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Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 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 ZTNA as a Service
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
77
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (1st), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (5th)
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
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 (5th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd)
 

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
Wouter Beer - PeerSpot reviewer
Generates revenue through service offering while needing additional safety features
The primary use case for Cisco Secure Client, including AnyConnect, is as a VPN for remote access I use AnyConnect because I have Cisco infrastructure. It utilizes certificates, which allows for automatic setup. The security features are beneficial, and the whole idea of the app is that it should…
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"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."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"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 solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Advanced malware protection helps us to prevent any virus from contaminating computers. We also have DLP for prevention. And AnyConnect has a feature that lets us do some sandboxing to evaluate files that arrive from the outside. So before opening them, we can check them with the sandbox."
"The most valuable features of the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is the reliability and scalability."
"I like how I don't need to see the solution or start it up. I just use my computer and have it working in the background. I start my laptop and it's there and working. That's the most important feature."
"I'd rate Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client at nine out of ten for scalability."
"The most valuable feature is AnyConnect's reliability."
"It is easy to scale."
"The multifactor authentication enhances security posture, and integrating our internal application for authentication was easy."
"This solution gives you double security because it uses both hard and soft tokens."
"GlobalProtect has been beneficial for its cloud security capabilities, which are vital as businesses seek hybrid options and need to support remote workers while addressing latency issues."
"Prisma Access is very stable, and I am very much satisfied with its stability, rating it nine to ten out of ten."
"Prisma's most valuable feature would be its ability to identify bad or risky configurations."
"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."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud-native, in my opinion, is that it assists in identifying, analyzing, and remediating vulnerabilities."
"It supports auto-scaling for mobile users. It auto-scales depending on the mobile user traffic. For example, if 1,000 people are working from home today, and tomorrow, the number increases to 2,000, it is not going to be an issue."
"It's very stable. Sometimes after installing the boxes, we leave them for one or two years. We would just touch the box in the case of the customer needing new requirements or changes to the setup."
"Overall, the cost savings, ease of deployment, and better VPN user experience and performance are valuable."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client could improve by optimizing the use of the system resources, it is heavy on the resources. Additionally, there could be more transparency."
"The most valuable feature of the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is its ease of use and simple interface. It's always available as long as I have a good network connection."
"You do need technical expertise to set up the product."
"More frequent updates would be ideal."
"There are times the WiFi connectivity has disruptions and you have disconnections. It doesn't work with two connections. I have two switches back and forth sometimes. It doesn't have a failback scenario feature. However, on the gateway side, it does, but on the user device, it doesn't have that kind of option. It would be nice to have this feature."
"The cost could always be a bit less."
"The notifications need to be improved. If the VPN is disconnected for a long period of time, they should push out notifications. We need to manually check if the VPN is connected or not. Sometimes it automatically disconnects, but the user doesn't get notifications, and we need to troubleshoot or open the client to manually reconnect. Auto-reconnection would be an improvement."
"One improvement could be ensuring better backward compatibility."
"When it comes to integration mechanisms, Prisma SaaS does not support reverse proxy type of integrations."
"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 price can be reduced to make it more competitive."
"The documentation is generally good, but they could provide a more detailed description of all the configuration steps. I have to search for information or call support. Palo Alto could add more knowledge base articles about configuration with screenshots and walkthroughs. That would be helpful. When configuring a product, you want to see examples of how it is done."
"Better integration with the MDM solution would be useful."
"I haven't seen any SD-WAN configuration capability. If Prisma Access would support SD-WAN, that would help... SD-WAN devices should be able to reach Prisma Access, and Palo Alto should support different, vendor-specific devices, not just Palo Alto devices, for SD-WAN configuration."
"It would be nice to manage Prisma Access through the cloud instead of through Panorama. You can use the cloud version to monitor Prisma Access, but it doesn't have all the features yet, and it's not 100% done."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"Sometimes there is a problem with the number of licenses for the end-user. The number of concurrent users is limited due to a valid license."
"There is a license needed to use this solution. There are different licensing models available, such as a three-year license."
"The solution is reasonably priced and costs $600 for a five-year license in our scenario."
"We are in the North African region, and Cisco products are expensive for us. On a scale from one to ten with one being very affordable and ten being expensive, I'd rate the price at eight."
"The pricing depends on the requirement, so proper planning and an RF analysis help to properly size the solution and get the best pricing."
"I am using a paid version of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"The price is okay."
"Prisma is in the middle of the road. It's not the most expensive, but it's not the cheapest. There aren't any additional costs, to my knowledge. I know they have some extra modules, but we didn't use them."
"The licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis and for what we get, the price is good."
"The solution is expensive."
"In terms of pricing, considering that it is a two or three years old solution, they should apply big discounts for the next two or three years. This approach will be better for them to capture the market."
"The pricing is very friendly. It's not confusing to figure out your workload and how much you'd be paying for the solution."
"It is a little expensive. Because it is one of the best in the market, it is a little bit more expensive than other vendors."
"It is not cheap. It is expensive. The good thing is that you are able to pay for what you need, but overall, it is not cheap. The pricing is not based on packages. You pay based on the features. If you want DLP, you only pay for DLP. They are very flexible. It is not cheap, but the licensing is flexible. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"Prisma Access is one of the best compared to other products on the market. The cost is favorable, and Palo Alto provides a simple architecture, so I recommend the solution to anyone using a different product. There are no hidden costs besides the license; what you see is what you get."
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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
29%
Educational Organization
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
 

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 Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
The tool is user-friendly, robust and easy to use in any environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is somewhat expensive compared to others such as Fortinet or Palo Alto, wh...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
At times there is confusion regarding when to keep the proxy on or off, a problem faced by some users.
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.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
 

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.
MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
861,170 professionals have used our research since 2012.