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Lookout 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)
Lookout
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
15th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (26th), Mobile Data Protection (3rd), Threat Intelligence Platforms (24th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (45th), Mobile Threat Defense (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (19th), ZTNA (15th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (21st)
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
DB
Enhanced mobile security with visibility into app and website usage, but installation challenges remain
We use Lookout for mobile devices, such as phones It has reduced our risk around mobile devices. I like the security features and being able to see what apps and websites people are using. There is nothing we have come across that we've desired. We have been using Lookout for one year. The…
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

"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 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,"
"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."
"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 easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"The solution is stable."
"We have not had any issues with bugs or breakdowns."
"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 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."
"Zscaler ZPA is easy to administer and is organized in a straightforward and logical manner."
"The best advantage of the product is that it is always on as a VPN, which gives us much more functionality."
"Zscaler has allowed an easy, secure way for us to access our internal resources from outside."
"The scalability is amazing. Whenever we need to upgrade the users, it increases immediately."
"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) 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."
"It provides security and has a great service user experience."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"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."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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."
"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."
"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"
"The initial setup requires a little bit of experience with configuration."
"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."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"Sometimes connection errors occur when users are unable to connect to the particular cloud."
"The price is a concern as it increases every year and becomes more expensive, driving customers and other vendors to look for alternatives."
"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."
"Customer service and support are rated seven or eight out of ten, needing improvement in quality and response time."
"Zscaler restricts customization to a maximum of 256 customizable rules, which can be a limitation for us."
"The current pain points we sometimes experience relate to the additional security applications we have on the laptops, and sometimes I don't know if I didn't get any notification from the application because it's an agent problem or something security-wise blocking this."
"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."
"The lack of control over the 700+ external IPs through which traffic exits Zscaler is problematic."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"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."
"The pricing is fair; it's comparable to our previous solution, and we carried out multiple POCs and POVs (proof of value). The product is worth the money we pay for it."
"Lookout is definitely on the lower end when it comes to price point and that seems to be the only differentiator. The technology is in place in this space and it's really about who is coming in at the better price point now."
"In terms of feature performance versus cost, they're a good value."
"The licensing costs are good. Prisma has much more options and support for security, but it has a higher cost. For example, Lookout costs 2/3rd of Prisma's licensing price."
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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
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lookout?
The pricing is a little expensive. We are currently looking at comparisons with other solutions, including Umbrella.
What needs improvement with Lookout?
There is nothing we have come across that we've desired.
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
CipherCloud
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.
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Find out what your peers are saying about Lookout vs. Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
858,327 professionals have used our research since 2012.