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Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (7th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
6th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (4th), ZTNA as a Service (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (5th)
Zscaler Private Access (ZPA)
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
12th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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
Alexander Azikov - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide a seamless experience for end users with internet duplication feature
The setup and onboarding process is very straightforward - I'd rate it a ten out of ten for ease. We use CatoCloud as our cloud provider. They have points of presence, and we connect to the nearest one to our physical location. All the routing, inspection, and logic for what to route, block, or allow happens in the cloud, not on the local device. Our deployment took a couple of weeks because we installed the sites manually. If we had a team to help switch locally, it could have been done in a week. The deployment process is straightforward. We set up all the sites in their cloud system; then, they ship the sockets directly to the location or our main office. We connect the device to the internet, it gets activated, we assign it to a specific site inside the cloud, and it's online and ready to use. It's very easy.
Martin Partridge - PeerSpot reviewer
User access is simplified and secured through central core functionalities
The simplicity and logical structure of Zscaler make it easy to use and administer. It allows grouping, enabling en masse access conveniently. Unlike the BlueCoat proxy, which was more prescriptive and individual-focused, Zscaler offers group access. Additionally, Zscaler's modern tools enhance the network architecture by passing everything through a central core of security, ensuring everything is secure before accessing the internet.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"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."
"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."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution is stable."
"The main features we use are the firewall and secure web gateway."
"Additionally, Cato has a global point of presence, which means instead of using other technologies to connect branches and provide access for a retail organization or any organization with branches, we can utilize Cato's backbone. Furthermore, by consolidating different technologies into one solution, there are additional cost savings from that perspective."
"When I first encountered Cato, I didn't know how to use it, but after a week of training, I could onboard our systems to it, so the solution was easy to learn and navigate."
"I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users."
"The query and the SD-WAN are useful features of the solution."
"Unified management and internet duplication are our most valuable features. They provide a seamless experience for end users—if one link goes down, they can still work without noticing."
"We appreciate the optimization and acceleration of the performance of SDP users."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) is more secure than these particular VPN solutions."
"Zscaler Private Access helps by resolving network choke issues, allowing application access from public networks without needing to integrate with internal networks."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) does an excellent job offering secure remote access to internal applications for our distributed workforce because it provides a granular way to grant access for specific people with specific applications."
"Overall, I would rate it a nine out of ten."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) is the most mature compared to other vendors in terms of features and stability."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) is much more secure than VPN because users are only allowed to access specific applications rather than the whole network."
"The features I appreciate the most about Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) are that it is very easy to use, and we have Terraform for it, which makes it even easier and very straightforward."
"Zscaler Private Access helps by resolving network choke issues, allowing application access from public networks without needing to integrate with internal networks."
 

Cons

"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"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."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"The tool should improve its interface."
"The product must evolve into the endpoint domain."
"The different languages in the user interface should be enhanced."
"Cato Networks security could be better."
"The tool needs to be more granular. Its reports are not very in-depth."
"Modifying or incorporating Cato Network to work with a third-party platform, such as Microsoft, or other Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings would be beneficial. Having more integration partners would help the users implement the solution."
"They should include a web application firewall feature in the solution."
"The solution could be made more user friendly for the administrator to use the portal. It is difficult to use it for people who are not experienced with Cato Networks."
"I am not happy with the technical support from Zscaler Private Access (ZPA), particularly in India, where reachability is an issue with salespersons."
"Customer service and support are rated seven or eight out of ten, needing improvement in quality and response time."
"The solution is not scalable; we deploy it in a high-availability environment, but it's not automated."
"Zscaler restricts customization to a maximum of 256 customizable rules, which can be a limitation for us."
"Sometimes connection errors occur when users are unable to connect to the particular cloud."
"The rollout process could be much easier, and the configuration of identity providers like Azure is more complicated than with other zero trust network providers. This can be a pain point."
"There are some bugs in the solution, which they are clearly working on, and they are still not resolving them. So it's taking some time."
"The price is a concern as it increases every year and becomes more expensive, driving customers and other vendors to look for alternatives."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"
"Cato Networks is an expensive product, but it works out of the box, so that's the usual trade-off, make versus buy. If you decide to buy a product that doesn't require much programming, then you'd want to go for Cato Networks, which will work naturally, and immediately without any complex setup. However, the product is a little bit more expensive than the competitors. On a scale of one to five, I'd rate the pricing for Cato Networks as four."
"The solution has reasonable pricing. It has a yearly subscription. The pricing depends on the permit to code. Sometimes, we need to increase the permit, and the cost will automatically change. There's no fixed cost. Unless we request additional modules such as DNS security, ELP, and decent features, there will be no additional cost."
"You pay yearly based on the speed of your network. If you increase the speed of your network, you increase the cost for your throughput. It is by bandwidth for the most part and then licenses for VPN. There is some per-seat licensing for VPN access, but the majority of it is minimal. It is like $30 a year per client. The rest is based on how much bandwidth you'll use. You pay for that upfront for the year, and if you have to increase it, you increase it, and then they let you send more data through. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The platform is expensive."
"The price is not an issue for us, as it is priced more competitively than some other vendors."
"The product is very competitively priced, and that's compelling. They don't charge the customer based on the operational cost like other brands such as Palo Alto. Cato has its own fully-fledged cloud, with their own data centers, equipment, and so on, which is an advantage. I rate the solution five out of five for affordability."
"I'd rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform's pricing as about five or six out of ten. It's not the cheapest solution, but it is cheaper than Palo Alto and even VeloCloud. We've been working with them for a while and have significant discounts. Our licensing costs vary because we keep adding sites, but it's about 280 per month per site. This includes additional features beyond the base product, starting at around 200."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
No data available
 

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?
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 do you like most about Cato Networks?
The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity....
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
I use Cato SASE Cloud Platform primarily as a single vendor, integrated SD-WAN plus SASE solution.
What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?
I rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform at 9.5 out of 10. There is always room for improvement, especially in edge security f...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Zscaler Private Access (ZPA)?
Prices for Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) are higher than traditional solutions, but it provides enhanced security.
What needs improvement with Zscaler Private Access (ZPA)?
Sometimes the team takes more time to provide responses on certain issues, which is why I do not rate it a perfect 10...
What is your primary use case for Zscaler Private Access (ZPA)?
I worked with these organizations for implementing Secure Service Edge and SASE solutions, including Cloud Access Sec...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cato Networks
No data available
 

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.
Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,327 professionals have used our research since 2012.