No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Secure Access vs Safe-T Secure Application Access comparison

Why PeerSpot?
 

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

Cisco Secure Access
Ranking in ZTNA
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
75
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (4th), Firewalls (10th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (2nd)
Safe-T Secure Application A...
Ranking in ZTNA
20th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
8
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (30th), Access Management (35th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the ZTNA category, the mindshare of Cisco Secure Access is 3.3%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Safe-T Secure Application Access is 1.9%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Access3.3%
Safe-T Secure Application Access1.9%
Other94.8%
ZTNA
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2788500 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Secure access has unified zero trust and web protection while AI assistance automates tasks
From a feature perspective, I have not experienced any issues, drawbacks, or shortcomings. However, the cost of Cisco's products and licensing is high. My clients usually prefer cheaper options if possible. Mid-size or smaller businesses typically cannot afford Cisco Secure Access. Additionally, there is a steep learning curve, as it is very intensive. Someone with significant knowledge can work on it, but a new professional would have to spend considerable time to get accustomed to it. It is hard to find engineers who can work on it. Overall, we get what we pay for, as it is a pretty good feature and service. The pricing of Cisco's products and licensing is higher than competitors. If they could be more reasonable, that would help. The support offered for two years also has higher costs. Overall, the client's IT budget gets affected. It was challenging to learn because, as mentioned, it has a significant learning curve and requires considerable training to become proficient.
it_user787671 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network and Security Engineer
Needs to be easier to configure and to display logs more simply
We use only it for scanning files for viruses. That's the only feature we use in this product It needs to be easier to configure, it should be something that's working well with other sources. It should be something that allows me to see the logs simply. One to three years. Sometimes it doesn't…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Cisco Secure Access has protected our company against threats such as phishing or ransomware, as we have seen it successfully address various cybersecurity vulnerabilities."
"The return on investment in Cisco Secure Access is significant, providing substantial savings in time, data loss prevention, and management of protection, with time savings reaching up to 30% based on the processing time and retention policy of Cisco Secure Access, which is more than 30% better than others."
"It works well. It hasn't broken. While I don't know enough about all the features yet, it hasn't caused us any problems."
"I would say that over the last 15 years, Cisco Secure Access is the best solution for remote access because I work with other companies as well, but Cisco Secure Access is the best one."
"Cisco is very well poised and it helps us to build up cases with Cisco that way, because having its brand strength and its facilities and all, they could learn a lot from their competitors."
"Cisco Secure Access has definitely helped our organization, cutting incident response time at least in half and giving us analytics that let us quickly identify devices and users so everything from headquarters contacting the base to the on-site tech removing a rogue device from the classroom network is much quicker."
"The move from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access has been great, as Cisco Secure Access has more features available and provides a nice and easy migration from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access."
"The feature I like the most about Cisco Secure Access is the whole concept of zero trust, as it is exactly what we need and I believe that Cisco Secure Access is the future of cybersecurity."
"This product allows us to actually send it straight from our email to the other person's email in a safe way, where we can meet all our regulations and still keep the data in our control."
"If you need a solution for sending big files to customers or for receiving large files from them, this is a very good solution."
"From a technical point of view, products are stable and scalable, and we do appreciate the personal touch the sales engineers (SE) support and development bring, as well as the personal touch of the sales support, the free online, and web-based training."
"We use only it for scanning files for viruses."
"You can easily integrate it and fit the system to your organization's needs, and that's a very huge advantage."
"Safe-T is very good for users because it has a plug-in for Outlook."
"Safe-T SDA has allowed my organization to secure my office applications and makes it harder for hackers to be able to hack into my internal office web applications."
"At the end of the day it's really good and really improved."
 

Cons

"My advice to another organization considering using Cisco Secure Access is that there is a reason the cost is high, because of the security, but other than that, that is really it."
"To improve Cisco Secure Access, I believe there should be better clarity from Cisco regarding where organizations should focus their investments."
"For pricing, I consider this one of the few drawbacks of Cisco; Cisco is known for its high pricing, so I would give them a six."
"Comparing Cisco Secure Access to something like Cloudflare One, in the future the cost can come down."
"Cisco Secure Access has impacted our help desk ticket volume and end-user experience because sometimes users encounter issues. Since we have many features activated, users sometimes cannot connect or attempt to connect multiple times, which generates service desk tickets."
"Cisco Secure Access is stable and reliable if certain features are not used. Initially, SSL decryption was enabled, where certificates are decrypted, and when that was turned on, the performance was very unpredictable, plummeting significantly."
"I am not using the AI assistant feature of Cisco Secure Access much yet. I think it is a little bit limited right now."
"Cisco is not well accepted in the market since they are somewhat behind their competitors."
"One important thing that we haven't found in this product is the ability to provide a read-only view for documents. Also, the ability for the customer to add annotations to these documents."
"When we have something that we want improved, it takes a little bit of time until it can be fixed."
"The cloud solution is not that great especially with Swiss customers."
"The Outlook agent is not working well for installing it in the entire office."
"In terms of improvement, they need to be much more strict regarding the roadmap, about timelines and when new features will be up in production."
"Setting up Safe-T SDE is very complex. It is not straightforward, and it requires much understanding on the concepts of the product."
"I'm not sure what advice I would give others about this product because I don't like Safe-T."
"Better UI. A better UI for the people that manage all the processes of Safe-T. Some of the UI is not as intuitive as you would like it to be."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is confusing. When you look at the prices, you have different licensing and years of licensing that you have to purchase. Additionally, it's unclear what service you get from those licenses regarding end-user support. We have a representative who has to walk me through it every time."
"The pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco Secure Access have been very competitive compared to other platforms. I believe that if Cisco continues to improve costs or offers something similar to a Cisco credit, it would attract more customers."
"For what you get, it's a fair price in comparison to other products."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which ZTNA solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Construction Company
12%
Performing Arts
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise41
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Access?
The pricing is not too bad because it's per headcount with Cisco Secure Access. You check how many clients you have. If you have 500 users, then you base your pricing on that. It's still expensive ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Access?
I am dealing with Cisco Secure Access products. As a consultant and reseller, I am using it myself with Cisco Secure Access. You can have tenants with Cisco Secure Access. Tenancy is obviously part...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Secure Access?
The AI element of Cisco Secure Access should have better guidance on the logs. To be honest, I can't think of anything else because it's quite a robust feature. My overall review rating for Cisco S...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

No data available
Safe-T SDA, Safe-T, Safe-T Software-Defined Access
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

1. IBM 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. Google 5. Apple 6. Cisco Systems 7. Oracle 8. Intel 9. HP Inc. 10. Dell Technologies 11. Verizon Communications 12. AT&T 13. Comcast 14. T-Mobile 15. Sprint 16. Vodafone 17. Orange 18. BT Group 19. Deutsche Telekom 20. Telefonica 21. Nokia 22. Ericsson 23. Samsung Electronics 24. Sony 25. Panasonic 26. LG Electronics 27. Siemens 28. General Electric 29. Ford Motor Company 30. General Motors 31. Toyota Motor Corporation 32. Volkswagen Group
Government of Israel, eviCore Healthcore, Glen Imaging, Sarin, LBG, Rollomatic, Boegli-Gravures SA, Banque Heritage, Groupe Minoteries, Temenos, ZEK, RLM Finsbury, Harel Insurance, Meitav Dash
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Secure Access vs. Safe-T Secure Application Access and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.