Menlo Secure vs Zscaler Internet Access comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Menlo Security and Zscaler are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Menlo Security is ranked #26, while Zscaler is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.7. Menlo Security holds a 2.3% mindshare in WSG, compared to Zscaler’s 9.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Menlo Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Menlo Secure and Zscaler Internet Access compete in cybersecurity, focusing on secure internet access and data protection. Zscaler has the upper hand due to its comprehensive features and cloud integration, appealing to businesses prioritizing these aspects.

Features: Menlo Secure provides an isolation-based architecture, open browsing with selective blocking, and single-console management for security policies. Zscaler Internet Access offers cloud-native architecture, advanced threat protection, and secure access to cloud applications.

Room for Improvement: Menlo Secure could enhance logging capabilities, reduce site bypass needs, and improve SSL decryption strategies. Zscaler Internet Access could improve on latency issues, expand its DLP features, and enhance customization for specific user requirements.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zscaler Internet Access offers swift deployment with its cloud-based setup and a responsive customer service team. Menlo Secure provides reliable customer support but emphasizes security over deployment ease.

Pricing and ROI: Menlo Secure is cost-effective with a promising ROI due to affordability and strong support. Zscaler requires a higher investment, justified by its extensive features and higher long-term ROI from advanced security services.

To learn more, read our detailed Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Internet Access Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Internet Access

November 2026

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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

iboss

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.2%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 2.3%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Zscaler Internet Access is 9.8%, down from 14.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Zscaler Internet Access	9.8%
iboss	3.2%
Menlo Secure	2.3%
Other	84.7%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula

Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support

The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.

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reviewer2701794

Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.

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VikasTiwari

Senior Network Engineer at Anthology

Cloud security has transformed remote access and now supports zero trust for all users

The best features Zscaler Internet Access offers are Secure Web Gateway, URL filtering, SSL inspections, and policy-based access control. I find myself relying on Secure Web Gateway, URL filtering, SSL inspection, and policy-based access control the most because these are the main and top-most features I use regularly. Zscaler Internet Access has all of these types of features for securing all internet access and web inspections, allowing me to control all traffic through these features. Zscaler Internet Access features include a Secure Web Gateway for URL filtering, file type control, and inline SSL inspections. The second feature is a cloud firewall with Layer 3 to Layer 7 filtering control and stateful inspections. No hardware inspection or hardware firewall is required. I can also perform segmentations by users, location, and application. There is a cloud CASB solution available as well. Additionally, there is an advanced threat protection feature with signature-based behavioral detections, inline IPS, and zero-day threat protections. The cloud sandboxing solution scans unknown files and provides machine learning-based verdicts to prevent zero-day malware delivery in my environment. There is also a DNS security feature that provides DNS tunneling detections, malicious domain controls, and faster threat containment at the DNS layer. The data protection feature includes inline DLP and CASB-style cloud app control, data sovereignty enforcement, and browser isolation, which executes risky sites in isolated cloud browsers and prevents endpoint compromises. Zscaler Internet Access has positively impacted my organization by reducing the dependency on on-premises hardware and improving security posture, enabling faster user onboarding, and providing better performance for remote users. It has resulted in a drop in security incidents related to web threats and improved visibility into user activity. An area for improvement includes fine-grained troubleshooting tools, better policy simulations, and optimizations around initial configuration complexity.

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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

"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."

"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"

"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."

"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."

"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."

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."

More iboss pros

"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."

"Either you have access to something or don't have access to it, and if you do, we can ensure, 100 percent of the time, that there is nothing malicious that is going to impact our system in any way."

"The solution is invisible to our end users, so it doesn't have any impact on their work or performance."

"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."

"We are not aware of a single compromise from the web since implementing the solution."

"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."

"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."

"We have definitely seen ROI, as we save a ton of money and time because 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."

More Menlo Secure pros

"Zscaler has helped to reduce the time we spend managing security policies, significantly lowered the number of FTEs needed to manage the environment, and has definitely helped reduce the number of infected devices in our organization by proactively preventing attacks."

"My advice for people looking into implementing Zscaler Internet Access is that it's quite stable."

"Zscaler Internet Access protects using data loss prevention. If you have a CASB exposing your cloud out into the network, then Zscaler Internet Access will go ahead and control that unknown cloud application in the CASB, protecting it. There is also data detection with exact data match. This improves the data coming into your cloud so you are protecting it."

"One feature that is valuable to me from an implementation point of view is that it's very easy to implement."

"The solution offers a distributed organization to master and to control all of the endpoints."

"Tech support is good."

"For our needs, the cloud-native proxy architecture is a very good solution. We are moving away from on-prem appliances and moving more toward cloud-based solutions. Zscaler is a good fit for our strategy. This architecture helps with cyber threats because we inspect most of the traffic and we can see that a lot of threats are stopped directly in the secure web gateway."

"Zscaler offers a centralized DLP solution for web, endpoint, and email."

More Zscaler Internet Access pros

Cons

"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."

"I would rate iboss an eight out of ten because it provides strong cloud-based security threat protection, centralized policy management, and visibility into web traffic. I would give it a higher rating if automation, reporting, and troubleshooting capabilities could be improved further."

"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."

"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."

"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

More iboss cons

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"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."

"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."

"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."

"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."

"In every cloud service in the world, you have multiple upstream internet providers to create diversity so that if one of your providers fails, your network just continues. In South Africa, there is only one upstream provider, and that's not right. That that's a problem."

"There are many functionalities in Zscaler Internet Access that need improvements, such as an advanced firewall and logging capabilities to track calls."

"They should enhance the audit reporting feature."

"If they can also integrate with the multi-factor authentication to prompt users to do another, second-factor authentication, that would be ideal."

"They could provide more time for the onboarding the training of an IT person."

"One feature I am missing is the ability to connect automatically to internal monitoring systems."

"Zscaler Internet Access's troubleshooting is very limited, and their textbook logs need to be more informative."

"With the pricing structure that they currently have, it is only for big customers."

More Zscaler Internet Access cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"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."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"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."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"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."

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

"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."

"Because it's a cloud solution, we pay on a yearly basis. It is affordable and includes tech support and all features."

"It is a few pounds per user per month."

"We have found the solution to be expensive."

"Be aware that you will need to invest some time and money to adapt your environment for Zscaler (traffic redirection, software deployment, authentication, etc)."

"Licenses are available on a per-host basis. Some features like sandboxing require an additional fee, but most standard features are included in the license."

"We pay around 6,500 INR per user per year, which is very expensive. I would rate Zscaler's pricing one out of five."

"Zscaler is transparent about its pricing model."

"It is costlier than other solutions."

More Zscaler Internet Access pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

14%

Construction Company

11%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	17
Midsize Enterprise	9
Large Enterprise	39

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...

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What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some ...

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Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?

Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zs...

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Which is better, Zscaler internet access or Netsckope CASB?

We researched Netskope but ultimately chose Zscaler. Netskope is a cloud access security broker that helps identify ...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Internet Access?

We have not purchased Zscaler Internet Access through the AWS Marketplace; the licensing process was handled separate...

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Comparisons

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform vs iboss

Compared 4% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Menlo Secure

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Menlo Secure

Compared 2% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Cisco Umbrella vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 31% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 5% of the time

Netskope vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 4% of the time

Symantec Secure Web Gateway vs Zscaler Internet Access

Compared 2% of the time

More Zscaler Internet Access Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

October 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

October 2026

Download Menlo Secure product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Internet Access

October 2026

Download Zscaler Internet Access product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

ZIA

Overview

iboss is the Zero Trust SASE platform that gives organizations complete visibility and governance over their AI, data, and applications through one unified platform, one console, one policy engine, and one data lake.

Your endpoints may already stop malware. Your data and application activity can still be invisible. iboss decrypts and understands every connection, then turns that signal into answers security leaders can act on.

The platform leads with three capabilities in this order: AI Security and Visibility, Data Security and Visibility, and App Visibility and Control. Zero Trust Network Access, VPN replacement, and SD-WAN sit underneath as the access fabric that carries those three. Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

- AI Security and Visibility: conversation capture, shadow-AI discovery, AI DLP, and agent governance across Claude, Co-Work, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok, and emerging services.

- Data Security and Visibility: full SSL/TLS decryption, deep content inspection, MIP label compliance, and one-click compliance reporting.

- App Visibility and Control: signatureless CASB, dual risk scoring, in-app controls, and SSPM for major SaaS.

- Containerized Zero Trust SASE: dedicated containers, isolated SSL keys, one console, one policy engine, one data lake.

- Access fabric: ZTNA, VPN replacement, and SD-WAN under the same platform.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

- Complete visibility over AI, data, and applications from one platform instead of separate point tools.

- Encrypted traffic is inspected by default so data decisions use content and context together.

- Shadow SaaS and new web tools appear as they are used, with enforceable controls in one console.

- Native data sovereignty through dedicated containers, in-region inspection, and per-customer SSL key custody.

- Scale proven in published materials: 10M+ users, 100+ countries, 150B+ transactions, 2.5B+ threats blocked.

Economic buyers are CISOs, CIOs, and VPs of Security. Champions include security architects, network and infrastructure leaders, SecOps, and GRC. Primary segments: enterprise and business, financial services, government (including FedRAMP Gov Cloud), healthcare, manufacturing, legal and professional services, retail and hospitality, and MSP/MSSP partners. Education, including K-12, is one vertical among these.

iboss

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 Internet Access provides internet security through cloud-native architecture, ensuring threat protection and traffic management without relying on traditional VPNs and firewalls.

It enhances security by offering features such as CASB and DLP. With its cloud-native proxy architecture, it facilitates seamless security with reduced latency and high availability. Organizations value the scalability and centralized policy management, integrating seamlessly with existing systems for remote work. It ensures secure traffic management by delivering advanced threat protection and support for applications through SSL inspection and sandboxing. Enhanced measures for DLP, better integration with tools like MFA, and optimized reporting are areas for growth.

What are the key features?

Website Filtering: Controls access to harmful sites to protect users.
SSL Inspection: Shields against threats bypassing traditional defenses.
Cloud Sandbox: Provides advanced threat protection through testing.
CASB: Offers cloud application visibility and security enforcement.

What benefits should users seek?

Scalability: Easily adjusts to growing requirements without manual intervention.
Centralized Management: Simplifies policy implementation across locations.
Seamless Integration: Reduces need for traditional VPNs by integrating with remote infrastructure.

Many industries leverage Zscaler Internet Access for securing internet traffic and safeguarding against threats like malware and DDoS attacks. It is integral as a secure web gateway to fulfill data loss prevention, bandwidth control, and filtering needs, allowing remote users robust access and protection globally. Companies employ it alongside existing tools for proper security and policy enforcement.

Zscaler

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

Information Not Available

Ulster-Greene ARC, BanRegio, HDFC, Ralcorp Holdings Inc., British American Tobacco, Med America Billing Services Inc., Lanco Group, Aquafil, Telefonica, Swisscom, Brigade Group

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Internet Access

November 2026

Free Report: Menlo Secure vs. Zscaler Internet Access

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