Setting up certain things can be somewhat complicated due to the numerous options and abstractions involved.
• It would be nice to have somewhere to get simple canned reports easily.
• It would be nice to be able to remove options we never use from various setup dialogs.

Incentivized

• Supply can be a problem, especially for new products. We have had to sometimes wait for months for supply to come in.
• No phone support. Only email/chat. can be frustrating sometimes just texting someone, but have not had to contact them very often.

Incentivized

The PA5220s have far exceeded what we have expected out of them. It was a bit of a learning curve coming from another vendor, but everything falls into place now with ease. The capabilities of the solution still surprise us, allowing us to remove other costly hardware and providing a single point of management needed

Incentivized

It can be a little tricky at first if you have never used the product or a firewall before. If you have experience with firewalls in general, it does not take long to learn the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series interface. They offer great training resources and knowledge base articles to help get up to speed.

Incentivized

The interface is user friendly and the ability to access cloud interface from anywhere in the world is a solid plus for UniFi Cloud Gateways.

Incentivized

We've run into a couple undocumented bugs, but that seems to happen with every brand and technology. Any time we've had to engage Palo Alto support they've always been professional, knowledgeable and prompt. In almost all cases we've been able to resolve our issues without having to escalate our tickets.

Incentivized

We have not needed to contact support, except to replace one device that was damaged in shipping. The company immediately issued an RMA without delay, and we had our replacement product within a week

We are using Cisco ASA before in our environment but when it comes to deep scanning & layer 7 security it doesn't have that capability. After using Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall we are using sandboxing & advance malware protection that provides high-level end-user security. Also after implementing it we can easily monitor user-level traffic.

Incentivized

In the past, we used D-Link wi-fi devices, where centralized management was not possible, distributing the same SSID through several devices. Which cost configuration time and instability in the use between one point and another, because eventually, this transition between a device and another by a client was not transparent and functional as it is today with the Ubiquiti solution.

Incentivized

• We used to outsource our Firewall and it's management. Not only did we find their SLA's to be lacking, in general, but communication between us was horrible. Many times we could not understand them and that resulted in less than desirable rule creation or troubleshooting.
• Since we no longer have to pay a company for 24/7 management (and SLOW SLA's) we are saving a ton of money each year. Also our fellow employee's are much happier that things can be resolved in a timely manner.

Incentivized

• Huge cost savings. Buy it once and you are done, no annual renewals.
• Extremely reliable and scalable. We went from 0 to 900 Chromebooks in 2 years.
• Very little maintenance, set it and forget it. Allows us to focus on other tasks.

Incentivized