Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 9 out of 10

Score

9 out of 10

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Intuitive User Interface: Users have consistently found the user interface of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series to be intuitive, making it easy to configure the firewall and perform tasks quickly. Several reviewers have mentioned this as a standout feature.

Advanced Security Features: Many users have praised the advanced features of the firewall, such as application filtering, content filtering, and deep packet inspection. These features provide enhanced security and contribute to the effectiveness of the product in protecting against malware and ransomware.

Seamless Integration with Third-Party Tools: Reviewers have appreciated the seamless integration of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series with third-party tools and systems. Specifically, they mention ClearPass from HPE Aruba for user authentication and syslog integration. This integration enhances overall functionality and allows for a more streamlined experience when working with multiple tools simultaneously.

Reviews

43 Reviews

Trust the Hype - Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series are Everything Now

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

October 25, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series as the frontline defense for our business. Not only do they perform traditional firewall duties, we use them to validate user access over VPN and ensure their machines are compliant with our security best-practices before they are granted access. The core of our business is Intellectual Property. Because of this, one of the biggest advantages that Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series gives us is their application ID along with SSL Decryption. We are able to inspect traffic for content but also for discrepancies with the application's standard port. If Palo detects that SSL is happening over a non-standard port, it blocks the access. Palo is incredibly easy to setup and manage according to security best-practices. By default, it has many of the features already configured and no additional licensing is required. These firewalls are the best around and give us the peace of mind we need for our frontline defense.

Pros

Edge Security
VPN Security and Traffic Inspection
SSL Decrypt
Zone Based Firewall
Ease of Administration
Application ID

Cons

Reporting
Logging Configuration
Certificate Management

Likelihood to Recommend

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.

Matt Rathbun

Network Admin in Information Technology at ICM Inc (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series Bugatti of this industry

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

July 4, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series deployed at network edge for outbound /inbound security protection like IPS/IDS, Vuln protection, DDoS protection.... And outbound URL filtering and threat protection.

We have other Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series set for our internal network micro segmentation and segregation ; the firewall is the gateway for each segment and authorized access rules are in place between the segments.

Pros

Vulnerability protection
Rich and actionable log and search details
Threat Prevention/DNS security
APP-ID and SaaS Application integration

Cons

SDWAN integration with other vendors
PANOS update testing - Upgrade always comes with new issues.
OneClick integration for SaaS apps like Talkdesk, Ring, Salesforce

Likelihood to Recommend

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series are very suitable firewalls for Zero Trust Architecture as it provides User-ID, Device-ID, and App-ID which can be used to enforce granular access control and microsegmentation with least privilege access. In addition to Zone based architecture where secure network level segregation between different segments, subnets, and vlans.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

9 years of experience

Palo Alto Next Gen Firewalls Real World Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

June 20, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series as on prem edge security solution and cloud application security solution. These next gen firewalls are helping to allow traffic based on application classification and limiting the noise in the network. Also, use of Strata Cloud manager is an addon which helps in the centralized management of these devices. Feature like Wildfire is providing the support in mitigating zero day attacks. We are utilizing the User-ID feature to restrict the users to the application and services which they need access to. Overall, Palo Alto Networks firewalls are helping us in getting least privilege access implementation in our corporate network.

Pros

Wildfire
Application Filtering
User-ID based access policies
DNS protection
Remote access VPN support

Cons

Menu items on GUI needs to be arranged in a way that it could be easy to find.
GUI fonts needs to be on a bit larger side.
Instead of graying out the unavailable option on GUI, some different colors should be used.
Management web page load time in the browser is on the higher side
It takes a lot of time to push any config to the firewall while using Panorama/SCM

Likelihood to Recommend

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series is best suited for large scale enterprises. Use of features like Prisma Access, Panorama and Strata Cloud Manager makes it easy to mange firewall devices across the globe. Next generation firewall capabilities enhance the secure posture of the organization and also helps in deploying zero trust model in the network.

Vinayak Mishra

Senior MS Security Engineer in Information Technology at NTT Ltd. (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

15 years of experience

Verified on LinkedIn

Palo Alto Next Gen Firewall lives up to expectations.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 18, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I utilize my Palo Alto Next-Gen firewall to protect a school district comprising approximately 6,500 students and over 1,000 staff members. I can see that we are constantly attacked from almost every angle. Still, I never have to stress, because I can also see that in nearly every situation, Palo Alto is stopping the threats before they ever reach my network.

Pros

Easy to create rules that make sense.
Identifies current threats and automatically downloads updates that help it stop them.
Integrates with my authentication system to allow me multiple ways to create rules based on various factors.

Cons

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.

Likelihood to Recommend

Anywhere where high performance and application-specific rules are necessary would be a great fit. Palo Alto NG firewalls are exceptionally well suited to doing application-based rules, rather than service-based rules, although they can still easily do those. The cost might make it less well-suited for smaller installations or where the more complicated setup procedures are too much for a user with limited proficiency to handle.

Branden Beachy

Network Administrator in Information Technology at Goshen Community Schools (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

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Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series for the win

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 29, 2025

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series at all our locations. They function as router/firewall appliances, perform web filtering, and provide both client and clientless VPN access. Additionally, they are set up for site-to-site VPN connectivity between locations. They are robust in all they do and are an integral part of our networking. I recommend the Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series devices to anyone looking for a better router/firewall appliance.

Pros

Routing
Web Filtering
Security
VPN

Cons

Commit speed is slow when modifying the settings
Reporting is there but lacking

Likelihood to Recommend

The clientless VPN is great when you need to offer temporary access to a consultant or vendor and limit their access. However, get the best model for your user count, or you may encounter performance issues or limited storage capacity for logs. Additionally, these are not plug-and-play devices and you must either have a strong networking foundation to configure them correctly or hire a consultant to perform the configuration for you.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

12 years of experience

The best of both worlds for cyber security and network performance.

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

December 27, 2024

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We utilize Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series for our physical locations as well as the virtual appliances to extend capabilities to our cloud infrastructure. The high availability pairing and centralized management through Panorama provide ease of management with solid performance. We have used several other firewall vendors in the past (Checkpoint, and Fortinet) but ultimately replaced them all with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series in favour of stronger security and performance.

Pros

Panorama product provides ease of management and visibility of multiple firewalls within one console.
App-id rules allow for enhanced rule creation.
Global Protect VPN extends firewall capabilities to devices not on internal networks. Great for remote workforce.

Cons

The interface is a little complicated at first. This is common for all firewall products I've used but Palo Alto could definitely update the UI.
Firewall rule audits are cumbersome. I have been using third-party tools to assist with the management. It would be great if Palo Alto could build out this functionality within Panorama.
Best-Practice Assessment (BPA) is not well advertised. These are very useful but require reaching out to your rep. Palo Alto should look at automating this and building it into QBR touchpoints with their customers.

Likelihood to Recommend

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series are extremely versatile. Whether it be a one office location or multiple sites, the Panorama interface allows centralized management. I've found Palo Alto does a great job with their updates and supporting customers. As a cybersecurity professional, I like that Palo Alto's products offer a wide range of controls to support defense in depth. It is easy for security and network infrastructure teams to use the same consoles to deliver performance with security built in.

Verified User

Director in Information Technology (51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Powerful and Easy Firewall - For Enterprise Companies

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

April 30, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Company wants to create a secured on-premise Datacenter. To do that we implemented 2 PA VM500 in Active-Passive mode and configured them with Layer7 policies and Micro-segmentation. In this way we monitor in\out traffics and also lateral movements between datacenter services

Pros

Easy web management interface
Search is powerfull and easly
Many L7 Applications recognize for policies

Cons

SD-WAN feature is quite difficult
Dedicated logging server missing
Entry PA Appliance has slowly web interface
Commit configuration is slower than other competitors

Likelihood to Recommend

Palo Alto is recommended in Enterprise environments because is a standard de facto Top of rack Firewall In Datacenter is important to have visibility of all traffic and configure the right and simple policies to manage IT. Palo Alto OS is stable and easy to learn. If you need to put multiple Appliances in remote sites maybe you'll have an issue with the price: it's not cheap.

Diego Carmignani

IT Infrastructure Coordinator in Information Technology at Cartiere Carrara S.p.A. (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

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Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls Review

Rating: 9 out of 10

March 30, 2022

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Palo Alto NGFW helps to protect web and network traffic which up to layer 7. There are many new threats and malware and Palo Alto NGFW is able to prevent and identity any potential threats. Palo Alto NGFW comes with WildFire which able to perform file analysis to detect any zero-day threats which can be very efficient to protect the organization.

Pros

WildFire file analysis.
Threat prevention.
DNS security.

Cons

Fasten policy deployment.
Provide more threat details.
Visibility over file analysis details.

Likelihood to Recommend

Palo Alto NGFW can be managed by Palo Alto Panorama which provides centralized management. This has greatly simplified the administration and daily operation tasks. Most of the configurations are available in Panorama which can be deployed to the managed devices. Somehow the policy deployment is not instantly and required to perform a commit before the configurations are applied to the firewall.

Kelvin Goh

Security Consultant in Information Technology at Mesiniaga Berhad (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

View profile

Palo Alto - Networks Next-Generation Firewalls Review

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

August 30, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Palo Alto [Networks Next-Generation Firewalls] is being used as a security product on our perimeter. We have different segments and different entities using Palo Alto in a campus as well as data center environments. It is securing external threats to penetrate inside our organization showing application visibility along with the threat intelligence feature to mitigate risk.

Pros

Application visibility
Single pass architecture
GUI clarity

Cons

SDWAN without licensing
URL filtering is basic; should be included in base license
PA devices should come with secure defaults

Likelihood to Recommend

Single Pass Architecture is the best among all the security products I have worked upon. Features clarity and working solutions [that] are easy to find and deploy. However, this device being on the expensive side makes it difficult to implement for small offices, which is, in my opinion, very difficult to penetrate the market. Sometimes, people do see money/budget. :)

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

5 years of experience

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - features of a ML based firewall that you need to know!

Rating: 10 out of 10

August 4, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We have deployed Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series in our Head office in High availability mode. This Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series is deployed on the internet gateway/perimeter to filter only good traffic and around 300 users and 30-35 servers are connected behind this firewall. Also, this firewall is responsible to prevent intruders, do gateway level Antivirus inspection, Malware filtering, URL filtering, anti-spyware, and file filtering for users to upload or download. We have also procured DNS security and Wildfire Sandbox along with the firewall.

Pros

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series gives predictive performance, as per our sizing and requirements
It is integrated very well with internal features it is providing, like, Wildfire Sandbox integrated with gateway AV and URL filtering engine
Seamlessly integrates with 3rd party tools and systems, like integration with ClearPass from HPE Aruba for user auth, syslog integration, etc
Enhanced security features like EDL, Credential theft prevention, DNS Security, ML based firewall, which we cannot find in another solutions

Cons

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series provides platform for network security but lacks features for additional features like built-in MFA, cloud based management, etc
In file filtering and AV module, there could be a few optional features of white listing a specific file by its name or hash value or some other detail.
Compared to other vendors, this is costly, but again, feature-rich and hence cannot be with other firewalls.

Likelihood to Recommend

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series is adopted by companies in every industry. Palo Alto is best suited as a perimeter or gateway level firewall for protection against modern threats, advanced attackers, and also for users to access the Internet safely. The reason being, this is purely an application-layer firewall, and performance is based on bandwidth and sessions classified on the application layer rather than just Layer 3/Layer 4 inspections. It has security features that you can add on as subscriptions and the best part is each feature is integrated with one another internally as well.

Darshil Sanghvi

Presales in Information Technology at Network Techlab (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

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Reviews and Ratings

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - features of a ML based firewall that you need to know!

Rating: 10 out of 10

August 4, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series gives predictive performance, as per our sizing and requirements
It is integrated very well with internal features it is providing, like, Wildfire Sandbox integrated with gateway AV and URL filtering engine
Seamlessly integrates with 3rd party tools and systems, like integration with ClearPass from HPE Aruba for user auth, syslog integration, etc
Enhanced security features like EDL, Credential theft prevention, DNS Security, ML based firewall, which we cannot find in another solutions

Cons

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series provides platform for network security but lacks features for additional features like built-in MFA, cloud based management, etc
In file filtering and AV module, there could be a few optional features of white listing a specific file by its name or hash value or some other detail.
Compared to other vendors, this is costly, but again, feature-rich and hence cannot be with other firewalls.

Likelihood to Recommend

Darshil Sanghvi

Presales in Information Technology at Network Techlab (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience