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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)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th)
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
2nd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
64
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (4th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (6th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd)
Versa Unified Secure Access...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (10th), WAN Edge (11th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.0%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is 15.5%, down from 18.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform is 1.5%, down from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks15.5%
iboss2.0%
Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform1.5%
Other81.0%
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
Amar-Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless policy management and supports secure remote work
Our primary use case for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is to control the internet and serve as an internet proxy. Additionally, we use it for secure remote work One of the most valuable features of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is the ability to manage on-premise firewalls. We can…
PranavGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud-managed, cloud-delivered private access service efficiently connecting distributed users with. distributed applications without compromising on security or user experience.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"The visibility perspective is pretty cool. If I want to know how much data is being used for a specific project, I can look at how much data has been used, from which region, and which users have been connected. That visibility is very good so that I can see how many licenses we have and how many are used."
"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."
"The tool's consolidation is pretty quick."
"The protection for web-based applications was helpful for my colleagues who didn't want a particular application on their devices. And the non-web access protection was more for our developers because they were writing and building code on their computers. Prisma Access was able to protect them."
"A feature I've found very helpful is run time security because most of the products on the market will look at security during the build time, and they don't really look at what happens once you're going into production."
"You have the ability to create your own expressions for your data. Palo Alto understands that DLP is not the same for all consumers. You might have a particular need to fulfill, and they give you the opportunity to create a custom expression to match the specific format that you have. For a confidential file property that you have in your files, you can add a metadata field. It gives you that opportunity to create that."
"The users can securely access any cloud data centers or cloud platforms. In terms of the features, it has all the features that Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall has. It is also very stable and scalable."
"The solution's most valuable features were the model's reduced complexity on the client side and its capability to provide security."
"The most valuable features are the main steering and the firewall. The security features and SD-WAN features are also quite good."
"The necessary enhancement pertains to the controller segment, specifically addressing the issue of frequent flapping when a link is left. In the case of Versa Unified, if a link experiences frequent flapping within an entire branch, it triggers instability. Hence, it is imperative that the overall routing system is not contingent solely upon the active dial branches."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the next-generation firewall features and geo-blocking capabilities."
"Our organization finds the application routing features extremely useful."
"Their dashboard is also a good point for us and the customer. The solution is very clean and easy."
"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."
 

Cons

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"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."
"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."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"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."
"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."
"It's not very easy to use. Sometimes it's buggy and there are problems when doing updates. The user interface is okay, but some configuration items are difficult. I would like it to be less buggy and easier to configure, to better streamline the user experience."
"Its security is good. Everything is good, but the way the dashboard responds can be improved. It takes time to implement a policy. If you change only two or three lines and push the policy to make the change work, it takes 20 to 30 minutes even for a small change. That is something very irritating from the implementation perspective."
"They automatically update and they should give us time to fully understand what they're updating so that we can make sure it doesn't impact production."
"Prisma would be a stronger solution if it could aggregate resources by project or by application. So say we have an application we've developed in AWS and five applications we've developed in Azure. The platform will group it according to those applications, but it's based on the tags we use in Azure, which means I have to rely on development teams to tag resources properly."
"The user interface could be better. They need to work a little bit on the console. It is similar to their firewalls but not exactly. They need to clean it up a bit."
"Its integration with non-Palo Alto products can be improved. Currently, it is easy to integrate it with other Palo Alto products such as Cortex XDR. It integrates well with other Palo Alto products. A major part of our network is based on Palo Alto products, but for those companies that use multi-vendor products in their infrastructure, Palo Alto should optimize the integration of Prisma Access with the network devices from other vendors."
"We would like to see improvements in the licensing; currently, Palo Alto provides 500 to 1000 licenses for users, and we want to see 1500 to 2000 licenses for one version."
"Lacks a hybrid model which has API plus in-line security."
"The security should be improved."
"The stability of FlexVNF's controller and devices could be improved."
"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."
"The solution's current customer support is not that good. So, they need to improve that. Also, the solution's UI is quite complex, so they need to simplify it."
"The smaller units lack a lot of functionality."
"The solution lacks a mobile version where small, manageable platforms can be developed."
"We've had the odd occasional stability issue with software upgrades."
"The interface could be simpler."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We 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."
"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's pricey, it's not cheap. But you get what you pay for."
"The price has been good for the ROI during these difficult times for the cruise industry. There are no hidden costs; what the product offers is what you get."
"There's no reason not to buy the enterprise version that gives you unlimited PoPs, but you must understand the limitations you impose on yourself if you do that. If you go crazy, that allowlist will be too big for Kubernetes clusters."
"The initial prices of Prisma Access were okay. But as soon as you start deploying Palo Alto gear, the support prices and the recurring prices, which are the major operational costs, tend to increase over time."
"The licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis and for what we get, the price is good."
"We have to pay additional costs for maintenance and support services."
"The pricing is very friendly. It's not confusing to figure out your workload and how much you'd be paying for the solution."
"The solution requires a license and the technical support has extra costs. The licensing model could improve."
"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."
"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."
"I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of remote access and secure web gateway elements."
"We provide subscriptions for our customers on a yearly, not monthly, basis."
"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."
"The price is expensive but it makes sense for the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business21
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise28
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...
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?
From my experience, Palo Alto is more expensive compared to solutions like Netskope and Triscale.
What do you like most about Versa Titan?
The necessary enhancement pertains to the controller segment, specifically addressing the issue of frequent flapping ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Versa Titan?
The solution is very expensive, costing above one crore Indian rupees for our setup, which spans around twenty five b...
What needs improvement with Versa Titan?
The cost of Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is higher than other solutions available in the market. A...
 

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: July 2025.
867,497 professionals have used our research since 2012.