Varonis Platform vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform comparison

Varonis and Zscaler are both solutions in the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) category. Varonis is ranked #13 with an average rating of 8.0, while Zscaler is ranked #4 with an average rating of 8.3. Additionally, 92% of Varonis users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of Zscaler users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and Varonis Platform compete in the realm of cloud security and data management. Zscaler appears to have an edge with features such as cloud integration and user-friendly deployment, while Varonis focuses heavily on data monitoring and compliance.

Features: Zscaler offers seamless cloud integration with single-side logon, automatic VPN connections, and comprehensive security controls. Its ease of deployment with minimal setup requirements is notable. Varonis specializes in monitoring sensitive data, preventing overexposure, and provides enhanced compliance and data management features with in-depth reporting and sensitivity analysis.

Room for Improvement: Zscaler could improve in speed, bandwidth, and legacy system support, as well as increase granularity in SSL inspection. Varonis could enhance its remediation processes and streamline its interface. Users have reported slow calculation speeds with large datasets and desire tighter DLP integration.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Zscaler supports adaptable deployment across public, private, and hybrid clouds; however, its technical support receives mixed reviews about responsiveness. Varonis favors on-premises and hybrid deployments, praised for effective infrastructure support and professional, responsive technical support.

Pricing and ROI: Zscaler is known for higher pricing based on user count and location, with mixed opinions on cost justification. Varonis offers detailed modular pricing that can be costly depending on feature selection. Both platforms provide positive ROI by addressing crucial security needs, with Varonis catering more toward larger enterprises with complex data requirements.

To learn more, read our detailed Varonis Platform vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform Report (Updated: January 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

January 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

Cloudflare

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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Frederic Delos

Senior Cloud Engineer at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees

Offers the ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data

The most effective feature for me is its ability to identify sensitive areas, allowing you to drill down into the sensitive data, provided you have access, to determine whether it's a false positive or a true positive. That's the best thing for me, out of all of it. It's got everything, like other ones, but I like to be able to look at something if I'm doing forensics on the alert and say, "Okay, do I really need to do something with this?" For example, we don't want sensitive data in our OneDrive. So it identifies the sensitive data that's possibly in the OneDrive. And what I can do is look at it and identify whether it's actually sensitive data in Datalert or whether it looks like sensitive data, but I know it's a false positive. If it is a false positive, I can basically say ignore this pattern based on X, Y, and Z, you know, whether it's Redjax or keyword proximity. So I like that. With other tools, I gotta go through a whole process because it's a little bit more complex. Here, I can tag it and bag it in one shot. And the next good time I scan, it slips over it. So it helps in that.

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Vikram Srirama.

Deputy General Manager at Sagility

A VPN alternative that delivers a zero trust model

The pricing for Private Access seems to be on the expensive side, and I believe they should consider making it more competitive with other solutions. Specifically, they could improve pricing by offering customizable packages that cater to each customer's specific needs. Connectivity to voice-over IP (VoIP) solutions, both private and VoIP, is scheduled to be included in the upcoming week.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The simplicity of the overall dashboard makes it a great product for a user like me who has less understanding of the internet than a developer or other more technical people. It gives me peace of mind. I also love the easy customization of the Page Rules."

"The solution automatically detects and responds to certain types of traffic based on geolocation."

"The DDoS protection is the most valuable aspect of the solution."

"Cloudflare DNS is widely used, and it's good for websites. If we use Cloudflare DNS and update one record, it updates in their office instantly."

"The most valuable feature is the web application firewall."

"There are key things that are used for our enterprise customers, such as Lambda and DNS."

"The tool is user-friendly."

"Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications."

More Cloudflare pros

"On the Varonis side, technical support is phenomenal. Their ability to explain is very good, and they seem to be very knowledgeable. When I get an alert that doesn't quite make sense, they dive in there and kind of take me through it. That's very useful and very good. There are some false alerts, but it is better to have a false alert than no alert at all."

"The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor activities. We can see who accesses data and when files are created and understand what's happening in our environment."

"Varonis Platform is transparent and captures everything in the environment without impacting the performance. The tool helps us unify data feeds into a single reporting system."

"The solution's classification engine is highly configurable and efficient."

"The most important feature is remediation. In remediation support, there is no group permission. We'll go ahead and remediate the access from the Dell folder to the parent folder."

"The solution ensures that users have not accidentally shared sensitive information with the wrong people or too many people."

"I also appreciate the reporting feature, which allows for the extraction of various reports based on specific needs. These reports can be used for audit purposes, such as tracking changes in file locations or deletions."

"That alerting and reporting service is great."

More Varonis Platform pros

"Zscaler Private Access is a platform that eliminates the complexity of VPN configuration."

"I find all Zscaler Private Access features valuable because each replaces flawed technologies, such as EPAs being replacements for VPN and PR as a replacement for PAM, so I can't mention only one valuable feature. Overall, Zscaler Private Access is a good solution."

"The in-line DLP feature is one of the most vital features"

"The ZPA is a unique feature which offers VPN along with all the additional security needed."

"Zscaler Cloud DLP provides you with basic DLP features that you get out of the box such as keywords, regular expressions, and data identifiers, for example, your social security numbers, and credit card numbers, with everything built into the product, so you can directly use those features within the policies. You don't need to create it from scratch, and to me, this is the biggest benefit of Zscaler Cloud DLP. You have a lot of templates to choose from in the solution, rather than having to create templates from scratch or reinvent templates."

"The UI is easy to use."

"The product provides a seamless user experience."

"It does the job. What it is needed for. I can use it for VPN, I can use it for secure connections, I can use it as a firewall. So the solution does the job."

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform pros

Cons

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"Latencies are always a problem."

"An integrated SSO feature would be useful for Cloudflare DNS."

"Cloudflare's console should be made more user-friendly."

"Cloudflare's free plan is limited to 5,000 records for their free plan. They should increase that. For example, if I create a domain called abc.com and a subdomain called a.abc.com, my record count will be two. I can make a maximum of 5,000 subdomains. However, if we use our own DNS hosted on another provider, there is no limit. Their free plan also lacks name server customization."

"The pricing could be improved."

"Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to buy Cloudflare in my country."

"The integration of LLMs on the dashboard is something that is needed in the tool."

More Cloudflare cons

"The remediation process can be improved. There will be no existing permission group for the McAfee channel domains. We can create a new permissions group for the required folder."

"One area for improvement is the calculation engine. When applying rules in Varonis, especially for large datasets (terabytes of data), the calculations can be slow and require time to process. Speeding up this process would be beneficial."

"It is significantly complex."

"For unstructured data monitoring, it's one of the top ones, if not the top one, due to its usability."

"I'd like to see automatic updates for this solution. Currently, it's a manual process to update all the keywords"

"I would like it to have cloud integration."

"The GUI should be more functional. There should be a process for connecting through Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc."

"We have Microsoft Office 365. I just saw an article today which says that they're actually getting integrated with Microsoft Office 365, which would be a useful feature. For user-based reports, log on activity, and stuff like that, it doesn't seem to really be present like Log360. That could just be my inexperience with it. I've been dealing with it for only about two and a half months."

More Varonis Platform cons

"There are latency issues with the solution. They are small, however, they are there when you compare it to other vendors."

"We'd like to have two-factor authentication that is quite simple."

"There could be more DLP-related features. Additionally, there needs to be flexibility for integrating ISP features."

"There is improvement in enhancing proper manageability, policies, and logs. So, log management could be improved."

"Zscaler Private Access's reporting is poor. We should have more insight into the reports regarding what is blocked and allowed."

"In the next release, I would like to see RE2 Regex supported."

"It has massive room for improvement. The Zscaler product itself is okay, but it doesn't give enough granularity for us as an organization to stipulate rules or processes, especially for data-driven services. For instance, we can stick on SSL inspection, but it's just a click box. It doesn't allow us to go any further into the detail of the SSL inspection. We also can't pull it out without having an additional logging server. It just doesn't give us enough granularity. They should give us more control over the interfaces because it is all backend. They weren't very open to discussing their backend architecture with us in terms of their own data centers. They can maybe a little bit more open about what components are there and how the backend infrastructure works alongside Zscaler. Its licensing can be better. Some of the additional licensing costs are quite high, and they should have certain features ready and available as a baseline rather than having to purchase additional licenses for it. Their support should also be improved. I initially had a consultant from Zscaler for its deployment, but the support that I had throughout the deployment of the project wasn't the best."

"It's an expensive solution."

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The product's pricing is cheap."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"We are using the free tier of the solution."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"The price is reasonable."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"Varonis Platform wasn't certainly the cheapest solution."

"I would rate the pricing an eight out of ten, with ten being the most expensive."

"The pricing is good. It neither expensive nor cheap. It is average."

"You could do a subscription, where you pay yearly, or you could purchase it outright. The licensing cost is based on the number of users on the system that you are monitoring."

"The platform is expensive. I rate the pricing a nine out of ten."

"Licensing is on an annual basis. Maintenance and renewal fees are separate. Varonis Datalert is quite expensive."

"It's expensive, kind of, really expensive."

"The solution is expensive."

"Zscaler SASE software is quite expensive compared to other solutions"

"The price is competitive."

"In the long run, cloud services are not inherently costly."

"The product is a bit expensive."

"The product is a little more expensive than other tools."

"My company is a Zscaler Private Access partner, so the customers pay for the license fees."

"It's expensive currently. But when purchasing for a large number of users, there's room to negotiate. It's really up to the procurement team."

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

25%

Computer Software Company

13%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

16%

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Insurance Company

Computer Software Company

15%

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Government

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

See all answers

Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?

Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service...

See all answers

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

See all answers

What do you like most about Varonis Platform?

The solution has significantly improved data security and compliance posture by allowing us to track and monitor acti...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Varonis Platform?

The solution's areas of improvement are the interface and the dependency on on-premises deployment for some component...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Varonis Platform?

Customers use the product to identify sensitive information, correlate it with access permissions, and utilize its au...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

What do you like most about Zscaler SASE?

The most valuable features of Zscaler Private Access are reliability, scalability, and availability.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler SASE?

Zscaler SASE is quite expensive compared to other solutions. The price is not fixed and it does not include all of th...

See all answers

Comparisons

Quad9 vs Cloudflare

Compared 49% of the time

Azure Front Door vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Azure DNS vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Akamai vs Cloudflare

Compared 4% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs Cloudflare

Compared 3% of the time

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Microsoft Purview Data Governance vs Varonis Platform

Compared 16% of the time

BigID vs Varonis Platform

Compared 14% of the time

Cyera vs Varonis Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Wiz vs Varonis Platform

Compared 6% of the time

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Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 11% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 9% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 8% of the time

Axis Security vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 6% of the time

Wiz vs Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Compared 5% of the time

More Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare

January 2025

Download Cloudflare product report

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform

December 2024

Download Varonis Platform product report

Buyer's Guide

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

December 2024

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform report

Download Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

Zscaler SASE, Zscaler DLP, Zscaler CASB, Zscaler CSPM, Zscaler Browser Isolation, Zscaler Posture Control

Learn More

Cloudflare

Varonis

Zscaler

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Varonis Platform specializes in network security and data monitoring with modules for alerting, data classification, and access management, benefiting environments like Microsoft 365.

Varonis is designed to secure data by auditing and tracking data movement. It leverages data alert and classification modules to identify and manage sensitive information. The platform enhances network security by alerting users to unexpected data modifications and deletions, crucial for effective data loss prevention. It supports unstructured data management, ensuring proper data access and permission controls. Known for its 24/7 support, Varonis offers comprehensive analytics and unified reporting, helping prevent data overexposure and facilitating compliance efforts.

What are the key features of Varonis Platform?

24/7 Support: Provides round-the-clock assistance.
Data Monitoring: Tracks data activities efficiently.
Unified Reporting: Consolidates data access reports.
Data Classification: Identifies sensitive data effectively.
Permission Management: Simplifies managing access rights.
Behavior Analytics: Detects abnormal behavior patterns.

What benefits should be highlighted in user reviews?

Enhanced Security: Improves data protection measures.
Compliance Support: Assists in meeting compliance standards.
Data Transparency: Offers clarity in data access activities.
Access Control: Ensures proper access to data.
Centralized Remediation: Eases remediation procedures.

Varonis Platform is widely utilized in industries needing stringent data confidentiality and management, such as finance and healthcare, for tracking data modifications and unauthorized access. Enterprises deploy it to manage permissions within large datasets, benefiting Microsoft 365 environments. While Varonis requires enhancements in cloud integration, the current deployment is often based on-premises, with attention to addressing the security needs and effective data handling for critical infrastructure.

Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform acts as a VPN alternative for secure remote access, cloud protection, and zero-trust strategies. It enables secure data transmission, supports remote work, and enhances compliance through a cloud-based architecture, offering improved performance and simplified management.

Designed for organizations seeking secure application access and robust data protection, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform delivers a comprehensive solution through seamless VPN connectivity, data loss prevention, and SSL inspection. Its cloud integration ensures scalability and reliability, while its interface provides intuitive management. Companies benefit from automatic secure access, minimizing constant authentication needs, and safeguarding sensitive data. The platform allows easy deployment and integration with diverse identity providers, granting granular control for access and application segmentation. Despite powerful capabilities, enhancements are needed in speed, bandwidth, and legacy support, with users noting interface and configuration challenges.

What are the key features of Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform?

Seamless VPN Connectivity: Provides automatic secure access without repetitive authentication.
Strong Security Measures: Offers DLP and SSL inspection for data protection.
Cloud Integration: Ensures scalability and performance optimization.
Granular Access Control: Manages access with application-specific segmentation.

What benefits should companies look for in reviews when evaluating this platform?

Performance: Enhanced connectivity and reduced latency.
Data Protection: Comprehensive DLP and encryption capabilities.
Scalability: Efficient handling of growing organizational demands.
Ease of Deployment: Quick setup and integration with IDPs.

In specific industries, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange has been implemented to enhance security protocols in fields like finance and healthcare. By prioritizing data protection and compliance, it assists companies in safely managing sensitive information and meeting regulatory requirements. Organizations leverage its features to ensure secure operations across remote and cloud environments, adapting to industry-specific needs with customizable access and security controls.

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Nottingham Building Society

Siemens, AutoNation, GE, NOV

Buyer's Guide

Varonis Platform vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

January 2025

Free Report: Varonis Platform vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform

Find out what your peers are saying about Varonis Platform vs. Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Platform and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.

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