Menlo Secure vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall comparison

Menlo Security and Zscaler are both solutions in the Firewalls category. Menlo Security is ranked #51, while Zscaler is ranked #24 with an average rating of 8.6. Menlo Security holds a 0.0% mindshare in Firewalls, compared to Zscaler’s 0.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Menlo Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 92% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Menlo Secure and Zscaler Cloud Firewall are leading options in the cloud firewall market. While Menlo Secure offers favorable pricing and customer support, Zscaler Cloud Firewall has a clear upper hand in features, making it preferred for comprehensive protection.

Features: Menlo Secure users highlight efficient threat isolation, user-centric security policies, and competitive pricing. Zscaler Cloud Firewall is notable for deep packet inspection, zero-trust architecture, and strong integration capabilities. Zscaler's advanced features make it stand out.

Room for Improvement: Menlo Secure needs better threat detection accuracy, simpler user configuration, and improvements in reporting analytics. Zscaler Cloud Firewall could benefit from better reporting analytics, more straightforward policy management, and enhanced support for complex configurations.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Menlo Secure is known for straightforward deployment and responsive customer service. Zscaler Cloud Firewall also offers easy deployment with guided configurations and robust support. Zscaler's comprehensive setup process is slightly more favorable.

Pricing and ROI: Menlo Secure is valued for its competitive pricing, contributing positively to ROI. Zscaler Cloud Firewall, though more expensive, is perceived as worth the investment due to its extensive features and positive ROI. Menlo Secure is budget-friendly, but Zscaler provides substantial value for its cost.

To learn more, read our detailed Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall Report (Updated: April 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 2025

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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

Fortinet FortiGate

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 21.1%, up from 17.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 0.0%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Cloud Firewall is 0.4%, up from 0.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Firewalls

Featured Reviews

EhabAli

Sr. Cybersecurity Solutions Architect at BMB

Efficient, user-friendly, and affordable

In the past, NSS Labs was utilized to test files and verify the numbers and datasheets. It would be beneficial to have an organization or testing lab that can verify the numbers in our datasheets since changes are frequently made, which can be inconvenient for review. For instance, when comparing different competitors such as Forcepoint, Palo Alto, and Check Point, the throughput or numbers in the datasheet may be lower than the actual numbers. Conversely, Fortinet typically reports very high numbers, but they cannot be replicated in the real world. Therefore, it would be advantageous for them to partner with a neutral testing organization such as NSS Labs to validate these numbers, thus providing more credibility and comfort to everyone regarding the accuracy of the datasheets. For the migration, everyone has a firewall in use and I am selling Fortinet. Typically, I am replacing another firewall. Previously, there was a tool available to convert configurations from one firewall, such as Palo Alto, to Fortinet, but this tool is no longer free. If it could be made free again, it would be very beneficial. This tool shows a lot of promise and is very good. Making it free would help many companies deliver their products in a more efficient and integrated way. It would also be more valuable to include the tool with the firewall package or license instead of having to pay extra for it. Paying extra puts more pressure on small companies to deliver the firewall and complete the configuration, especially if they have hundreds or thousands of policies. It's very painful to move through these policies line by line. The stability has room for improvement. When it comes to Secure SD-WAN, everything is fine. They are going the right way. SD-WAN is very promising. They can provide the SD-WAN solution separately, but they will not take this approach because even the smallest firewall can support the features, so there is no need to have a separate service or appliance. They are following the right steps, and there is nothing to be improved. Feature-wise, I'm really satisfied with the new release, and the features they have added. For now, it's fine.

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Olivier DALOY

Group Information Systems Security Director - CISO at Faurecia

Secures users wherever they are and enable us to inspect SSL traffic, but we encountered too many issues

The solution should have no impact but it does have a bit of impact on end-users. For example, we encountered some issues in the downloads that took longer than they did without using Menlo. That is clearly not transparent for users. We expected not to have any latency when downloading anything from the internet with Menlo compared to without Menlo. We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution. In other words, we hope to get the same level of protection, while reducing the number of visible bugs, issues, latencies, impacts on performance, et cetera, that we have today with Menlo. We already solved most of them, but we still have too many such instances of issues with Menlo, even though it is protecting us for sure. The weak point of the solution is that it has consumed far too much of my team's time, taking them away from operations and projects and design. It took far too much time to implement it and get rid of all of the live issues that we encountered when our users started using the solution. The good point is that I'm sure it is protecting us and it's probably protecting us more than any other solution, which is something I appreciate a lot as a CISO. But on the other hand, the number of issues reported by the users, and the amount of time that has been necessary for either my team or the infrastructure team to spend diagnosing, troubleshooting, and fixing the issues that we had with the solution was too much. And that doesn't include the need to still use our previous solution, Blue Coat, that we have kept active so that whatever is not compatible or doesn't work with Menlo, can be handled by that other solution. It is far too demanding in terms of effort and workload and even cost, at the end of the day. That is why we decided to transition to another solution. If we had known in the beginning that we would not be able to get rid of Blue Coat, we probably would not have chosen Menlo because we were planning to replace Blue Coat with something that was at least able to do the same and more. We discovered that it was able to do more but it was not able to replace it, which is an issue. It is not only a matter of cost but is also a matter of not being able to reduce the number of partners that you have to deal with. In addition, they could enhance the ability to troubleshoot. Whenever a connection going through Menlo fails for any reason, being able to troubleshoot what the configuration of Menlo should be to allow it through would help, as would knowing what level of additional risk we would be taking with that configuration.

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Bhaskar Rao

Network manager admin at Yamaha

Though it helps deal with web traffic or any malicious traffic, it needs to work on its DC performance issues

The product's initial setup phase is moderate in level, so it is neither very complex nor very easy. For the deployment, my company first needs to gather all the requirements of the users and the domain names and consider how many users there are in the company. In the implementation and planning part, my company needs to consider what kind of policies we will create while ensuring that the policies are created based on the requirements of the users. There is a need to segregate the users' requirements since there are separate departments in the company, like the HR department, sales department, IT department, and manufacturing department, so that our company can create policies depending on their requirements. On-site, if you want a GRE tunnel, our company can handle GRE tunnel traffic routing and Zscaler Cloud Firewall, after which Zscaler will take action based on the policies created by our organization. For the deployments and maintenance, a team of five members consisting of two managers and three engineers is required.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"This version is stable. I don't have any issues with this solution, in our environment, it works well."

"The product has been very stable, based on my ten to eleven years of experience."

"Good load balancing feature."

"FortiOS is quite good in my experience with Fortinet FortiGate, and it works very effectively and is stable for companies. The customers have given feedback that FortiOS has been very stable for a long time."

"The product is easy to use and is stable. The SV1 functionality is a benefit."

"I like that they have given me a solution at a fair price."

"Their interface is very easy to use, it is without bugs."

"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate is security. They are known for efficiency and are on the top of Gartner Quadrant reviews. Fortinet FortiGate has an easy-to-use platform with a good graphical interface. The configuration is simple and the solution provides an overall good layer of security."

More Fortinet FortiGate pros

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

"It helps a lot of companies to reduce their downtime. Also, It helps businesses in terms of being secured and protected from any threats."

"Most of the features that Zscaler has to offer, we will deploy."

"Zscaler provides effective protection against various cyber threats ensuring a safe environment"

"Includes advanced tech protection."

"The visibility and log availability offered are highly valued for troubleshooting purposes, and this is a key factor driving customer interest in the firewall module."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall understands the applications in the current generation and adapts to the present generation cloud applications."

"It provides in-depth visibility into your network, ensuring that traffic flowing into your organization, be it from offices or individual users, is effectively filtered and secured through multiple layers of protection."

"The solution is scalable."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pros

Cons

"Some features of Fortinet FortiGate are actually fee enabled that are inconvenient for deploying in production. Other issues relate to isolation with Cisco products and your server."

"Their software support needs improvement. I would prefer to have better support for bug fixes. Sometimes, we open a ticket, and it is very difficult to get a solution. Specifically, we are not at all happy with their support for load balancing."

"The customization could be improved. Cisco, for example, is much better at this. They need to work to be at least as good as they are."

"In terms of what could be improved, the SD-WAN is quite difficult, because if you install the new box, 15 is okay, but if you change from an old configuration, if there is already configuration and a policy when you change to SD-WAN, you must change the whole policy that you see in the interface."

"Fortinet FortiGate could improve by adding FortiAnalyzer to its solution, we should not have to use another solution. FortiAnalyzer can provide more detailed information."

"Stability and technical support are the two major issues I have found with Fortinet."

"There can be more security in hybrid implementations. When a customer has a hybrid environment where some parts are in the cloud, we need a consistent security solution for such scenarios."

"Fortinet FortiGate can improve the integration with Active Directory. Additionally, I would like to have a Cloud Controller, such as they do in the Cisco Meraki solution."

More Fortinet FortiGate cons

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The issue right now is probably that Zscaler is not providing web browser isolation. Another solution, Menlo, offers this. For one customer, we had to send traffic to Menlo to do the isolation for us. It was requested by the customer so that they could integrate any iframe. Zscaler needs to add this type of feature in their next release."

"Zscaler Cloud Firewall should have a better understanding of all dynamic cloud applications."

"There are several areas for improvement. Firstly, the GUI is outdated, with noticeable lags and delays, especially when generating reports for past transactions."

"Because it's on cloud, it doesn't allow application of extra settings."

"Its technical support services could be better."

"There are some areas it could improve when it comes to blocking, we have to block some things manually. For example, if we block a top-level domain we have seen that the new IPs come through, the IPs are not blocked. There should be some more granular way of doing it. My only request is if you're blocking something at a top level, the sub-level sub-domains and all those other IPs should be blocked too automatically."

"I don't have the visibility of a control dashboard or a network management system."

"The product could improve its integration with some legacy systems."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The main reason we chose Fortinet FortiGate was that the price was better than the competition."

"The pricing is flexible."

"This is not a cheap solution but it isn't expensive, either. It's a good solution for the right price."

"I would rate the pricing a five out of ten"

"The price of Fortinet FortiGate is the lowest in the market."

"It's a very full-featured and it's priced well solution."

"The product pricing is reasonable."

"We pay for the solution annually."

More Fortinet FortiGate pricing and cost advice

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"There are different subscription models available."

"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."

"It is expensive for small businesses."

"The licensing is on a yearly basis. It is somewhere around 30 or 40 pounds per user for our organization."

"There are licensing costs, and I would not say that it's a cheap vendor."

"It is not the most budget-friendly solution, but it's important to consider its overall value."

"It comes at a significantly reduced cost while ensuring control and effectiveness."

"There is an annual license required for the use of the Zscaler Cloud Firewall."

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

21%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

18%

Financial Services Firm

15%

Manufacturing Company

University

Financial Services Firm

13%

Computer Software Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

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Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...

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The product’s firewall and VPN package are fantastic compared to any other solution.

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Comparisons

Sophos XG vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 22% of the time

Netgate pfSense vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Firewall vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 11% of the time

WatchGuard Firebox vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

SonicWall TZ vs Fortinet FortiGate

Compared 5% of the time

More Fortinet FortiGate Competitors

Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 23% of the time

Talon vs Menlo Secure

Compared 15% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Menlo Secure

Compared 12% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Azure Firewall vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 18% of the time

OPNsense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 11% of the time

Check Point NGFW vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Multicloud Defense vs Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Zscaler Cloud Firewall Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Fortinet FortiGate

April 2025

Download Fortinet FortiGate product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

March 2025

Download Menlo Secure product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Cloud Firewall

March 2025

Download Zscaler Cloud Firewall product report

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

No data available

Overview

Fortinet FortiGate offers comprehensive network security and firewall protection across multiple locations. It effectively manages data traffic and secures environments with features like VPN, intrusion prevention, and UTM controls.

Organizations rely on Fortinet FortiGate for its robust integration with advanced security policies, ensuring significant protection for enterprises, cloud environments, and educational sectors. It facilitates network segmentation, application-level security, and authentication management, securing communication within and between locations such as branches and data centers. Its efficient SD-WAN and UTM features enable streamlined data management and enhanced threat protection capabilities. Users appreciate its centralized management, facilitating seamless operations across diverse environments.

What are the key features of Fortinet FortiGate?

VPN Capabilities: Ensure secure remote access for users and seamless site-to-site connections.
Intrusion Prevention System (IPS): Detect and prevent security threats and vulnerabilities.
Advanced Firewall: Offers robust firewalling with application control and web filtering.
SD-WAN: Optimizes application performance and enhances bandwidth management.
SSL VPN: Provides reliable and secure access for remote workers.

What benefits should users expect from Fortinet FortiGate?

High-performance Security: Delivers effective threat mitigation with high availability.
Centralized Management: Simplifies network operations with cloud-based management tools.
Detailed Analytics: Provides comprehensive insights into network activity and security threats.
Load Balancing: Ensures optimal resource distribution and traffic management.

Fortinet FortiGate is crucial in sectors like education, offering robust networks for secure data flow between campuses and facilitating remote learning. In enterprise environments, it allows efficient management of application traffic and security across multiple branches, while in the cloud, it seamlessly integrates with diverse platforms to enhance security infrastructure.

Fortinet

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Zscaler enables the world’s leading organizations to securely transform their networks and applications for a mobile and cloud first world. Its flagship services, Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Private Access, create fast, secure connections between users and applications, regardless of device, location, or network. Zscaler services are 100% cloud-delivered and offer the simplicity, enhanced security, and improved user experience that traditional appliances or hybrid solutions are unable to match. Used in more than 185 countries, Zscaler operates the world’s largest cloud security platform, protecting thousands of enterprises and government agencies from cyberattacks and data loss.

Check more details: https://www.zscaler.com/produc...

Zscaler

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya

Information Not Available

Zenith Live, Azure, Carlsberg Group

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

April 2025

Free Report: Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall

Find out what your peers are saying about Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Cloud Firewall and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.

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