Palo Alto Next Gen Firewall lives up to expectations.
June 18, 2025

Palo Alto Next Gen Firewall lives up to expectations.

Branden Beachy | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

PA-3000 Series

Overall Satisfaction with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series

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.
  • We have seen multiple other local school districts compromised by the same attacks we face. Although the threats are stopped for us, they have been successful for them, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in mitigation and cleanup costs.
  • We have been able to affordably provide all our users with secure remote accessibility through Global Protect VPN.
  • We have been able to quickly and easily make changes to our configuration without costly and annoying delays.
It is extremely powerful in the level of control it gives you, as well as the levels of abstraction you can use to make it more modular and easier to document. This level of power, however, can make it a little more complicated to use at times. However, I would not trade the level of control for easier use. I would rather learn how to use it and keep the power.
I cannot speak to the current version of this product. Still, when we reviewed it several years ago, it was a complicated hodgepodge of interfaces that made the Palo Alto look positively basic in comparison. It was easy to choose the Palo Alto device over it at the time, and I have not heard many people argue that it is much better now.

Do you think Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series's feature set?

Yes

Did Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series again?

Yes

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.

Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls - PA Series Feature Ratings

Firewall
9.0
Identification Technologies
10
Visualization Tools
9
Content Inspection
9
Policy-based Controls
10
Active Directory and LDAP
9
Firewall Management Console
9
Reporting and Logging
8
VPN
8
High Availability
9
Stateful Inspection
9
Proxy Server
9

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