Zscaler Internet Access Reviews

The main use cases that our clients typically have and why we propose and implement the solution is for a proxy solution. It's designed to create a proxy site-to-site tunnel between the computer trying to access any resources on the Internet or within the offices. Most organizations have a significant number of remote workers - around 30 to 40 percent of their workforce is remote - and they log in from different locations globally, such as Japan, the US, Europe, and Asia. So they need one solution to cover these remote locations and provide a proxy solution.

In addition, we need to have minimum bandwidth latency, and Zscaler is the most suitable product we see. Whenever a customer comes to us with a large geographical spread in terms of their workforce, we propose and implement this solution across the cloud, as required.

One feature that is valuable to me from an implementation point of view is that it's very easy to implement. We just had to route in some IPs, and it automatically hops into the nearest Zscaler nodes, which they call it. They have more than 150 nodes across the globe. Essentially, if I'm trying to access a server in India at this point in time, and the server I'm trying to access is somewhere in Singapore or Tokyo, it creates a lot of internet latency. But with Zscaler, it's not the case because they have a server in almost every major hotspot in the world. In India, if you're connecting, they will automatically route to their nearest server. Since they have servers in so many places in the world, we can easily configure them to the nearest server. 

The end-user who's using it doesn't feel the latency, and it's really minimal, less than three milliseconds, six milliseconds, whereas the competition has more than ten milliseconds and eleven milliseconds as latency.

There are a couple of areas of improvement in the solution. Firstly, there are some performance issues when we add on additional controls. Zscaler Internet Access is a plain vanilla solution that allows you to add CSV or DLP on top of it. However, once you add these modules, the performance degrades for a bit, and the latency increases significantly. We're talking about a two-fold or three-fold increase in latency. They need to work on this. So the performance goes down when using a lot of features simultaneously.

Moreover, the implementation interface is not very good. It has some minor bugs, and it's not properly streamlined. However, these are not software issues that cannot be resolved. A simple reboot or a call to the reseller personnel can guide you in resolving these issues. But the experience can be more seamless if the interface is improved.

I have hands-on experience with Zscaler Internet Access, a cloud proxy solution similar to Cisco's proxy solution.

We've been working with Zscaler Internet Access for almost three years now. We use the basic Zscaler Internet Access with add-ons like CASB and DLP. This is the solution we sell and implement the most.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten. There are more than 15,000 users under different organizations. They are small and medium-sized businesses. The largest organization that deployed Zscaler had 8,000 users. 

The customer service and support team is good. 

Positive

I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. The deployment process is quick, around 6 to 8 weeks. But that depends on the geographical locations we need to cover. If we only need to cover two to three locations, it's good enough.

The deployment process involves building the Zscaler package, which can be vanilla or vanilla plus bundle, and then remotely pushing it to the client machine using Microsoft Intune or whatever it is. Meanwhile, we have to build the configuration and policy based on the client's requirements.

First, what we do is we build the ZScaler package. The package includes the features that will be going through the solution. Once the package is built, it is pushed into the endpoints or machines, such as computers, laptops, and desktops, through Microsoft Intune or SCCM, or any other patching solution that they have. Meanwhile, we configure Zscaler to the nearest hub that the reseller has. They have more than 150 nodes across the globe, so we configure the nearest hub for them. Once that configuration is done, we have established a connection, and the systems have gone online, then you can actually use the solution.

So, it's basically a two-step process. Rolling out the package, rolling out the agent, and configuring the reseller to the nearest hub. That's it. It's a smooth process.

Zscaler is transparent about its pricing model. However, it is not a cheap solution. I would rate the licensing model a seven out of ten. 

My advice, generally, is that if a client has a growth prospect with an increasing number of employees moving across the globe, then Zscaler advises having a product that is scalable and fast. By fast, I mean it has low latency, making it very scalable. Zscaler Internet Access is a completely cloud-based product and is highly scalable. It is a reliable solution to have in your IT stack. 

Overall, I would rate Zscaler an eight out of ten. Zscaler Internet Access is highly scalable and has low latency, making it one of the most reliable products with good market support and presence. I rated it an eight and not a ten because there are a couple of constraints in scaling certain things. For example, some customers, such as federal institutions of the US, state of clutter, or some banks, want an on-premise solution. They want more control because Cloud will always have a security issue somewhere or the other, and Zscaler Internet Access does not have an on-prem solution. Also, when you increase the features, it does lag a bit, which should not happen.

We can use the solution for users that are working from home. It allows us to manage control over security. We install an agent and can set the domains that are allowed on the network. It helps ensure security.

It can be easily accessed by the cloud. Users can easily work from home while maintaining company security.

The servers are hosted in the cloud, and it maintains security for Azure. It's like having double security - one for the cloud and one for the user.

It is simple to use. We can create multiple tunnels with ease. It's simpler to use than a VPN.

The solution is stable.

We'd like for them to include some sort of antivirus tool. It would help if that came bundled with this product from a security standpoint. 

We'd like to have a server connector without ht need for multiple micro tunnels. 

We just completed a POC. I just started with the company.

The stability is good. The solution is reliable. We've had no issues with stability. I'd rate the stability eight out of ten.

We have almost 300 users.

I'd rate the scalability six out of ten. The policy creation is difficult. It's complicated to add them, and therefore scaling may take a while. 

I don't really deal with technical support. We get support from a third-party vendor, not Zscaler directly.

We have used a different solution in the past. Zscaler, we can deploy on VM servers.

We've only completed a POC and plan to roll out a full implementation soon. In the past, I have implemented it completely as well. We are planning to deploy for the sales users first. 

It's not a difficult process. Once the agent is installed, it needs to be verified with the console. The deployment takes between 30 to 45 days, depending on the level of support needed to complete the task. The issue is our sales team are work from home users. That can make the process longer. 

We also need to create user policies before the full deployment happens. Different policies are needed for different users. We may need to create three to four different policies for different user sets. 

We have a third party that we get the solution. 

We have yet to receive the cost from Zscaler. We've only done a POC. My understanding is the solution is reasonably priced. I'd rate the pricing eight out of ten.

We are an end-user. We may be a future partner.

It is good for a small environment of 80 to 100 users. I'm not sure if it works for very large organizations. This solution requires less maintenance and makes server access easy - instead of, for example, standalone VPN access.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

We have Windows 10 laptops. We wanted help securing our laptops for remote work, but we don't have the server for this infrastructure. Whereas, with this solution, the cloud server is managed by Zscaler. 

It is a pretty lean solution. We only need to manage the agent and some very small tools on the laptops.

Currently, we have an on-premise firewall. However, most of the time, users are not working in the office. Therefore, we need to use something, like a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), to help users. So, we are trying to protect users without a corporate firewall.

We just wanted laptops to have more secure features to help users and protect the company's data. There are two major things deployed on our laptops: Zscaler Internet Access and endpoint detection response (EDR).

Zscaler Internet Access has helped enable our digital transformation.

When you try to access suspicious websites, they will give you a warning. This helps us with user access without our office network.

Its cyberthreat protection is important for our needs. We use it for Internet access control, e.g., accessing web pages. We also use it when a user downloads or uploads files from the Internet.

When a user goes to the Internet to browse or download something, it is secured by this tool. This is important to us because it is another layer of protection.

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

We did run into some compatibility issues. We just needed to test its configurations on the web portal and that detected the issues.

I have been using it for half a year.

We haven't had any issues with stability.

No maintenance is required.

We have 120 users. We have never tested it to go above 1,000 users. It shouldn't have problems because it is an agent working on the laptops using a centralized online server. 

The technical support is very good. We create a ticket every week or two.

Positive

We didn't have an Internet access control solution previously, only anti-malware for endpoint protection.

Our legacy systems only protected our on-premise network.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took about three days to set up.

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.

Versus deploying and managing traditional network security hardware, the solution has saved us about four hours a week.

The solution has helped us reduce the number of infected devices in our organization by proactively preventing attacks because some users were unaware of some malware sites.

We evaluated two or three different vendors, but finally selected Zscaler Internet Access due to its reputation. Also, the GUI for Zscaler Internet Access was very clear when we tested it.

We are not using the solution for data loss prevention.

When you select this product, test it with other tools running on your machine to ensure there are no compatibility issues between different products.

I would rate it as nine out of 10.

One of the use cases is VPN replacement. Zscaler Private Access replaces the VPN solution.

Zscaler covers all the features needed to replace a VPN or proxy solution. They are good. They've been on the market for 15 years now, so they are mature enough.

Zscaler needs to add client-to-client communication. It's always client-to-server communication. The cloud and branch connectors could be improved because we're still dependent on traditional firewalls. They should eliminate this. They should also provide WAN devices should to compete with the SD-WAN solutions also.

We have been building our competency and trying to sell Zscaler to customers for almost two years. We are doing this in our labs also, and we have one customer now. 

Zscaler is scalable. 

Zscaler is a cloud-based solution, so it's scalable. 

We worked with Zscaler support initially for some professional services. That service was excellent, but later we had to wait for them to make some changes, so that could be tricky. I rate Zscaler support seven out of 10. 

Neutral

Deploying Zscaler is quick and straightforward. You can easily onboard end-users to Zscaler Private Access once you deploy the application. There is a virtual application in your private data centers that detects the applications, and you can control access.

We have two or three engineer to deploy the solution. Two are usually needed  because there are different roles from a backup point of view, and we have a different set of people during the design stage. We need some people who understand identity solutions. We have a combination of two or three engineers who normally do deployment for around 1,500 users. One person is usually more than sufficient for maintenance because we don't get that many inquiries unless some changes are needed.

We work on a business case, not on ROI, so if the customer sees a positive savings on their business case after the five years or six years, they normally go for Zscaler.

The license is per user, and there's a minimum license per user per year. It's costly if you compare it to the traditional solutions like Symantec or Bluecoat. It's about 20 to 30 percent costlier than the traditional solution, but it gives you the flexibility to work from anywhere, and everything becomes effortless. 

I rate Zscaler Internet Access eight out of 10.

Our customer already had the product, which they got from another vendor. They were facing some issues with their existing policies. Our role was to optimize the policy. So we optimized Threat Protection, DLP, and CASB policies per the customer’s requirements. In their environment, G Suite was completely allowed for some users, but they wanted only to allow a specific corporate domain. As per the recommendation, CASB policy must have been in place, but it wasn’t. So we optimized the tool as per their requirement and delivered it.

The product has different modules like SWG, CASB, DLP, and Threat Protection. The most valuable feature of the solution is SWG traffic. The product is very good in web traffic.

Cloud App’s database should be improved. Currently, they only support and provide granular controls to around 1000 cloud applications. In Netskope, it is more than 3000. Around 65,000 applications are visible to the users in Netskope, but Zscaler only supports around 3000 to 4000. Cloud App is not good. UI is not as easily understandable as Netskope. Netskope has a source, destination, and action policy. In Zscaler, we have to click multiple tabs to get it. It's a bit tricky compared to Netskope. Once we understand it, it's simple.

I have been using the solution for four to five months.

I rate the solution’s stability an eight out of ten.

I rate the product’s scalability an eight out of ten. Currently, the product is facing major issues in scalability because the company is over ten years old. The data center they have in India goes down frequently. VLANs also go down frequently. Due to this, the product gets turned off completely, and sometimes, the users go to different traffic. If it’s an on-prem user, they go via a firewall, which increases the pain for the customers. They have a problem with DC. VLANs go down sometimes. That's why the user faces complete disconnection issues for the proxy. Two people in the organization are using the solution.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is just a plug-and-play process. When the Zscaler client is installed on the machine, it works like a normal proxy. They're connected to the cloud. The solution is deployed on all the users’ machines, and the management and policy creation is done at the cloud level. It's a cloud proxy.

The deployment is just a plug-and-play process. The policy is very simple.

We acquired a customer for optimization. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.

We use ZIA for outbound internet connectivity. The internet traffic of on-prem users will be directed to the ZIA cloud for security checks and web filtering. 

Zscaler does not provide dedicated IPs to each customer. Hence, they share a pool of IPs provided by Zscaler. There is a chance of blacklisting these IPs. I also do not like the multi-management portal. 

I have been working with the product for a couple of years. 

The product's stability is fine. 

ZIA is not scalable due to the limitation of bandwidth. My company has over 100 users for the product. 

ZIA's support is good. 

Positive

ZIA's setup is not easy because of the multiple clouds. 

ZIA follows a subscription model pricing and charges you based on the number of users. I would say its price is good. 

I would rate the product a seven out of ten. I haven't seen any unique competitive advantage for ZIA over its competitors. ZIA's offerings are offered by competitors as well. However, the product has good security features. However, I wouldn't recommend this product to organizations that require high-security features. I would recommend Palo Alto in those cases. 

Because some of our employees need to work remotely, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we were looking for a solution that would keep them safe. We have a Cisco ASA firewall in our company, but when people work remotely they can't be protected by that solution. That's why we decided to go for a WAF.

Zscaler has helped protect our employees wherever they are working, by delivering safe web access. We are doing the same things that we were always doing at our company, and in the same way, but now we are functioning safely outside of our premises. We were already able to work remotely using the Cisco agent, but the Zscaler agent is an improvement at the cybersecurity level.

Another benefit is that we are not managing all the backend infrastructure and that saves 10 to 15 percent of our time in terms of productivity.

It has also reduced the time we spend managing security policies. That's very important because it means that our engineer can spend time focusing on other business activities. The solution is saving 15 to 20 percent of our engineer's time, per day.

Some of the most valuable features are that, as a remote solution it is 

• lightweight
• very easy to set up and configure
• the protection is in the cloud. 

We are agnostic when it comes to what they are doing. We don't have to buy equipment to use it. And when our engineers set it up on our side, we just configured a few settings and we were in.

I would like to see more training and video documentation.

I've been using Zscaler Internet Access for about two months.

It's very stable. We haven't had any issues so far.

The scalability is also very good. We have about 300 users. We gradually want to move all 800 people in our operation over to Zscaler and to remove the local solution.

The technical support we get from them is great. The guys know what they're doing.

Positive

With our legacy system, a VPN solution from Cisco called AnyConnect, we have to buy licenses and equipment, as well as storage in a data center. With this cloud solution, we just pay a fee and it's easy to use. Digital transformation is very important to us because it is a corporate objective. We started with Microsoft 360, and Zscaler is another brick in the wall, in that direction.

We are planning to downgrade our firewall and just keep Zscaler. We're not going to save money with Zscaler, but we are aligning with the corporate objectives by using it.

It's easy to set up. It took my network engineer about one week to prepare the environment, and our software network engineer is the person in charge of keeping it going.

We had a local provider, SISAP, help us. They are a business based in Guatemala, with an office here in Honduras. They worked very well.

The price is competitive. It's not cheap and it's not expensive.

We looked at Cisco Umbrella as an option. But because our organization is part of a corporation that was already using Zscaler, we're aligning ourselves with our headquarters' implementation by going with this solution.

Zscaler is a great solution. We have a very good representative here in Honduras and it was easy to set up. It's a very strong solution with the cloud infrastructure that meets our needs and most of the needs of our users. We are very happy with the solution.

I used Zscaler Internet Access for our proxy web traffic.

One Stop solution for roaming users, single control center for User access, security and performance improvement for Ms sites.

The most valuable features of Zscaler Internet Access are it's on the cloud, high network performance, and the interception of users is very easy.

Zscaler Internet Access can improve by having more option for filtering policy which is currently only ip based (location policy). The developer need to add more option like identifying DNS and Domains names as well along with ip.

I have been using Zscaler Internet Access for one year.

Zscaler Internet Access is stable. Since we have been using it we have not had any problems. 

Zscaler Internet Access is scalable but it depends on the licensing model you choose. It can scale very easily.

We have approximately 1,800 users using the solution in my company. Everyone in the company is using the solution, from receptionist to corporate employees.

In our experience, Please bare some thoughts for experienced guys in the industry.

I do understand 1-2 years experience guys can do Professional service but when you are customer facing, please: Zscaler need to have strong experience guys during customer interaction.

I rate the support from Zscaler Internet Access a three out of five.

Positive

Not disclosing

The initial setup of Zscaler Internet Access is very simple. The cloud configuration is very easy. The implementation took approximately three months due to Change process, however you can finish in 3 days if you are in small size industry.

Wee had excellent support form vendor but it was done mutually along with inhouse design guide.

Absolutely on the money, look at the security dashboard, its easily noticeable.

The price of Zscaler Internet Access should improve, it is expensive.

but to catch small/medium size business they need to come up with some better licensing plan.

yes, Umbrella, Forcepoint

I rate Zscaler Internet Access a nine out of ten. Love the product.