🛡️ Palo Alto PA-820 vs PA-850

The practical gap between the PA-820 and PA-850 is modest but real: roughly 27% more App-ID throughput, 50% more concurrent sessions, double the SFP+ count, and redundant power as standard rather than optional. PAN-OS, the security subscriptions (Threat Prevention, WildFire, URL Filtering, DNS Security) and the management experience via Panorama are identical, so the choice is purely a sizing and resilience decision, not a feature one.

The PA-820 is the right pick when the site genuinely fits inside its envelope — typically a UK branch or mid-size office of up to around 300 users with a single uplink and modest SSL decryption requirements. It is the more cost-effective box and gives you the full PAN-OS feature set, but it has limited headroom once you turn on Threat Prevention plus decryption plus logging at peak. Buyers who expect any of those workloads to grow should size up rather than refresh early.

The PA-850 earns its premium in two specific places: session capacity (192k vs 128k matters for sites with lots of short-lived flows, IoT or guest Wi-Fi) and the extra 10GbE SFP+ pair, which is what most UK regional datacentres or HQ edges actually need for dual-uplink resilience to two carriers. Redundant PSU as standard also removes a line item that many procurement teams forget on the 820.

Recommendation: choose the PA-820 for a stable branch with a known user count and a single ISP; choose the PA-850 where you need dual 10GbE uplinks, HA with redundant power, or any prospect of enabling SSL decryption across the user base. Note that both models are end-of-sale from Palo Alto — UK buyers should weigh remaining support life and consider the PA-400 series for new deployments where lifecycle matters under NIS2 and NCSC guidance.

Want to compare different products or add more to this comparison?

Made your choice? Spread the cost.

Whichever you choose, you don't have to pay for it all upfront — finance your new hardware from £258/mo ex VAT on hire purchase or lease. Compare monthly payments and terms in seconds.

Indicative estimate · subject to change · no credit check at this stage · hire purchase, lease & subscription for UK businesses

Indicative illustration only. Servnet Limited is not authorised or regulated by the FCA and does not provide financial advice or arrange finance. All finance opportunities are referred to Number Eight Business Finance. Finance policy