---
title: Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Reviews
meta_title: 'Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Reviews 2026: Details,
  Pricing, & Features | G2'
meta_description: Filter 92 reviews by the users' company size, role or industry to
  find out how Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall works for a business
  like yours.
aggregate_rating:
  rating_value: 4.3
  review_count: 92
  scale: '5'
date_modified: '2026-07-17'
parent_category:
  name: Network Security
  url: https://www.g2.com/categories/network-security
---

# Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Reviews
**Vendor:** Palo Alto Networks  
**Category:** [Firewall Software](https://www.g2.com/categories/firewall-software)  
**Average Rating:** 4.3/5.0  
**Total Reviews:** 92
## About Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall
Palo Alto Networks&#39; VM-Series Virtual Firewall is the industry’s leading cloud security software, delivering the world’s most effective network security to any cloud or virtualized environment. It is a virtualized form factor of Palo Alto Networks&#39; next-generation firewalls, built to protect your applications from zero-day threats, providing consistent security and easy deployment across all clouds and virtualized environments, including technologies from Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, VMware, Cisco, KVM, Nutanix, OpenStack, and more.



## Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Pros & Cons
**What users like:**

- Users appreciate the **low false-positive rates and advanced features** of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, ensuring robust security. (18 reviews)
- Users benefit from **advanced threat protection** features, ensuring robust security across diverse platforms and environments. (18 reviews)
- Users value the **robust security features** of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, enhancing protection in virtual and cloud environments. (13 reviews)
- Users value the **consistent security** of Palo Alto&#39;s VM-Series across on-premises and cloud environments, enhancing protection and policy enforcement. (13 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **ease of deployment** with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, enjoying seamless integration and intuitive management. (11 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **ease of use** of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, highlighting its responsive and simple interface. (11 reviews)
- Users commend the **high efficiency of the firewall** , enhancing security with seamless cloud integration and easy management. (11 reviews)
- Threat Detection (11 reviews)
- Users appreciate the **seamless integration** with cloud providers, enhancing their security management experience significantly. (9 reviews)
- Customer Support (8 reviews)

**What users dislike:**

- Users note that the Palo Alto VM-Series Virtual Firewall is **expensive** , making it challenging to justify for budget-conscious clients. (26 reviews)
- Users face a **difficult learning curve** with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series, often requiring specialized training and understanding. (11 reviews)
- Users find the **setup and configuration complex** , particularly challenging for beginners with steep learning curves and high costs. (10 reviews)
- Users report **slow performance** during peak traffic, which can hinder overall effectiveness and efficiency in operations. (9 reviews)
- Users experience a **steep learning curve** and complexity in setup, making management challenging for new teams. (8 reviews)
- Users report experiencing **high resource usage** , causing performance issues and increased costs when managing the VM-Series Firewall. (8 reviews)
- Users express concerns about the **high pricing** of the Palo Alto VM-Series, impacting flexibility and budget discussions. (7 reviews)
- Users face **difficult installation** challenges, particularly with licensing and automation, complicating the setup process. (5 reviews)
- Expertise Required (5 reviews)
- Connection Issues (3 reviews)

## Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Reviews
  ### 1. Flexible virtual firewall with strong security features

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Cristian C. | Administrador, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** August 25, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The most helpful aspect of the VM-Series is its flexibility in virtualized environments. It allows us to enforce consistent security policies across multiple cloud and on-premises instances, giving strong visibility into traffic and applications. Automated threat detection and AI-driven alerts help us respond to incidents faster, reducing the time spent on manual monitoring. The integration with our existing cloud infrastructure has also simplified management and improved overall efficiency.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The initial deployment can be complex, especially when scaling across multiple virtual networks. Fine-tuning policies and integrating with other monitoring tools took longer than expected, requiring extra training for the team. Pricing can become significant as the number of virtual instances grows. While the firewall is powerful, the documentation could be more user-friendly for first-time administrators.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The VM-Series Virtual Firewall has helped us centralize security across multiple virtualized environments, including cloud and on-premises workloads. Before using it, managing separate firewalls for each instance created inefficiencies and increased the risk of misconfigurations. Now we can enforce consistent policies, detect threats faster, and reduce manual monitoring. This has improved our incident response times and overall confidence in network security. However, setting up complex policies and integrating with existing monitoring tools still requires extra effort, and scaling the solution can increase costs.

  ### 2. Consistent On-Prem and Cloud Security with Deep App Awareness

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Defense & Space | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** January 20, 2026

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

What I like most about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is the consistency it brings between on-premises and cloud security. The same App-ID, User-ID and Threat Prevention capabilities available on physical firewalls are preserved in virtualized and cloud environments. This makes it easier to enforce uniform security policies, reduce operational complexity, and integrate with centralized management. Its deep application awareness, strong threat intelligence, and cloud-native deployment models enable strong security controls without sacrificing visibility or control in dynamic cloud architectures.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One of the main downsides of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is its cost and licensing complexity, which can be challenging, especially in highly large-scale cloud environments. Additionally, performance tuning and sizing require careful planning, as improper instance selection can lead to unexpected throughput limitations.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall helps us address the complexity of securing hybrid cloud environments while maintaining the same security posture as on-premises. It solves challenges around consistent traffic inspection, east-west and north-south visibility, advanced threat prevention, and granular application-level control in the cloud. By using VM-Series, we benefit from centralized policy management, uniform security controls across data centers and cloud workloads, improved compliance, and reduced operational risk when scaling or redesigning cloud architectures.

  ### 3. Seamless Deployment with Robust Security

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Oluwaseun A.

**Reviewed Date:** November 04, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I really appreciate the ease of configuration provided by the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall. The user interface and experience (UI/UX) make it very straightforward and intuitive for someone like me to configure and manage the firewall effectively. This seamless interface significantly aids in deploying the firewall into our infrastructure without much hassle. Additionally, the support from Palo Alto Networks during deployment was invaluable, allowing us to implement the firewall quickly and efficiently. The integration into our network was smooth, enhancing our productivity by enabling us to perform large configurations and then focus our efforts on other tasks. Overall, this firewall is incredibly efficient and productive, ensuring we're able to perform our security functions effectively as a team.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I feel that the integration of more AI capabilities into the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall could significantly elevate its functionality. Although there are current functions that touch on this, a more comprehensive AI integration would enhance the ability to analyze incoming logs and automatically generate a visual representation of the network's status. This would be incredibly beneficial for quickly understanding what's happening within the network and for generating management and board reports without needing to manually interpret raw data or logs.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I use Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall for deep packet filtering, enhancing our security by blocking outside threats and analyzing traffic logs. It simplifies configuration and deployment, making our work more efficient and productive.

  ### 4. It has good Performance

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Bisrateab G. | Cyber Security officer , Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 13, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I like that the VM-Series offers strong security features such as advanced application and user identification, along with effective threat prevention including malware and zero-day attack detection. Its ability to provide detailed visibility and control over network traffic in virtual and cloud environments is a major advantage. The firewall’s flexibility to deploy across different cloud platforms and virtual infrastructures makes it very adaptable to various environments.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The main downsides are the relatively high licensing and subscription costs, which can add up over time. There is also a steep learning curve for teams new to the platform, making setup and optimization complex. Performance can be limited by the host environment, especially under heavy traffic or with many security features enabled. Additionally, some users find the interface less responsive and troubleshooting can be challenging in complex deployments.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solves critical security challenges in virtualized and cloud environments by providing advanced threat prevention, granular visibility, and consistent policy enforcement across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures. It addresses the problem of securing dynamic workloads that traditional physical firewalls can’t easily protect, enabling organizations to maintain strong security posture while scaling their operations flexibly. This benefits me by ensuring that network traffic is closely monitored and controlled, reducing the risk of cyberattacks and data breaches. It also simplifies management through centralized control, saving time and effort while improving compliance and operational efficiency. Overall, it helps protect valuable assets without slowing down business growth or complicating cloud adoption.

  ### 5. A powerful Firewall with  excellent results but high cost and complex setup

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Mwawai H. | Information Security Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** November 03, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

What i like best about Palo Alto Network VM- Series Virtual Firewall is that it is easy to implement and use. The interface in place its so interactive hence one is able to manage and create policies across the cloud and virtual environments. The integration with  third parties application for instance AWS , Azure makes is more viable in deployment in hybrid setups. The customer support is very reliable in managing the tickets raised with no delay which helps me having to use it all the time whenever i face any challenges.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

What i dislike about VM-Series is that it is complex to setup ,configure and manage it especially for new users and performance depends on the size of the cloud. However it is still used the licensing is expensive making it impossible for smaller teams with limited resources.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It has protected me against cloud workloads from cyber threats because of its advanced threat prevention and visibility across network traffic which reduces data breaches and security risks

  ### 6. Consistent Security and Powerful Cloud Integration

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Seid H. | Senior Network Security Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** December 16, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

What I like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is:

Consistent NGFW security across on-prem and cloud

App-ID, User-ID, and Threat Prevention for deep visibility and control

Strong cloud and automation support (AWS, Azure, GCP, Terraform, APIs)

Centralized management with Panorama

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

What I dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall:

High cost, especially with licenses and subscriptions

Complex initial setup for new users

Resource-intensive (needs strong CPU/RAM for good performance)

Throughput depends heavily on cloud instance sizing

Advanced features require multiple licenses

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solves:

Inconsistent security in cloud and on-prem → same NGFW policies everywhere

Lack of visibility → app- and user-level control

Cloud security gaps → protects virtual workloads

Manual deployments → automation and central management

  ### 7. A top-tier security product, rarely seen,yet vital for strengthening Africa’s digital transformation

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Teddy T. | Enteprise Network and Cybersecurity Team Lead, Computer & Network Security, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 16, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I like the fact that VM series firewall delivers the same full enterprise-grade security functionality as appliance-based solutions, but with instant deployment, avoiding the challenges of international shipping and customs clearance in East Africa, especially Ethiopia. It requires no rack space and also offers flexibility to scale with our country’s dynamic economy, because it allows you to start small and expand as needed. Its intuitive, easy-to-learn GUI is also one of my favorite features. Overall, it’s the best security solution you can get without the logistical headaches

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One of the things I dislike is the complex licensing model, which can be difficult for some of our customers, along with the high product price and mandatory annual subscriptions. For a country with a weaker economy like ours, securing foreign currency (USD/forex) for these payments is a major challenge. Related to this, the VM series sometimes lags when applying configurations, even after allocating significant resources, which can be frustrating. Another major challenge for Palo Alto in general is the lack of a true local presence. There is a demand for these solutions in Africa, and I would like to see Palo Alto engage more actively in East Africa, especially Ethiopia.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is helping us deal with the logistical and cost challenges of deploying appliance-based firewalls in Ethiopia. International shipping and customs clearance are one of the major barriers in our region that slow down projects, but with the VM-Series we get full enterprise-grade security functionality through instant deployment without those challenges. the VM products flexibility feature to start small and scale as our infrastructure grows is also valuable, especially in a dynamic economy like Ethiopia’s.

  ### 8. I have Experiences in Cortex

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Thomas G. | Treat and Vulnerability expert, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 05, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It seamlessly integrates with cloud environments, offering consistent protection across hybrid and multi-cloud infrastructures. The VM-Series provides robust threat prevention, deep traffic inspection, and granular application control without compromising performance.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Additionally, the initial learning curve and complexity of the platform can be challenging for teams new to Palo Alto’s ecosystem. Improved documentation or more simplified setup guides could help speed up deployment for some users.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It effectively solves problems related to securing dynamic workloads, controlling application traffic, and preventing advanced cyber threats across hybrid infrastructures. By integrating seamlessly with our existing Cortex software, we benefit from enhanced threat intelligence and automated response capabilities, which improve our overall security posture and streamline incident management.

  ### 9. A deep review of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Nicolaos N. | Connectivity &amp; Provisioning Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One thing i like a lot that it does not lack any features from physical firewalls, almost everything you have and need in physical FW, you can have it on VM-Series. Also i like the depth of the security it provides. Deep pack inspection, user/device context, URL filtering, DNS Security and the list goes on, are must features for any company that takes cybersecurity serioysly.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I don't like that in VMware ESXi only certain drivers are supported and i dont like the fact, that except that i think that fully deployment is kinda expensive, also required a lot of resources (CPU, RAM etc) to meet performance requirement.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The number one problem it solves is about security, more specifically cloud enviromenent without missing any feature or policy from traditional FW. A plus is the deep inspection and monitoring in applications/users.

  ### 10. It's stable

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Mohamed H. | Senior Security Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 05, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Stability of the palo alto and reliability of the palo series also the GUI is more easy to use .
Also the palo Alto give us more functions that can be use.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

That the virtual PaloAlto firewall isn't on premises so it can be attacked by hacker more than the Hardware PaloAlto firewall. Also the OS need to be more smoothly to upgrade.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It can be functional easily to user and can use the user id . And easy to improve without needing to upgrade the hardware chase or the box all we need is the certificate.

  ### 11. As some one working in IT Integrator company, I have had the chance to deploy Paloalto Firewall.

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Robsen W. | Network and Security Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

the fact the firewall goes beyond port and protocol filtering for better Application aware security and the ability to enforce policies  based on users using User-ID.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

even though Palo Alto VM-Series is praised for its security depth, scalability, and AI-driven threat prevention, it is expensive compared with other firewall vendors like fortinet and cisco. I am from Ethiopia and as some one working in IT integrators, many of our clients are a bit sensitive when it comes to price, this makes it difficult in proposing Paloalto firewall for them

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

to inspects and segments internal traffic, preventing malware from spreading across workloads (east -west traffics) and to isolate traffics using role-based access and segmentation for different tenants or business units.

  ### 12. Palo Alto fIrewall Security product's

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Mitul P. | Senior Network Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** June 11, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It is easy to deploy where we can save cost of hardware and also managed application security and network traffic in highly secure manner. It is robust and solid products in term security.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It is nothing much about firewall products personally to me but need to go with phase by phase when comes to deploying and managing. As new beginner need to learn many things in order to deploy this products

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It is used like managing layer 7 security. Like filtering out Http & https traffic from external clients when accessing internal resources. I deployed in DMZ side and it is very helpful to me when managing network traffic restrictied to dmz which avoid to harm our internal network traiffx when it comes from outside network.

  ### 13. highly recommendable—especially for professionals managing hybrid or cloud-centric environments

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 18, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Security Efficacy: It topped the SecureIQLab 2024 Cloud Firewall Test, outperforming 11 other vendors in blocking real-world threats, including encrypted SSL/TLS attacks.

Cloud Flexibility: Supports AWS, Azure, GCP, VMware, KVM, Nutanix, and more—ideal for virtualized deployments across platforms.

Zero Trust & Deep Inspection: Offers App-ID, User-ID, Device-ID, and inline deep learning to detect zero-day threats

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Complex Configuration & Learning Curve
Initial setup and policy tuning can be intimidating, especially for teams new to Palo Alto’s architecture.

Advanced features like App-ID and User-ID require deep understanding to avoid misconfigurations.

2. Licensing & Cost Structure
Licensing via Software NGFW credits can be confusing and expensive for smaller deployments.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

1. Cloud Visibility & Control
Problem: Native cloud security tools often lack deep traffic inspection and granular control.

Solution: VM-Series provides full traffic visibility, App-ID, and threat prevention across AWS, Azure, GCP, and more.

2. Zero-Day & Lateral Threats
Problem: Malware and exploits can move laterally between virtual workloads undetected.

Solution: Inline deep learning and segmentation stop threats in real time—even across microsegments.

  ### 14. Experience on palo alto vm Series Firewall

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Bereket N. | Network and Security Engineer, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** November 05, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The most i like is its cost and it has more capable as the physical one and also as long as you purchase it you can get it no pending time west in manfacturing

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

While enabling advanced features it has the most difficualt configurations by itself and also haively depends on the server capacity or resource is needed

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

As i said previously you can save time of munfacturing, cost and also defending the network infrastructure with palo alto makes secure with tight security profiles

  ### 15. User-Friendly Interface and Robust Support Make It Stand Out

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Security and Investigations | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** November 04, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

What I find most helpful is the level of granular visibility it provides, which is essential for my work in the SOC. The App-ID and User-ID features are incredibly powerful.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The primary downside is the complexity and high cost of the licensing model. It feels like every essential security feature is a separate, expensive subscription.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The primary business problem the VM-Series solves for us is extending consistent, next-generation security to our virtualized and cloud environments .

  ### 16. Experience and Elegance

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** abdelazize s. | Ethical Hacker, Computer & Network Security, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 17, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The best aspects of the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall include its advanced threat prevention capabilities, consistent security policy enforcement across diverse environments, scalability and agility in virtualized settings, centralized management through Panorama, and seamless integration with major cloud and virtualization platforms.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Documentation Gaps: Occasionally, users find the documentation to be less comprehensive for newer features or unique deployment scenarios, which can complicate implementation and troubleshooting efforts.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Compliance and Risk Management: Aids in meeting regulatory compliance standards by enabling features like application allow listing and segmentation, crucial for isolating sensitive data and systems.

  ### 17. VM-Series: The next-generation of firewall

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** August 04, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I like the fact that the firewall has a relatively low false-positive rates. Also, you can get all the PAN-OS features without waiting for the vendor to port them. This was kind of time-consuming part. The single-pass classification with the flow is also easy to use without much complication. I didn't need much support, which was also a good thing when using the product. The logging is incredible and very well organized with rich metadata.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

When we have people new to the product, they need kind of training because they don't know how to work with the PAN-OS. So onboarding these guys is quiete heavy in terms of training. Also, the frequency of PAN-OS upgrades is relatively high, which I need all the time to restart the service. We have also noticed more recently that when using a high traffic (e.g., PPS) or even large number of IPS signatures, the hypervisor is getting stressed. Some colleagues from different companies also noticed the same issue.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The business problems I am working with are the detection of malicious traffic before they reach the infrastructure, as we need better visibility and high quality of logging and metadata. This is very important in our process.

  ### 18. Virtualized Security Excellence if you can afford it

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 07, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I believe what I like the best about these FWs is their Application level visibility. The App-ID tech used in the Firewalls allows us in our environment to control applications on a granular level allowing improved security. 
Also the fact they're fairly easy to deploy and implement in any environment our customers have such as VMware, AWS, Azure cloud etc. This helps with the ease of integration within the organizations using multiple cloud solutions.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One con would be that they can have some complex initial configuration and may require special expertise within the customer support environment, which can discourage may discourage smaller organizations from using these as they have slightly high licensing and maintenance costs compared to other Virtual FW solutions.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

They help with the scalability of our setups as they can be used with multiple cloud environments with no limitations such as AWS, Azure, GCP or even VMware

  ### 19. Good alternative for a hardware firewall

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Naveed A. | Infrastructure Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 05, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I like it has almost the same features as the hardware firewall. It's easy to deploy on any cloud solution like azure,aws. User based policies in VM is a great next step after application segmentation. 
Palo Alto support is always great to deal with.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Cost to have and maintain a Palo Alto firewall is always a challenge. It's the same with the VM series as well, being an expensive product.
Reporting seems to be limited as compared to physical firewall. VM Palo Alto doesn't provide hardware acceleration as well.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

We have deployed Palo Alto VM firewall in our vsphere switch which is for protecting our production servers. We have different types of servers deployed on virtualized switch, all the traffic to servers passes through Palo Alto vm. Different application control  and web profiles have been setup as per server on VM. 
VM is easy to upgrade and keep a check on licenses accordingly. Panorama provides a complete landscape of security which helps us in setting up policies.

  ### 20. My Review of Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Firewall

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Davis L. | SOC Analyst, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** March 21, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

My role as a Cyber Security Engineer in the Caribbean's leading MSPs has had me involved with all sorts of technoliogies and after testing this vm for myself left me astounded with the Strong Security and Threat protection including Deep pack inspectopon, threat prevention against the latest vulnerabilites is a strong backing for any firewall. Along with the Cloud Integration for the different platform like Azure and AWS make deployment so much easier. 

The UI that is built into the Palo Alto Firewall is a breeze to use and makes implementation less of a hastle.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

There is minimal things I personally dislike about the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall but it was noticed that during peak traffic the performance has seen a drastic dip once a lot of traffic is transversing the network. Also tied with the high cost of licensing will add to the cons.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series virtual firewall solves problems related to securing virtualized and cloud environments by providing advanced threat prevention and network security

  ### 21. Robust Cloud Firewall with Granular Control and Strong Security Features

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Akshat G. | Cybersecurity Engineer, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 26, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is a fantastic choice for organizations that need enterprise-grade security in virtualized and cloud environments. It applies features like application-aware traffic management, threat protection, and packet analysis with packet flexibility on AWS, Azure, GCP, and Kubernetes environments.

One of its best features is offering consistent security policies for multi-cloud and hybrid deployments. The firewall is highly scalable, is automatable with tools like Terraform, and plays nicely in CI/CD pipelines. Management through Panorama also simplifies operations by providing centralized management over multiple instances.

The built-in WildFire service offers a secondary layer of real-time threat intelligence, helping to defend against new and emerging threats in a timely fashion.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

While the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is excellent at security, it is not without its drawbacks. The most significant drawback is cost — licensing, subscription, and cloud resource use can easily become expensive, especially at scale. Setup is also extremely complex and usually requires specialist knowledge, so the learning curve is steep for beginners. Additionally, the firewall can be resource-intensive, consuming heavy CPU and memory, and that increases the operating cost in cloud environments. Last, Palo Alto's licensing options and feature sets are difficult to understand, making the onboarding more complicated.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is meeting the critical need to protect cloud and hybrid environments as securely as it is conventionally possible in on-premises data centers. It is confronting challenges like detecting advanced threats, fine-grained traffic control, application visibility, and consistent policy enforcement across multiple cloud platforms. With deep packet inspection, real-time threat intelligence, and automation tool integrations like Terraform, it enables us to securely migrate workloads into the cloud without relaxing security. This has enabled us to accomplish risk reduction, compliance enhancement, and centralized visibility and management for all our network infrastructure irrespective of where the workloads are directed.

  ### 22. Firewall Review

**Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Oil & Energy | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** September 19, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

ease upgrade process and scaling agile, hybride and multi -could , threat prevention , wildfire, prisma cloud , panorama , cortex XDR , redlock , filtrgae

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The biggest downsides are the cost and complexity. It's an expensive product, both in licensing and the cloud computing power it needs. It's also notoriously complex to master, often requiring dedicated, trained staff to get the most out of it, which adds to the total cost. You're trading top-tier security for a hefty price tag and a steep learning curve.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The VM-Series solves inconsistent and ineffective security across cloud and virtual data centers by delivering a single, agile policy with advanced threat prevention, reducing risk and cost.

  ### 23. PA Virtual Firewall Review

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Dustin L. | System Admin, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 05, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The ease of use & implementation of Palo Alto products is straight forward and they make it easy for even first time administrators to learn and adapt the technology to clients' needs. Customer support for their products is excellent, also very easy to integrate.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I have found nothing that I dislike about this product, other than actually having to have hands on equipment to deploy. This can cause issues when shipping a device to a client in a different location as it can be tricky to walk an end user through setup.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It is helping us to keep all of our switches and other networking gear secure by being the front line defense against attacks. This is benefiting our organization because it keeps the house from burning down and keeps our clients secure in a SOC II Type 2 environment.

  ### 24. Secure and easy to integrate.

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Dylan M. | Associate Technical Account Manager, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** March 27, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It excels in providing robust security features tailored for cloud environments. Its ability to seamlessly integrate with major cloud platforms ensures consistent protection across hybrid and multi-cloud architectures. Additionally, its scalability is a strong point, allowing organizations to adapt to changing workloads without compromising performance. The centralized management through Panorama further simplifies operations, making it a powerful tool for securing dynamic, cloud-based infrastructures.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The initial setup and configuration can be complex, especially for users without prior experience. The learning curve is steep, requiring significant time and effort to optimize deployment. Additionally, the licensing and ongoing costs can be relatively high, which could deter smaller organizations or those with limited budgets.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

As an administrator, I’ve found that it solves a lot of the challenges we face with securing workloads in the cloud. It provides advanced threat prevention, great traffic visibility, and consistent policy enforcement across our hybrid and multi-cloud environments. One of the biggest benefits is its ability to integrate with cloud-native tools, which simplifies managing security across different platforms. It’s helped us prevent malware, secure east-west traffic, and maintain compliance without adding unnecessary complexity.

  ### 25. NSE review of Palto Alto

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Aja B. | Loan Signing Agent, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 07, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I feel like the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall stands out for its  advanced threat prevention and seamless integration with cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP. Its centralized management via Panorama and scalability make it ideal for securing dynamic virtualized and hybrid environments while ensuring operational efficiency.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

licensing costs, limited session failover capabilities, and resource-intensive requirements for optimal performance, such as increased memory and vCPUs for higher throughput and session scaling

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall makes securing cloud and virtual environments way easier by blocking threats, simplifying policy management, and enabling Zero Trust segmentation. Plus, it’s super flexible for scaling in the cloud and saves time and effort with centralized management—basically a lifesaver for keeping things secure and efficient!

  ### 26. Good experience with Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Andrew C. | Data Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** March 24, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I love the consistency of the firewall, it generally works well. It works well enough that most of the time I don't realize that it's doing anything at all.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I enjoy Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall, however there are times when there are outages with it that are quite inconvenient at times. Generally I don't have issues.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It solves the issue of preventing bad actors from accessing the same network that I use on a daily basis at my place of business. It also solves the problem of creating an in-house firewall.

  ### 27. Solid Virtual Firewall with Enterprise-Grade Security

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Retail | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** June 14, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One of the things that really impressed me about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series is how well they’ve integrated machine learning directly into the firewall. It’s not just a buzzword here you can actually see it working.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

While the security capabilities are excellent, the initial learning curve with Palo Alto VM-Series can be pretty steep, especially if you're new to their platform or coming from more traditional firewall vendors.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The biggest problem VM-Series is solving for us is securing complex, distributed cloud environments without sacrificing visibility or control. We run workloads across multiple clouds and on-prem, and having a consistent firewall and security policy across all those platforms is a huge win. VM-Series gives us that single security layer no matter where our applications live.

  ### 28. Reliable Firewall at a high cost

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Ricardo C. | Professor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 05, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The VM-Series Virtual Firewall stands out for its robust, next-generation security features that deliver deep packet inspection, advanced threat prevention, and granular control over applications and users. Its seamless integration into both cloud and on-premises environments enables consistent security policies across hybrid infrastructures, which is critical for modern networks. Additionally, its detailed logging and analytics capabilities offer excellent visibility into network traffic, helping administrators quickly detect and respond to threats. Overall, its strong performance and comprehensive protection make it a compelling choice for enterprises seeking to secure virtualized environments.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

While the VM-Series offers a powerful security suite, its complexity can be a double-edged sword. The initial configuration and ongoing management often come with a steep learning curve, which might be challenging for organizations with limited security expertise or smaller teams. Moreover, the cost associated with licensing, subscriptions, and maintenance can be relatively high compared to some alternative solutions. This combination of complexity and expense may deter smaller businesses or those with tighter budgets, despite the firewall's robust capabilities.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Palo Alto’s VM-Series makes securing your cloud and on-prem setups a breeze by blocking advanced threats and streamlining management—so you can focus on your business without sweating over cyberattacks.

  ### 29. Palo Alto's reliability

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Vlad V. | IT Support Specialist, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 24, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Through my career I've worked with several firewall providers, primarily Sophos what I love about Palo Alto compared to the others is that the support base for this firewall is extremely detailed. Also many advanced features, exactly what you would need in the enterprise.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Steep learning curve this is what was the biggest challenge and what I've disliked the most about it. Never firewalls have better UI but it's still pretty rough to switch vendors

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Well as any firewall the primary purpose is of course network protection. We have several unique Inbound/outbound rules and policy's requirements that this firewall is meeting so security and management.

  ### 30. Robust and scalable virtual firewall solution is the key for  Enterprise-wide cloud security

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Sagar R. | SME (Jamf) | Desktop Architect (Mac), Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** January 18, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Palo Alto Networks VM-Series has evolved into a powerful security tool which is flexible when deployed in a virtual environment or in the cloud. Following are some of high level features and benefits as per my experience:

Cloud-Native.

Multi-Cloud Feature.

Scalability and Flexibility

Comes with High Performance Networking

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Overall this is one of the perfect and scalable solution, however everything comes with improvements, instead of dislike I wanted to call few improvements as of Setup should be easy, Lack of Support and Cost need to be optimised

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Palo Alto VM helps to solve few of the key challenges as of securing hybrid and multi-cloud environments, preventing advanced threats which is one of the biggest challenge in this evolving CyberSecurity world, and microsegmentation really helps for availability and redundancy. For users it really helps with automated security policies across diverse platforms, ensuring compliance, and reducing attack surfaces in dynamic cloud infrastructures.

  ### 31. Palo Alto vm solution fitted perfectly to Us

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Kevin  B. | System Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I have worked with global enterprise clients using different Network VM solutions and Palo Alto worked for us for two main aspects: having PA deployed universally on all our firewalls facilated the internal management of our naas by our team and the support from PA when needed was always spot on.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

VM firewalls can only have 9 DP interfaces that's a limitation that this kind of product has

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

For our Naas architecture we benefited in terms of automation of the policy and device management, cost efficiency and scalability. In fact having several customers we often need to modificate policy and configuration and to rather migrate, change the architcture or install or dismiss new firewalls. So having an unique system like the PA solution is huge benefit for us.

  ### 32. Intuitive and efficient

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Khody D. | Solutions Support Technician, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The software is easy to use and responsive. I work a high-volume help desk and VPN issues are one of our main call drivers, which requires efficiency.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

There is no pop-up or noticeable prompt after resubmitting the host profile and when it is complete. Also, may be helpful to have a disconnect prompt.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

User's frequently call for lost access to an application that requires the VPN and Palo Alto makes it easy for me to troubleshoot their connection issue.

  ### 33. Easy-to-use interface and quick configuration structure

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Apparel & Fashion | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** August 07, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Virtual system. Fast interface access. Multiple rule support. Easily accessible menus. Strict security rules. Configurable VPN modules and quick rule writing.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Character issue when importing groups in active directory synchronization. iOS support issues. Update and VPN connection issues, especially on mobile operating systems.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The filtering rules are excellent. Furthermore, effective management is based on MAC addresses. Simplified graphical representation. Menus are in the right places and don't require searching. Security is top-notch. Sometimes, even we can get caught up in security.

  ### 34. Complex and slow but works fine

**Rating:** 3.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 02, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It does what most firewall do so there is no such area that I can see it does it the best. I guess it works and provide a lot of details. it has all the tools that order vendor has

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Slow device in general. It takes too long to push a simple policy. Also, takes longer to stag a new device vs fortinet. The GUI is old and need to be update. Integrate AI and cloud solutions.Troubleshooting via CLI can be easier, especially in real-time. Please refer to Fortinet CLI troubleshooting commands

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

. It does the key features such as application and threat protection. We use tagging to control policies but I am not sure what was the driving motivate behind choosing Palo over other vendors.

  ### 35. Great experience using Palo Alto VM series devices

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Hospital & Health Care | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 04, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Ease of use and implementation of the VM devices. VM series offer a great experience whether deploying in the cloud or on-premises. Palo Alto support is very responsive, also the support portal is very easy to navigate.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

There is not much to dislike about Palo Alto VM series devices, one thing might be the way they are licenced. You need to purchase Flex credits and depending on the features you use it how many credits your VM consumes.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Enabling our organization and our users to establish secure connection to external applications and services. Also provides resiliency and stability to our network.

  ### 36. Installing virtual PA firewalls on Nutanix, VMWare

**Rating:** 2.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Defense & Space | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** March 13, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The VM-series firewalls worked as intended, and we were able to automate the installation of them as well. I liked the level of integration there was with ansible for configuring the firewall settings. This was very useful when running throughput testing across a variety of firewall configurations.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The licensing was complicated, and this created difficulties when trying to automate the installation of the firewalls. It was challenging to try to automate VM-series firewalls using Terraform, especially for VMWare, because of the need to attach an additional CD with the pre-configuration settings. 

Also, the VM-series seems to be well-optimized for VMWare, but not really for KVM-based hypervisors like Nutanix. We did extensive throughput testing, comparing the hypervisors, and the firewall on VMWare performed better.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Being able to virtualize the firewall helped us be more flexible with our hardware costs. We could purchase virtual infrastructure instead of dedicated firewall hardware.

  ### 37. yes, off course. its very good, reliable

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** sagnik r. | Data Analyst, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 29, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

1) It works seamlessly with AWS, Azure and google cloud and others
2)It has security features like App-ID, User-ID and Threat preventions on appliances.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

1) Too much resource intensive on CPU and memory in cloud environments.
2) It needs deep expertise as in training to understand it's full value which can be understood.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

1) It's slow and security has to be done manually
2) There is almost no or very less visibility and control in the cloud
3) It's not reliable with security policies across all environments

  ### 38. Using Palo alto Firewall

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Pedro O. | DESARROLLADOR WEB, Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 09, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The ability to deploy on AWS, Azure, and GCP with consistent security policies across hybrid environments is a game-changer. Additionally, the SSL decryption feature ensures no threats hide in encrypted traffic

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The VM-Series’ dynamic address groups and User-ID features streamline policy enforcement based on real-time user/device context. The Threat Prevention subscription (with WildFire) provides AI-driven malware analysis

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Shadow IT Risks: Layer 7 visibility identifies unauthorized SaaS apps (e.g., employees using unapproved cloud storage), reducing data exfiltration risks by 60%.

Cloud Security Gaps: Auto-scaling in AWS prevents bottlenecks during traffic spikes while maintaining threat inspection.

  ### 39. Very secure snd trustworthy

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Information Technology and Services | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 03, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Best thing about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is its deep integration with major cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and GCP, which makes deployment very easy. I also like the fact it delivers consistent security policies across hybrid and multi-cloud environments. Furthermore, the App-ID and Threat Prevention features provide granular control and proactive defense against advanced threats.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One downside of the Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall is that its user interface can be a bit hard to navigate, especially for new users. The configuration process is not as intuitive

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The VM-Series Firewall secures our cloud workloads by blocking threats and enforcing consistent policies. It improves our security and helps maintain compliance across environments.

  ### 40. Amazing virtual firewall

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Insurance | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** June 24, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

One of the best to provide security to cloud infrastructures. Posses the ability to inspect the traffic in-depth and analyze before actually processing to the next hop.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It’s that it’s virtual. Completely dependent on the physical hardware if it’s hosting multiple vm firewalls. Failure to one physical hardware can lead to multiple vms failure

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

As said we use the firewall for in depth inspection of the incoming traffic coming to the corporate network and minimize the risks by providing security to the private and hybrid cloud infrastructures

  ### 41. Palo Alto network

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** DINESH BABU Y. | Senior Consultant, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 24, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Securely connecting to server without any security issues. Do not allow any outside threats during connectivity. Timely refreshing connection points. Stable connectivity

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Sometimes it gets disconnect unknowingly. Network disruptions can be handled more precisely. Connectivity issues can be handled more efficiently.
Network switch required

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Securely connecting with the client server without any issues.
Allowing user to connect in other domain servers using VPN. 
Easy and robust way to connect server

  ### 42. very easy to spin up, manage, and deploy using terraform, manage using ansible

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Computer & Network Security | Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** April 08, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

was able to deploy using terraform, and provision all the firewall rules using ansible, easy to control via code. was able to test deploying in AWS and azure with no problems.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

not much, great product overall. i will say i wish getting the product deployed was a little faster, not nessicarly the most emphermial product, but besides that great

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

limiting access to backend application, acting as network gatweay and firewall for my backend appication. used it as middlewear in between azure devops and my private application.

  ### 43. Highly Secure and Efficient

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Isaac M. | Sr. Helpdesk Technician, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** March 25, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

This upe'd our security 10x. I loved the ease in managing and configuring the firewall. Loved how easy the GUI was to navigate and how intuitive it was.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Sometimes logs were hard to find and pin point because there was not enough info. There was also some syncing issues between Okta and Palo Alto when we setup Scep certs for WIFI.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It saving our IT team a lot of time by allowing us to automate security threats and send us notifications when we need to be aware of high level issues.

  ### 44. Palo Alto Usage Review

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Logistics and Supply Chain | Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** May 02, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

my best pick for VM-Series is In line Machine leaning or MI powered security to protect our cloud infrastructure from cyber attacks, especially zero day attacks which are highly dangerous

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

to be honest, Personally,  I don't find anything to dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall. But, price is often came up as a topic of discussion in meeting with management.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I am using it to monitor ingress and egress traffic, and also using security policies to protect out cloud infrastructure. we are leveraging  panorama management solution to deploy VMs and it is also helping us in managing ngfs.

  ### 45. Great VM series Virtual firewall by Palo Alto Networks

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Dhanashree C. | SharePoint and PowerApps Developer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The integration with various cloud providers is really amazing. I use AWS, it helps me integrate with it. But it’s not limited to AWS- we can work and integrate with Azure, GCP etc.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The complexity while setting up the VM series virtual firewall is bit tricky and time consuming. Also with Infrastructure as Code tools it’s not really great.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

I use Terraform in my daily work, so it really helps me in automating my deployments with secured way. Moreover the security is stand out point I’ll say when we compare with other tools.

  ### 46. Best VM-series Virtual Firewall in the market by Palo Alto

**Rating:** 5.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Hitendra G. | Software Test Analyst, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 21, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Best feature about this is Advanced threat protection it provides. I personally like this feature. Furthermore, it provides great collaboration with different cloud providers like Azure, AWS and more.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

From Infrastructure as Code (IaC) point of view, its not the best. Because it has some issues with it. From my POV, the cost is also bit more from the market's tools.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

The security it provides is immensely awesome. Whether you are using cloud technologies or not, it is the best. It helps also in automating the deployments via Hashicorp's Terraform.

  ### 47. Easy deployment to secure Cloud workloads

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Afroz M. | Peer Tutor, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 09, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

Well, there are many positive aspects of this virtual FW. The majority ones are -  quick and easy deployment, features go beyond layer 3/4, Integration with other third-party softwares for enhanced monitoring and off course user friendly GUI.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

High cost is the major drawback when compared with other competitors in the market. All firewall features are not bundled being said that need licensing for some advanced features. As virtual VM it consumes high amount of resources and need a larger appliance to run VM.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

App based filtering, IDS and IPS, enhanced monitoring etc

  ### 48. Palo Alto Networks Virtual Firewall - Review

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Tanuj S. | Proprietor, Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 20, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

It provides deep security in general and great threat protection. Also it has seamless integration with various clouds in the market and also its easily scalable- that is really great feature.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

There could be seen performance issue while working with it. Moreover deployment complexity is there, as it really requires expertise in this area.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It really prevents attacks, so its stand out feature. It works really well with AWS, and other cloud providers like Azure, GCP etc. But personally with AWS it works as expected.

  ### 49. New user experience for threat prevention and Logging

**Rating:** 4.0/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Verified User in Packaging and Containers | Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 04, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The WildFire analysis for detecting zero-day malware is impressive. It quickly flagged a test malware file I uploaded, and I could see real-time analysis.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The syntax isn’t intuitive for a new user. The logs are detailed but lack context for beginners. I had to refer to external documentation to understand why a session was blocked

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

Other firewalls struggle to detect unknown or zero-day threats that don’t have existing signatures. WildFire analyzes suspicious files in a cloud-based sandbox and generates new security signatures in real-time

In most cloud environments, security teams lack clear insights into blocked threats, making incident response slow. After enabling Threat Prevention, I saw multiple intrusion attempts targeting exposed SSH ports.
The logs showed attack patterns (e.g., brute-force attempts from suspicious IPs in Russia & China).

  ### 50. Review - VM series Virtual Firewall

**Rating:** 4.5/5.0 stars

**Reviewed by:** Mohit P. | Sr DevOps Engineer, Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)

**Reviewed Date:** February 19, 2025

**What do you like best about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

I really like the advanced threat protection it offers, it is a stand out feature for me. Also it integrates really well with all cloud providers like AWS, Azure, GCP etc.

**What do you dislike about Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall?**

The Terraform support is not that much good I'll say. Also costing is bit higher. And the initial setup seems complex to me.

**What problems is Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall solving and how is that benefiting you?**

It actually enhances security beyond typical firewalls like Azure or AWS ones. It automates deployments using Terraform scripts which is helpful for me.


## Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Discussions
  - [What does the VM-Series plugin do?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-does-the-vm-series-plugin-do)
  - [Which feature can be configured on VM-Series firewalls?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/which-feature-can-be-configured-on-vm-series-firewalls)
  - [What is Palo Alto VM-Series?](https://www.g2.com/discussions/what-is-palo-alto-vm-series)

- [View Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall pricing details and edition comparison](https://www.g2.com/products/palo-alto-networks-vm-series-virtual-firewall/reviews?section=pricing&secure%5Bexpires_at%5D=2026-07-22+05%3A20%3A29+-0500&secure%5Bsession_id%5D=04d3824a-21cb-4d96-8ace-6b330b0c6769&secure%5Btoken%5D=d1035778a6e351e835cf6f9555af5519e27aa8c029f9bca1a616ab8aa6f9669d&format=llm_user)
## Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Integrations
  - [Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI)](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-application-centric-infrastructure-aci/reviews)
  - [Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE)](https://www.g2.com/products/cisco-identity-services-engine-ise/reviews)
  - [FortiSIEM](https://www.g2.com/products/fortisiem/reviews)
  - [Nutanix Database Services](https://www.g2.com/products/nutanix-database-services/reviews)
  - [Palo Alto Networks Panorama](https://www.g2.com/products/palo-alto-networks-panorama/reviews)
  - [Wazuh](https://www.g2.com/products/wazuh/reviews)

## Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Features
**Prevention**
- Intrusion Prevention
- Firewall
- Encryption
- Security hardening
- Cloud Data Protection

**Administration**
- Policy Management
- Logging and Reporting
- Application Gateway
- Concurrent Sessions

**Agentic AI - Firewall Software**
- Autonomous Task Execution
- Adaptive Learning

**Detection**
- Intrusion Detection
- Security Monitoring
- Anti-Malware / Malware Detection

**Functionality**
- Virtual Private Network (VPN)
- Antivirus
- URL Filtering
- Availability

**Administration**
- Compliance
- Administration Console -
- API / integrations

**Monitoring**
- Load Balancing
- Continuous Analysis
- Intrusion Prevention
- Intrusion Detection

**Generative AI**
- AI Text Summarization

**Generative AI**
- AI Text Summarization

**Artificial Intelligence - Firewall**
- AI Firewall

**Agentic AI - Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDPS)**
- Autonomous Task Execution
- Proactive Assistance

## Top Palo Alto Networks VM-Series Virtual Firewall Alternatives
  - [Sophos Firewall](https://www.g2.com/products/sophos-firewall/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (809 reviews)
  - [Check Point Next Generation Firewalls (NGFWs)](https://www.g2.com/products/check-point-next-generation-firewalls-ngfws/reviews) - 4.5/5.0 (511 reviews)
  - [Netgate pfSense](https://www.g2.com/products/netgate-pfsense/reviews) - 4.7/5.0 (318 reviews)

