We compared Prisma SD-WAN and Prisma Access across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Prisma SD-WAN provides deep application visibility, centralized control, and the option to utilize local breakouts for internet connections. Prisma Access stands out for its ease of use, advanced security features, and global performance.
Room for Improvement: Prisma SD-WAN has room for improvement in various areas such as routing behavior, alerts and monitoring, and event analysis. Prisma Access could benefit from enhancements in error handling, latency, and integration with other cloud architectures.
Ease of Deployment: Some users experienced issues with existing traffic paths while setting up Prisma SD-WAN, which required several hours or more to resolve. Similarly, the setup process for Prisma Access varied in complexity and duration based on the size and requirements of the organization. While some users found it straightforward, others mentioned the need for expertise and assistance.
Service and Support: The feedback about Prisma SD-WAN's customer service varies. Some customers appreciated the support team's expertise, while others have noticed a decrease in the quality. Prisma Access's customer service has received mixed reviews. Some customers expressed a desire for better technical support, while others have had positive experiences with prompt responses and knowledgeable engineers.
Pricing: Prisma SD-WAN is less expensive than some solutions like Cisco, but Zscaler is even cheaper. Prisma Access is a more expensive solution, but users say the price is justified by its quality and features.
ROI: Prisma SD-WAN reduces costs and downtime while helping customers meet audit requirements. Prisma Access excels in identifying security concerns, seamlessly integrating with various products, and delivering instant value.
Comparison Results: Prisma SD-WAN offers useful features like in-depth application visibility, centralized control, and flexibility in WAN management. It has room for improvement in terms of routing behavior, documentation, and device reliability. Prisma Access is praised for its strong security features and ease of administration. It faces challenges with its user interface, configuration, and geographic coverage. Prisma SD-WAN is considered more affordable than other solutions, while Prisma Access is seen as higher-priced but justifiable for its quality.
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"It's very stable. Sometimes after installing the boxes, we leave them for one or two years. We would just touch the box in the case of the customer needing new requirements or changes to the setup."
"Its frontend is user-friendly. It is easy to use for us."
"Prisma helped us build a moat around our production systems. It's now impossible to log into our production from a non-MDM laptop. Prisma Access provides decent security overall."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is a seamless solution."
"Panorama provides centralized management capabilities for all our firewalls and locations so that we can manage different data centers through a single device, a very valuable feature. We don't have to log into various devices to oversee them individually."
"A feature I've found very helpful is run time security because most of the products on the market will look at security during the build time, and they don't really look at what happens once you're going into production."
"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."
"The visibility perspective is pretty cool. If I want to know how much data is being used for a specific project, I can look at how much data has been used, from which region, and which users have been connected. That visibility is very good so that I can see how many licenses we have and how many are used."
"When it comes to supporting large, complex, network architectures, it's a very simple architecture. The main component is the fabric. It's very easy to troubleshoot if there is an issue happening in the underlying network."
"The product's initial setup phase is straightforward."
"Prisma supports all of the applications we're currently using."
"The gateway is available on the cloud which allows you access from anywhere and still connects to your home gateway."
"From the main controller, we can administer the customer's devices, QoS, network, and traffic. We can monitor it and we can change and create policies as well as upgrade the software. We can totally control a customer's network from one site, the Prisma SD-WAN portal."
"Prisma's analytics provide a lot of valuable data. I like the internet health chart that shows latency, dropped packets, MOS for data quality, etc. It also runs a continuous speed test in the background. I've used it multiple times to troubleshoot internet connections when the service provider has attempted to claim nothing is wrong with the circuit. It gives me data to send them showing we're not getting the speed we should, or there is constant packet loss."
"I like that the integration with Palo Alto is easy."
"I like the link monitoring and analytics. These are the features that set Prisma apart from other products. Prisma works well with large, complex networks. One of my clients is a top bank in the United States, and Prisma has performed well for that customer."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"The tools' scalability is subject to some limitations when done on-premise due to the need for additional licenses. However, in other scenarios, increasing scalability involves expanding infrastructure to accommodate more third-party VPN access. It is scalable as long as you pay the money. Also, it needs to improve security."
"There can be some latency issues with the solution that should be improved."
"One thing that would help is if we could get a guide. With Cisco, for example, you can just type the problem regarding your Cisco product and you will easily get your solution. In Palo Alto, however, it's not easy to find the solutions."
"When it comes to integration mechanisms, Prisma SaaS does not support reverse proxy type of integrations."
"The user interface could be better. They need to work a little bit on the console. It is similar to their firewalls but not exactly. They need to clean it up a bit."
"The BGP filtering options on Prisma Access should be improved."
"I haven't seen any SD-WAN configuration capability. If Prisma Access would support SD-WAN, that would help... SD-WAN devices should be able to reach Prisma Access, and Palo Alto should support different, vendor-specific devices, not just Palo Alto devices, for SD-WAN configuration."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks should consolidate the portals into a single portal. It is slow and takes more than ten seconds to load a page."
"The tool needs to work on price and complexity."
"Customer support is our biggest pain point. The quality of support has gone down a little since we initially deployed this product. I don't know if this is due to turnover at Palo Alto or a lack of training. It is now taking one or two days to get an initial response that says, "Hey, we've looked into this, can you pull this data for us?" In the past, we'd immediately get a response."
"Sometimes, during the product's initial setup phase, bypass pair or couple ports don't come up normally, and it requires an hour and a half to troubleshoot to reset the box from Prisma SD-WAN to factory default."
"We are incorporating their zone-based firewalls. Prisma SD-WAN has limited documentation on how it manipulates traffic, e.g., how it is interacting with TCP and UDP. We recently had some traffic that was black holing. We literally had to do packet captures to see that the new zone-based firewall, which runs on top of Prisma SD-WAN, was causing issues."
"There are two parallel things that we want Palo Alto to work on. First, customers want a unified appliance that does the work of all firewalls in addition to SD-WAN. Second, the cloud presence should be completely automated. If I purchase the SASE architecture, I shouldn't worry about deployments in Prisma Access or on Prisma SD-WAN. It should be deployed in one go."
"I'd like to see them move more towards CASB."
"I would also like to see improvement in the product training for customers. Palo Alto has not initiated very much training but they have to do so because this is a new product. If you have experience in a legacy environment, and you are moving to Prisma SD-WAN, you don't have a training framework. That is one of the disadvantages."
"Prisma SD-WAN should provide more flexibility and scalability on the hardware."
More Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks Pricing and Cost Advice →
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 1st in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 58 reviews while Prisma SD-WAN is ranked 10th in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 12 reviews. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2, while Prisma SD-WAN is rated 8.6. The top reviewer of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks writes "Integration with Palo Alto platforms such as Cortex Data Lake and Autofocus gives us visibility into our attack surface". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Prisma SD-WAN writes "A stable tool that offers a good uptime and ensures a return on investment". Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, Netskope , Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Internet Access and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, whereas Prisma SD-WAN is most compared with Cisco SD-WAN, Meraki SD-WAN, Fortinet FortiGate, Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform and VMware SD-WAN. See our Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs. Prisma SD-WAN report.
See our list of best Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) vendors.
We monitor all Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.