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ClearScale Windows Server 2025 vs Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] comparison

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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

ClearScale Windows Server 2025
Ranking in AWS Marketplace
428th
Average Rating
10.0
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Zscaler Software [Private O...
Ranking in AWS Marketplace
458th
Average Rating
7.6
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2858658 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works at a tech vendor with 11-50 employees
Automated hardening has standardized our servers and reduces effort for secure Windows workloads
The first-boot time is longer than a stock Windows AMI. Sysprep and the initial hardening pass add a noticeable delay before the instance is reachable, which is something to account for if you autoscale and need nodes ready quickly. The hardened defaults also occasionally trip up common installers and agents. A few of our deployment and monitoring tools assumed services or policies that the image had locked down, so we had to add exceptions. A short compatibility checklist of what the hardening changes from a default Windows install would have saved us that debugging. I would also like the option of a CIS Level 2 build for our more sensitive workloads since the image currently only ships a Level 1 baseline. Thanks.
Carlos Snel - PeerSpot reviewer
Executive Director at Aquila ICT Solutions
Zero trust security has provided flexible protection and inspects real-time traffic effectively
From my perspective, I think about Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only], not much could be improved. It is working very well. The only thing is about the POP presence, where you hook into a continent or country. In some countries, South America has some coverage, but not as much as for instance North America or Europe. If you talk with large enterprises or multinationals that are everywhere in the world present, they might need something in Africa. Africa is also a continent where you have more and more enterprises having their subsidiaries there. Africa is not covered very thoroughly, in my opinion. It only has South Africa with points of presence and then Egypt. It is either very up north or very down south. If you are in the middle of Africa, which is an extremely large continent, then you have delays and latencies. That is not very nice. However, that is not only counting for Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only]; this is also for all competitors. I am working with Cato Networks now for more than a year and the same story applies to them. I also know other competitors of Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] which have even less coverage. It is not something that I think everyone is keen on to expand in Africa because they do not see much traffic. However, if you have multinationals that are operating in Africa, then you cannot offer very good quality service because you have large latency if they are in the middle of Africa. Not even in the middle of Africa; if you talk about under Morocco, then you either connect to Cairo or you connect to Spain. Spain is closest, but if you always have redundancy, and if Spain falls out for whatever reason, even though that is not happening much because the data centers are very stable, then you have an enormous latency going to Cairo. Coming with this to more North Africa, if you talk about Angola and Mozambique in the middle of Africa, then you do not have much choice. You always have a lot of latency there. That is unfortunate. On the technical terms, that is where I stand. I mentioned this before, and it is still the same. I think I talked with you a few years back about this; I think three or four years ago. I mentioned exactly this topic then, and it is still the same. The other thing is, I think in terms of software, they are doing their best. They are buying in firms and buying in solutions, so they are expanding, and that is fine. I would rather say to Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] to have better customer service because Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only], even with large enterprises and huge companies that I work for, they notice that Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] service management is different. They are very big and they have less attention to client matters. If that would improve, it would be the best for Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] to have better customer success managers, but more attention to clients and more direct interface to the deep core of the company for client matters if they have questions or specific things that they do not currently have. If I have something with the client, I have sometimes to escalate to the vice president that I know because I worked with him before, and that is unfortunate. That should not be necessary to go that route. You should have things arranged directly with an account manager or customer success manager of your client if you have problems, or at least have responses saying, this is impossible, we cannot do that because of this, this, this, whatever. At least you should have an answer. I think in the future, everyone in the branch is focusing on AI and quantum computing as a mix. I think on that end, everyone in the domain is working hard to find the best solutions against those two challenges. I think Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] is doing their best as well there. That is the challenge for the upcoming years, to get the best answers to it. Eventually, they will compete with the same; fight it back with the same power. That means also with quantum computing or specially designed AI to attack back when attackers are attacking. I am not the genius saying that there will be a sort of war game coming up in the future in this domain. However, they are working on it, as all the others are doing, and I think that is absolutely the focus for the coming years because that is where everyone has concern about.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Because the image arrives CIS Level 1 hardened with the AWS tooling already in place, our servers come up patched, locked down, and ready to join the domain without a separate build out pass."
"Windows Server 2025 is a strong fit for enterprise environments heavily reliant on Microsoft technologies."
"Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] itself, I think it is pretty good and I only get compliments from clients that are using it after the implementation; they like it."
"I use Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only]'s real-time traffic inspection feature and find it helpful."
"Zscaler Software is very beneficial for my clients, reducing time by at least more than 50%, improving specific metrics through encrypted threat detection, increasing productivity, and reducing the workload of the analyst so they can respond faster."
 

Cons

"The hardened defaults also occasionally trip up common installers and agents: a few of our deployment and monitoring tools assumed services or policies that the image had locked down, so we had to add exceptions."
"Initial configuration complexity can still be high for teams without prior Windows Server expertise."
"Regarding Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only], to be honest, we do not like it."
"I would rather say to Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] to have better customer service because Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only], even with large enterprises and huge companies that I work for, they notice that Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] service management is different."
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Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for ClearScale Windows Server 2025?
The software charge sits on top of the underlying Windows EC2 cost, which is already higher than Linux, so model both together before you commit to a large fleet. The hourly model suited our autosc...
What needs improvement with ClearScale Windows Server 2025?
The first-boot time is longer than a stock Windows AMI. Sysprep and the initial hardening pass add a noticeable delay before the instance is reachable, which is something to account for if you auto...
What is your primary use case for ClearScale Windows Server 2025?
We use ClearScale Windows Server 2025 as the base image for our .NET and IIS application servers on EC2. These instances host internal line of business web applications and Windows services, and se...
What needs improvement with Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only]?
One area for improvement for Zscaler Software is that they should have their dependency on AI validated and verified. Because if they are a service provider, they are doing a good job, but they hav...
What is your primary use case for Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only]?
Zscaler Software provides cloud security as the use case for my clients.
 

Comparisons

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Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about ClearScale Windows Server 2025 vs. Zscaler Software [Private Offer Only] and other solutions. Updated: October 2026.
921,523 professionals have used our research since 2012.