We compared Zscaler Internet Access and FortiSASE across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Zscaler Internet Access offers a wide range of features, such as threat prevention, cloud sandbox security, and data loss prevention. FortiSASE is highly regarded for its convenience, stability, scalability, and user-friendly interface.
Room for Improvement: Zscaler Internet Access could enhance training, reporting, and API documentation. Users also requested a VPN and multi-factor authentication. FortiSASE should improve mobile device coverage, endpoint solution, and security during connection loss.
Ease of Deployment: Users had varied experiences with Zscaler's setup process, which could take a few days or several weeks. Some users found it easy, while others needed professional services or training. FortiSASE's initial setup is considered complex and involves deploying devices on-premises and on the cloud.
Service and Support: Zscaler Internet Access receives positive feedback for their customer service, which is described as professional and knowledgeable. However, some users reported communication challenges. FortiSASE's customer service is considered satisfactory. Users say that support promptly addresses issues and a team has expertise in their field.
Pricing: Users had mixed opinions about the cost of Zscaler Internet Access, which some reviewers find expensive compared to traditional solutions. FortiSASE is considered affordable, and Fortinet offers discounts for education users. It also reduces the cost of FortiGate firewalls and offers a more convenient budgeting approach.
ROI: Zscaler Internet Access provides cost savings by eliminating the need for on-site equipment and data centers. FortiSASE lowers initial purchase expenses and requires minimal training.
Comparison Results: Zscaler Internet Access is easy to use, scalable, and provides strong security. It allows users to consolidate security solutions. However, it requires professional services or training for setup and has room for improvement in reporting. FortiSASE simplifies management by consolidating everything into one platform and offers reliable support. It has an affordable pricing model and eliminates the need for certain firewalls, resulting in cost savings. However, its initial setup can be complex, and it does not cover mobile devices.
"The solution is stable."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The integration with the company's existing security infrastructure enhanced our security posture since it was a straightforward process."
"The solution is easy to deploy and simple to manage."
"Deep packet inspection is easier to deploy in the FortiSASE environment. It's much simpler to configure one-touch deployment. It was considerably more convoluted to get that to work using FortiClient. All that processing horsepower is happening in Fortinet's cloud infrastructure, reducing the load on our local routers and on-prem FortiGate firewalls."
"I feel that it is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The product can scale."
"The solution offers a distributed organization to master and to control all of the endpoints."
"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."
"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."
"The initial setup is very straightforward."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine and a half out of ten...The setup phase was easy."
"The solution has reduced cyberattacks."
"The most valuable feature of Zscaler Internet Access is that it is a consolidated solution, it comes with many features, such as DLP."
"There is no lag in service when accessing the internet."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"FortiSASE is a work in progress. One area where there is room for improvement is the ability to use FortiSASE on an endpoint that doesn't have the client on it. Other solutions do that by building a VPN tunnel from their on-prem router into the SASE environment. FortiSASE doesn't have that feature yet, but it is on the roadmap for Q3 of this year. I've seen it in their development environment."
"Some of the solution's back-end connectivity and visibility are not robust and could be improved."
"The GUI and connectivity, along with the support offered, are some of the areas of concern in the product where improvements are required."
"They need to have more concise or precise ways to come up with the return on investment for convincing or presenting this to customers."
"Security and support are two areas with certain shortcomings in the product where improvements are required."
"Zscaler Internet Access can improve by adding traffic filtering based on the DNS."
"I would like to see the ability to choose a pool of IPs for my company, set up rules based on them, and know that those IPs are not used by other companies."
"An improvement would be if they could provide an out-of-the-box experience, like 20 to 30 features all ready to go. In comparison, LogRhythm offers out-of-the-box features. With Zscaler Internet Access, there is firewall IPS, multiple security services, filtering, DLP, and CASB browser isolation. These are things that all users are going to be using. However, when an administrator or architect would start building this, I would definitely need to engage professional services to help clients do it."
"The price of the solution could be improved."
"The solution can be improved by advancing some of the newer technologies such as the DLP feature, and adding email security."
"The reporting functionality could be a bit easier to use. There is a reporting function, but it's quite hard to do any good reporting, from a user-management perspective. For example, if a department manager wants to know how his department is using the web, there is a way to get the data, but it's quite cumbersome to get it and show it well. And that's true for comparing between departments."
"The tool should improve the predefined dictionaries."
"Sometimes it's not easy to use during large deployments of workstations."
FortiSASE is ranked 14th in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) with 5 reviews while Zscaler Internet Access is ranked 2nd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 46 reviews. FortiSASE is rated 7.4, while Zscaler Internet Access is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of FortiSASE writes "An easy to deploy and simple to manage solution that can be used for remote worker access". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zscaler Internet Access writes "Provides integrated CASB and file sandboxing but could be less expensive ". FortiSASE is most compared with Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Cisco Umbrella, Cato SASE Cloud Platform, Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange and Netskope , whereas Zscaler Internet Access is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway. See our FortiSASE vs. Zscaler Internet Access report.
We monitor all Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
