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Cisco Duo vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Cisco Duo
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
60
Ranking in other categories
Single Sign-On (SSO) (2nd), Authentication Systems (2nd), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th), Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) (1st)
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), Application Control (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (2nd), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (13th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the ZTNA as a Service category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Duo is 2.3%, down from 3.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform is 17.2%, down from 23.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA as a Service
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
RyanDeppe - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps reduce the risk of a breach and is easy to deploy and onboard
For our customers, Duo Security is a significant advantage because it provides them with a straightforward method to implement MFA across their entire environment. Moreover, once we delve into the more advanced features of Duo Security, it enables us as a partner to engage in ongoing discussions regarding security strategies with our customers. Initially, we may only introduce them to MFA during the onboarding process. However, as their security strategy evolves, we can leverage Duo to perform additional tasks such as risk-based assessments and deployments, thereby assisting in the development of their security measures. Duo Security helps secure our infrastructure. It serves as our gateway layer of protection, allowing us to understand who is logging in and why. We conduct risk-based assessments on each user to determine whether their actions are appropriate or not. Duo Security is not a comprehensive security solution, but it is undoubtedly a crucial component, a critical layer of security. This aspect resonates with our customers consistently. Their ability to reduce the risk of a breach is of utmost importance. It serves as the primary line of defense. Currently, credential gathering and leaks are widespread in the market. By implementing an MFA solution like Duo Security, we can effectively prevent these issues. When we put a stop to credential harvesting, it becomes much harder for attackers to infiltrate and navigate our network. Therefore, Duo Security acts as an excellent first line of defense. User authentication and device verification are the methods through which we envision our customers navigating in order to prevent identity-based attacks. Initially, when we employ Duo Security, it is a straightforward implementation of multi-factor authentication. As we progress, we enhance security measures by incorporating device risk assessment and potentially even regional assessment. This includes considerations such as whether the login is being attempted from a specific IP address. These gradual enhancements contribute to the establishment of an additional layer of protection. Thus, it is not necessary to implement a completely disruptive strategy right from the start. Instead, it is possible to gradually adopt and integrate this approach, following a crawl, walk, or run methodology. The Duo Security self-service portal helps free up our customers' IT staff time, allowing them to focus on other projects. As a Cisco partner, we have received feedback from our customers that the portal is highly interactive, enabling them to easily navigate and resolve issues. After setting up their Duo environment, we rarely receive callbacks for assistance, as the portal is intuitive and empowers users to handle everything they need on their own. The appealing aspect of Duo Security is its ability to establish trust for every access request, regardless of its origin. It is a cloud-based solution with excellent API integrations. It doesn't matter where or how a user logs in; Duo will be there to protect the user, whether it's through MFA, risk assessment, or similar methods. It is extremely beneficial to our customers that Duo Security considers all resources as external. Our customers frequently inquire about a zero-trust model, and this is a key component of it. Unfortunately, I would love to say that there is a simple solution for zero trust where we can just deploy this solution and be done with it. But that's not the case. It requires a layered approach, and that's what we convey to our customers. Duo Security is definitely a part of that. Duo Security has helped improve our customers' cybersecurity resilience. Internally, it protects our users from accessing sales operations-based environments. Additionally, our customers use it regularly to protect business-critical applications.
Sumit Bhanwala - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud-based platform simplifies device and data center management
I find it to be good. The solution is cloud-based with the latest inspection engines, which I find to be amazing. We are less dependent on data centers and device management, which reduces our efforts significantly. It improves our device management, data center management, and updating devices. We need fewer engineers for this management, and it reduces time and efforts for data center management, device upgrades, and IT support.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"The two-factor login is great. I receive a message and just have to press okay."
"The product is reliable and easy to use."
"The single pane of glass management is very important and it is part of the reason we went with Duo. Anything we can do to save time for our administrators, help desk staff, and engineers, is valuable to us."
"Documentation is the most valuable feature, and if you ever have to reach out to them with a question, their support is also fantastic."
"Duo Security provides a high level of certainty regarding the identity of the individual performing an action. Whether it's logging into a system, using VPN, or utilizing Autopay, establishing that trust is crucial. I can't imagine any security company, organization, or IT team that wouldn't prioritize having multifactor authentication enabled when accessing critical systems."
"It's easy to use for the security part, and it helps to improve our security posture."
"They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, specifically in single sign-on."
"It's easy to deploy. It's easy to manage. It's easy to integrate with other applications."
"The scalability is pretty good."
"The best feature is the ability to establish the connection between your public network and automatically connect to the intranet connection."
"The most valuable features of Zscaler SASE include web filtering, application control, and the private access configuration."
"Its impressive scalability allows the combination of multiple dictionaries and using them as one engine, resulting in narrower data loss gaps."
"The most valuable feature of Zscaler Private Access is the categorization of the dynamic URLs which keeps the customer's environment protected. The threats and the malware are correctly categorized."
"On DLP terms, Zscaler Cloud DLP ensures that data doesn't go outside of the organization. So on the network level, Zscaler does a pretty good job."
"It does the job. What it is needed for. I can use it for VPN, I can use it for secure connections, I can use it as a firewall. So the solution does the job."
"What I find most valuable in Zscaler Private Access is that it's a VPN. Its connectivity as a VPN is its most valuable feature."
 

Cons

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"I wouldn't mind seeing some options for remembering a device for a short period of time or a specific login, particularly for administrative engineering staff, as we may be logging in to four or five different services."
"When you come to the push in Duo Security, there are some integrations where you have to use the code instead of the push functionality."
"From an administrative standpoint, I'd love to see it be a little better at remembering a device and location so that I don't have to continually authenticate. That's pretty much it."
"There is a little bit of apprehension for some users thinking, well, "How do I know this app is not collecting personal information from my personal device?""
"For upgrades, there should be a better notification of when they're coming out. We always have a testing phase, so we need to be ahead of it. It takes us longer before we can upgrade to the newest version."
"Duo has some issues that we're trying to work through. For example, if I install it on a WordPress site and another admin needs to log in, they can't because Duo hasn't been set up for them. It doesn't appear that I can add permissions on a user-by-user basis. It's not obvious."
"Reducing or eliminating the "telephony credits" system used by Duo would be great."
"We first deployed Duo Security for our company with the VPN, and afterward, about a year later, we implemented it for a customer of ours where we offered infrastructure as a service. When I tried to establish a VPN connection through Duo Security, it did not function well on that version, which was the latest one at the time. So, I had to make a copy of the machine and then implement Duo Security with the VPN because it did not function well with the newer version."
"An area for improvement would be the ease of configuration."
"Sometimes applications crash on some machines, and we’d like Zscaler to give us some information as to why that may have happened. We’d like more detailed reports."
"There could be more DLP-related features. Additionally, there needs to be flexibility for integrating ISP features."
"Zscaler Private Access needs to improve its collaboration with applications without compromising security."
"The area that requires improvement is their support. The current support is lacking."
"Zscaler CASB breaks down at times."
"The menu for the ZIA portal could be organized a little bit differently. The most-used modules should be at the top of the menus, not somewhere near the bottom, some of them are not organized well in my opinion."
"There aren't really any missing features that I have witnessed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"Our licensing fee is currently on an annual basis."
"You pay per user when using this solution and the pricing is fair."
"It was very reasonable."
"Price wise, it's not cheap, but it's not expensive at all either. It's in the middle."
"I haven't seen it in a while, but it's at par with everything else licensing-wise."
"The pricing is pretty competitive. It's pretty cheap. Anybody can adopt it."
"Cisco's licensing is always a bit complicated to understand, but the price is fair. It could be more expensive than others, but the way they integrate everything, it has a fair price."
"I am not aware of the pricing. There are two departments, and I don't have any information about them."
"In the long run, cloud services are not inherently costly."
"The technical support is good."
"The solution has increased prices this year."
"The solution is expensive."
"Zscaler SASE software is quite expensive compared to other solutions"
"In terms of market positioning, I would describe Zscaler Private Access as offering optimal pricing. Based on our experience, Cato Networks tends to be slightly more expensive."
"The product is a bit expensive."
"The licensing model for Zscaler Cloud DLP allows you to only buy what you need. You don't need to buy it as a whole, so it's good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
How does Duo Security compare with Microsoft Authenticator?
We switched to Duo Security for identity verification. We’d been using a competitor but got the chance to evaluate Du...
What do you like most about Duo Security?
They are users who, as mentioned before, utilize RDPAP and MDPAP. It includes functionalities related to finance, spe...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Duo Security?
The setup cost is reasonable, estimated at around six euros per month.
What is the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Zscaler SASE?
The most valuable features of Zscaler Private Access are reliability, scalability, and availability.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler SASE?
Zscaler SASE is quite expensive compared to other solutions. The price is not fixed and it does not include all of th...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Duo Security
Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Duo vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.