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Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Oct 6, 2024

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 Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
10th
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)
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd)
Versa Unified Secure Access...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (9th), WAN Edge (10th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is 17.1%, down from 19.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform is 1.3%, down from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

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
Partha Dash - PeerSpot reviewer
Makes us part of a bigger security ecosystem with updates taken care of for us, but pricing and support need work
There are definitely a number of things that could be improved. One of them is geographic coverage. China is still an issue because the solution does not operate there properly due to government regulations. I believe Palo Alto is trying pretty hard to get into partnerships with Alibaba and other cloud providers, but they do not have the same compelling offering in China that they have in the rest of the world. Businesses that are operating within China have to be very sure to evaluate the solution before making a buying decision. It is not an issue with Palo Alto, rather it is predominantly the result of government rules, but it's something that Palo Alto needs to work on. There is also room for improvement when it comes to latency in a couple of regions, including India and South America. They might have to increase their presence in those locations and come up with more modern cloud architectures. The third area is that, while Palo Alto has understood the essence of building capabilities around cloud technology and have come up with a CASB offering, that is a very new product. There are other companies that have better offerings for understanding cloud applications and have more graceful controls. That's something that Palo Alto needs to work on.
PriyankDubey - PeerSpot reviewer
A flexible, stable and scalable solution
I don't have issues with the hardware, as the requisite capacity is visible in the data sheets. All the details in the data sheets are accounted for. But, I find myself confused when it comes to combining this with the software. I have not come across documentation on the Versa website which would provide information about the parameters for selecting the appropriate license. For this we are assisted by the solution's design engineer and the Versa team. I do what I can as a project manager and make the best suggestions I am capable of concerning the competition. Future releases should contain AI for the voice feature. SSL VPN is lacking in the solution. I wish to see this in the near future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"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 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."
"Its hands-off security and the fact that we don't have to maintain it are the most valuable features."
"There are plenty of features this solution provides and the most valuable would be the complete security protection we are receiving. We are provided with similar security that the Palo Alto AWS solution has. This includes features such as a firewall and machine learning AI."
"Prisma integrates well with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake. My company has been also using Prisma Access in-house for nearly a year, and it integrates seamlessly."
"It is easy to use, easy to integrate, and is stable. It's scalable as well."
"It is geographically dispersed, and it sits on top of Google and AWS platforms. Therefore, you don't face the standard issues, such as latency or bandwidth issues, that you usually face in the case of on-prem data centers."
"The solution improved the consistency of our security controls and the BCP. There has been a 20 percent reduction in TCO. Prisma Access also enabled us to deliver better applications by centralizing security management."
"It's quite reliable and performs well for users."
"Prisma SaaS is very easy to use; it's common sense — it's the best-in-class."
"The solution is stable and suitable."
"Overall, it's nice and very user friendly. That's what makes it so successful. They give you complicated features but with a very simple user interface, and that's been a big success for them."
"The division of Control Plane and Data Plane is most valuable. It can be deployed anywhere, and you can control it and configure it from anywhere. This is one of the good features of this solution."
"It's very powerful, especially for engineering teams."
"I like all the features. We utilize different LAN, bandwidth transferring, bandwidth balancing, and mappings. We use it as a centralized solution, and use the same product at all our locations."
"Versa is a good centralized solution, where you're setting up your infrastructure in a data center type thing."
"The most valuable features are the main steering and the firewall. The security features and SD-WAN features are also quite good."
"Their dashboard is also a good point for us and the customer. The solution is very clean and easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"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."
"Its pricing could be better."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks should consolidate the portals into a single portal. It is slow and takes more than ten seconds to load a page."
"We are using the SaaS offering. We use our applications for microservices. We use Twistlock to scan containers, and it displays these results in Prisma, which is a good feature because we can see vulnerabilities with respect to these containers. We can see everything in a very detailed manner. However, when you have different environments for a single application, such as DEV, QA, PROD, and TEST, all these environments run multiple containers, which can lead to a very high number of containers. In such a scenario, it shows you the alerts for all those containers that have vulnerabilities. If you show the results of all the containers that share the same image, it is not going to add any value. Therefore, they should narrow down the alerts based on a container. It should show information for a single container. Otherwise, the person who is looking at the results gets the impression that he has to fix all these issues. This is something that they can improve."
"The cloud setup is straightforward, and the onboarding process is much better, but the on-premises initial setup is slightly complex."
"Palo Alto's operational and support model needs improvement since we have faced issues with resolving problems."
"They can add some new characteristics. For example, when an incident triggers, they can automatically send a template for a particular match that is related to the policy. We don't have that right now. It is something to improve. There could be more automation for certain actions. For example, for a particular group, it can send an administrator alert to their manager. It was one of the concerns of our customers."
"The price can be reduced to make it more competitive."
"The licensing model isn't flexible enough. It's an all-or-nothing model. Other providers in the market allow you to buy modules or add-ons separately. With Prisma Access, you have to purchase the same module for all users."
"One thing that would help is if we could get a guide. With Cisco, for example, you can just type the problem regarding your Cisco product and you will easily get your solution. In Palo Alto, however, it's not easy to find the solutions."
"Versa provides analytics, but the reporting features have some shortcomings."
"Certainly, there are areas that require enhancement, and the current focus is on improvements. Presently, I believe that the emphasis should be on enhancing user interface (UI) features, particularly over end devices. The issue arises when attempting to log in to Versa from other devices, as the UI is not device-specific. Consequently, guiding someone to log in to Versa antivirus becomes challenging. Despite the absence of issues on the website, the lack of a login scope impedes graphical representation of user data or databases. Since work databases support only a limited range of features, I recommend augmenting features for end devices to address these limitations."
"I heard about them for the first time just before I started working on Versa. They do have blogs for information, but they could publicize more about the documentation and architecture. It doesn't seem to have that much exposure, and they should work on their customer base more."
"The support needs to be improved."
"There are limitations when you connect from multiple locations. It does not work as expected. If you have more than 400 users, then it will choke. It will not perform as expected."
"The solution lacks a mobile version where small, manageable platforms can be developed."
"Another thing that should be improved in Versa are their firewall features."
"With the pandemic and changing work models, it would be ideal if the product more accessibility options or more diversity within the solution itself."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"The licensing cost is about 18,000 euros."
"Prisma Access is a little bit expensive."
"They price their products using credit modules."
"The pricing can be difficult because it came to us with another agreement, but it can be negotiated. I highly recommend people to compare this product's performance and pricing against BetterCloud, because I feel BetterCloud is better than Prisma SaaS if they're starting from scratch."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution, especially when compared to other solutions like Cisco. There are no additional charges apart from the standard licensing costs attached to the solution."
"This is not an expensive product and everything is included with one license."
"The solution is expensive."
"We have to pay additional costs for maintenance and support services."
"It is neither cheap nor expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten on a scale where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"It is not very expensive because of the white box support. Its hardware is much cheaper than other products. With the support for x86 and white box, it is one of the most cost-effective platforms that are currently available."
"The price is expensive but it makes sense for the market."
"We provide subscriptions for our customers on a yearly, not monthly, basis."
"I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of remote access and secure web gateway elements."
"Price wise, it's more expensive than is the competition. I would give pricing a rating of three out of five."
"While I cannot provide too much commentary on the price, I feel it to be fair for the moment."
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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
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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...
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 Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
The pricing is on the higher side, rating it around eight to nine out of ten. While it is justified for its value, th...
What do you like most about Versa FlexVNF?
Versa is a good centralized solution, where you're setting up your infrastructure in a data center type thing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Versa FlexVNF?
Both Versa and VMware are cheap in terms of the router. I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of ...
What needs improvement with Versa FlexVNF?
We've had the odd occasional stability issue with software upgrades, etcetera. They don't support certain other third...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
Versa FlexVNF, FlexVNF, Versa Titan
 

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.
Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack
CenturyLink, RCN Business, Colt Technology Services
Find out what your peers are saying about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs. Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.