Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Netskope vs Zscaler Internet Access comparison

Sponsored
 

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
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Netskope
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (4th)
Zscaler Internet Access
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Internet Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Oct 31, 2021
 

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
Valan Arasu - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides good visibility, integrates well with other components, and enables organizations to protect their data
Netskope’s CASB provides good visibility of the applications being used. We can use Shadow IT based on the traffic. DLP and CASB are valuable features. The tool provides extensive DLP features. We can create any level of policies and protect our data on-premise or cloud. The tool integrates with all the components very well.
ShanavasVK - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps maintain a consistent posture of internet security while getting rid of VPN and hovering into zero trust
There could be a better way for the tool to categorize the traffic. For example, the tool does exceptions and everything overall. If I want to give guest access or provide access to guest users or any other internet access and if it does not go through the SSL inspection because, in our company, we can't have the root certificate on a device that we don't manage, which can be called out as an exception or an exclusion, but that doesn't provide a proper reflection of the picture of what is happening in the environment. There are granularities bringing it down. The tool I used or still have is Zscaler Cloud Connector to protect the cloud environment, which can have a bit more user-friendly installation and setup, and it would help a lot. The deployment process of Zscaler Cloud Connector needs to be more user-friendly. Improvements are required in the exception category. For example, suppose I report on a monthly basis what the breaches and traffic violating the SSL inspection area are coming from. In that case, I may find that half of them may be coming through some guest network, meaning the tool doesn't differentiate between the guest or normal networks or the corporate networks. Having options to differentiate different networks would be ideal so that it can show a true picture of things to users, as half of the things in the tool are not in our control and are not of our concern.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"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."
"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."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"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."
"Its deployment is very easy and quick. Their technical support is also very good."
"The automation offered by the product is pretty solid."
"It has hundreds of features and many of them are useful."
"It's a comprehensive security portfolio solution."
"Amazing reporting and tracking mechanisms."
"Netskope's control is user-friendly and comprehensible. It also helps in conveying information effectively as a company, making it crucial for customer satisfaction."
"Technical support is pretty good."
"The initial setup is straightforward"
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"The solution is stable."
"The data loss prevention feature is the most valuable. It stops our users from inadvertently leaking our customers' data to the Internet or anywhere else it shouldn't go."
"Zscaler Internet Access has helped us reduce the time that we spend managing security policies by about four hours a week. We can use this time to focus on other things, especially the IT team."
"Zscaler Internet Access's roaming user feature is most valuable and is much better compared to other secure web gateways."
"The cloud proxy and integration are some of the key features. Since there is cloud waste, we can quickly provision it and start working on the configuration. On top of that, they have added a few more features. They have integrated CASB, and file sandboxing is part of it."
"The initial setup was straightforward. The biggest thing for us was to build our own policies. The deployment itself was only a few hours."
"The security is excellent."
 

Cons

"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"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."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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."
"In terms of improvements, enhancing support, particularly for OEM support with quicker response times would be beneficial."
"If we need to allow a process that is blocked by Netskope, we have to manually check the logs to see why it is blocked. This can be time-consuming and inefficient"
"Netskope CASB can improve by working more similarly to a VPN technology instead of a proxy. They then could have visibility on the endpoint device. Most clients have some tools where they check the endpoint health or other things, such as the security posture, or if they want to access the resources. For example, if they should have antivirus running, this kind of posture check should be available but it is missing."
"There should be some granular custom roles that are not available. However, this is on the road map. There are many devices that do not have the Zero Trust feature and other enhancements available which they should have."
"They can focus more on ease of admin, ease of use, and ease of migration. Migration should be simple for companies that are using a different platform and would like to move to Netskope. Everyone looks for a simple migration. They can also focus more on cloud services and cloud trends. They have to see the cloud market, and they should try to compete with Zscaler and other players. They should also work on licensing costs."
"There is currently no DLP on-premises."
"The threat protection features must be improved."
"A bit of latency is observed in some of the applications."
"In terms of user experience, it could be better."
"Sometimes, support isn't available."
"Zscaler Internet Access's troubleshooting is very limited, and their textbook logs need to be more informative."
"The solution is expensive. They recently revised the pricing and packaging. Some of our existing customers have been asking for alternate solutions for a lower price."
"Sometimes it's not easy to use during large deployments of workstations."
"I don't know whether it's Zscaler or not, however, sometimes I can't access my time management. I need to wait and try again a few hours later. Typically, if I let some time pass, I can access it again."
"They should enhance the audit reporting feature."
"We'd like for them to include some sort of antivirus tool."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis."
"I wasn't involved in the initial discussions about its cost. However, within the next year, by around June, I'll need to review the vendors' quotes. Typically, our procurement team handles the process by issuing an RFP to vendors to get quotes. From there, we evaluate based on pricing and may conduct a proof of concept to assess value."
"Netskope is a premium service, and its pricing ranges from medium to expensive."
"The tool's pricing is not too cheap or expensive. However, it can be costly for a small business."
"It is an expensive solution."
"I recall that the price was considerably cheaper than that of Zscaler. It was around 60,000 AUD for 1,000 users per year and included some training and some premier support offerings. If we wanted to take advantage of the CASB capabilities, then there was an additional subscription fee, for which we didn't have the budget. On price, I would give Netskope a three or four out of five because it's quite expensive, but it offers a lot of value."
"Netskope's pricing is reasonable compared to Microsoft."
"They should work on licensing costs."
"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."
"Zscaler is transparent about its pricing model."
"ZIA follows a subscription model pricing and charges you based on the number of users. I would say its price is good."
"Because it's a cloud solution, we pay on a yearly basis. It is affordable and includes tech support and all features."
"The solution is a little bit expensive. On a scale of one to five, I would rate it as a three."
"​Be aware that you will need to invest some time and money to adapt your environment for Zscaler (traffic redirection, software deployment, authentication, etc).​"
"We have found the solution to be expensive."
"Price-wise, the tool is reasonable compared to the other products in the market but it is not a very low-priced tool. The solution does provide value for money."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) solutions are best for your needs.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
5%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

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...
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 ...
What do you like most about Netskope CASB?
The product's analytics part is pretty fine.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Netskope CASB?
Netskope is cost-effective compared to similar solutions like Zscaler.
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Internet Access?
Although Zscaler Internet Access is recognized as an expensive solution, with a cost-effectiveness rating of seven ou...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Netskope CASB
ZIA
 

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.
NetApp, Genomic Health, Caterpillar, Apollo, Pandora, Continental Resources, Fractal, infinera, Tesla
Ulster-Greene ARC, BanRegio, HDFC, Ralcorp Holdings Inc., British American Tobacco, Med America Billing Services Inc., Lanco Group, Aquafil, Telefonica, Swisscom, Brigade Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Zscaler and others in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB). Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.