Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Zscaler Internet Access comparison

Cancel
You must select at least 2 products to compare!
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Palo Alto Networks WildFire and Zscaler Internet Access based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, ESET and others in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection).
To learn more, read our detailed ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) Report (Updated: November 2023).
746,635 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"Scalable ATP solution that's quick to set up. It demonstrates good performance and stability.""It is the best device in comparison to other network products in the marketplace.""The most valuable features of the solution are user-friendliness, price, good security, and cloud-related options.""I give the initial setup an eight out of ten.""The solution is scalable.""We get support in the free version.""We have found that Palo Alto Networks WildFire is scalable. We currently have six thousand users for the product.""I love the idea of Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It's more geared toward preventing malware. If someone's laptop or phone is malware-infected, the tool prevents it from uploading valuable corporate data outside the corporate network. That's what I love about Palo Alto Networks WildFire. It stops malware in its tracks."

More Palo Alto Networks WildFire Pros →

"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 data loss prevention feature is the most valuable. It stops our users from inadvertently leaking our customers' data to the Internet or anywhere else it shouldn't go.""The solution replaces multiple vendor technologies with one which makes it worth the cost.""It is easy to set up the solution.""The users are at different locations, and Zscaler helps us to put the organization's central security controls on these roaming users.""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.""The cloud proxy and integration are some of the key features. Since there is cloud waste, we can quickly provision it and start working on the configuration. On top of that, they have added a few more features. They have integrated CASB, and file sandboxing is part of it.""The solution’s customer service is good."

More Zscaler Internet Access Pros →

Cons
"There are more specialized solutions that compete with Wildfire. Therefore, they need to work on their machine learning and AI to be more competitive.""The technical support response needs improvement.""The solution can improve its traffic management.""I don't think it needs to improve anything, except maybe the speed to deploy the changes.""In the future, Palo Alto could reduce the time it takes to process the file.""Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve by adding support for manual submission of suspicious files and URLs. Additionally, it would be an advantage to add rule-based analysis. Currently, it uses only static and AI. We need to be able to analyze archive files.""The cost of this solution could still be improved, in particular, giving product discounts for charitable causes.""Many years back an update caused an issue with the firewall. However, Palo Alto not only informed us of said issue, they also sent an update that fixed the issue before I even had time to log in to determine if the issue affected our services."

More Palo Alto Networks WildFire Cons →

"In terms of user experience, it could be better.""Technical support could be better.""Zscaler does not provide dedicated IPs to each customer. Hence, they share a pool of IPs provided by Zscaler. There is a chance of blacklisting these IPs. I also do not like the multi-management portal.""Cloud App’s database should be improved.""The tool should improve the predefined dictionaries.""If they can also integrate with the multi-factor authentication to prompt users to do another, second-factor authentication, that would be ideal.""The performance needs improvement. Some areas create performance issues and, depending on the use cases, require reconfiguration to perform again.""Zscaler Internet Access's troubleshooting is very limited, and their textbook logs need to be more informative."

More Zscaler Internet Access Cons →

Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "Palo Alto Networks WildFire is an expensive product."
  • "Palo Alto Networks WildFire is quite expensive, and this is what puts people off."
  • "The solution is a bit expensive. You pay for security."
  • "It's comparable to what the competition is. It is probably a little lesser than what the competition is because, as a state government, we go for whatever the lowest cost is."
  • "For the last three years, the price of Palo Alto in Vietnam has been very high."
  • "There are different types of licenses."
  • "The price could be better."
  • "The price of Palo Alto Networks WildFire could improve. It is expensive. There is an annual subscription to use the solution."
  • More Palo Alto Networks WildFire Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The pricing for Zscaler Internet Access could be made cheaper."
  • "The price of Zscaler Internet Access should improve, it is expensive."
  • "We have found the solution to be expensive."
  • "Licenses are available on a per-host basis. Some features like sandboxing require an additional fee, but most standard features are included in the license."
  • "We pay around 6,500 INR per user per year, which is very expensive. I would rate Zscaler's pricing one out of five."
  • "Because it's a cloud solution, we pay on a yearly basis. It is affordable and includes tech support and all features."
  • "It is quite expensive. It does its job, but it is quite expensive for what we need."
  • "It is a few pounds per user per month."
  • More Zscaler Internet Access Pricing and Cost Advice →

    report
    Use our free recommendation engine to learn which ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) solutions are best for your needs.
    746,635 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly… more »
    Top Answer:FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy… more »
    Top Answer:When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox feature… more »
    Top Answer: Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security… more »
    Top Answer:We researched Netskope but ultimately chose Zscaler Netskope is a cloud access security broker that helps identify and manage cloud applications, protecting your sensitive data from exfiltration.… more »
    Ranking
    Views
    3,844
    Comparisons
    2,844
    Reviews
    16
    Average Words per Review
    346
    Rating
    8.1
    Views
    16,497
    Comparisons
    11,115
    Reviews
    28
    Average Words per Review
    489
    Rating
    8.3
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    ZIA
    Learn More
    Overview

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire is a highly effective cloud-based advanced threat protection (ATP) solution that organizations in a wide variety of fields trust to help them keep safe from digital threats. It is designed to enable businesses to confront even the most evasive threats and resolve them. It combines many techniques to maximize the level of threat protection available to users.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire Benefits

    Some of the ways that organizations can benefit by choosing to deploy WildFire include:

    Proactive real-time threat prevention. Organizations that utilize WildFire can take a proactive approach to their network security. Wildfire’s security scanning software is supported by powerful automation that enables it to run 180 times faster than other similar solutions. It also leverages machine learning to spot and address two times more malware monthly than its competitors. Users can solve issues as they arise, which prevents them from suffering severe harm.

    A holistic approach to security. WildFire leverages many of the security features and characteristics that can be found in some of the most effective security solutions in a way that provides users with a powerful protective blanket. It combines such things as machine learning, dynamic and static analysis, and a custom-built analysis environment, and enables users to cover many different potential avenues of attack. In this way, organizations can easily detect and prevent even the most sophisticated threats from harming them.

    Reduce overhead costs. Using WildFire cuts the expenses that a business incurs. Its architecture is based in the cloud and, as a result, users do not have to purchase hardware to run it. Additionally, those users do not have to pay anything more than a product subscription fee. They can scale it up as they wish and incur no additional costs.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire Features

    Some of the many features WildFire offers include:

    Third-party integrations. WildFire gives users access to integrations that can enable them to combine Wildfire’s security suite with outside tools. If an organization thinks that they are missing something, they can easily use Wildfire’s third-party integrations to bolster their capabilities. These integrations can connect to many different types of tools, like security information or event management systems.

    URL filtering. Organizations can use a URL filtering feature to safeguard themselves against known threats. When this feature is active, it will scan for traffic coming from specific URLs that are known to be malicious. This keeps them one step ahead of those threats that they know about.

    Deep analytics. Wildfire comes with the ability to provide users with a detailed analysis of any threat that it finds across all of their network environments. It gives users insight into everything from their natures to the actions that they have performed.

    Reviews from Real Users

    WildFire is a solution that stands out when compared to its primary competitors. Two major advantages that it offers are the high speeds at which it can analyze network traffic for threats and the accuracy with which it can pick out genuine threats from false positives.

    Ahmad Z., the principal consultant at Securelytics, writes, “The analysis is very fast. The intermittent is a millisecond and has a speedy response time.”

    Christopher B., the senior systems administrator at a government agency, says, “It gives a more accurate assessment of a virus in terms of whether it's truly a virus, malware, or a false positive. We have some legacy software that could pop up as being something that is malware. WildFire goes through and inspects it, and then it comes back and lets us know if it's a false positive. Usually, when it finds out that it's not a virus, it lets us know that it's benign, and it can exclude it from that scan, which means I don't even have to worry about that one popping up anymore.”

    Zscaler Internet Access is a cloud-native security service edge (SSE) platform. Its main purpose is to provide AI-powered protection for all users, all applications, and all locations. The solution replaces other legacy network security solutions to stop advanced attacks and prevent data loss by using a comprehensive zero trust approach.

    Zscaler Internet Access Features

    Zscaler Internet Access has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Proxy (native SSL)
    • IPS and advanced protection
    • Cloud sandbox
    • DNS security
    • Cloud firewall
    • URL filtering
    • Bandwidth control
    • DNS filtering
    • Cloud DLP w/EDM and IDM
    • Cloud access security broker (CASB)
    • Cloud security posture management (CSPM)
    • CloudBrowser isolation
    • Cloud secure web gateway (SWG)
    • Zero trust network access (ZTNA)
    • Digital experience monitoring

    Zscaler Internet Access Benefits

    There are several benefits to implementing Zscaler Internet Access. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

    • Fast access with zero infrastructure: Zscaler Internet Access creates a fast, seamless user experience because of its direct-to-cloud architecture. With no infrastructure, Zscaler Internet Access helps you eliminate backhauling, which improves performance and simplifies network administration.
    • Threat intelligence: By using threat intelligence, Zscaler Internet Access can stop ransomware, zero-day malware, and advanced attacks via Inline inspection of all internet traffic, including SSL decryption, and a suite of AI-powered cloud security services. 
    • Consistent security: With Zscaler Internet Access, your security policy goes everywhere your users go. When you move security to the cloud, all users, applications, devices, and locations remain protected and secure based on identity and context.
    • Hybrid workforce: Zscaler Internet Access enables secure access to all external and internal apps from anywhere, so remote work is not an issue. You can also enforce business policies that follow the user, making security identical regardless of location.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Zscaler Internet Access users.

    A Service Manager at a construction company says, "There are a bunch of different capabilities that are valuable within the platform. We use quite a lot of them, but not everything. The ones that are most important to us are the URL Filtering and the application control. For our needs, the cloud-native proxy architecture is a very good solution. This architecture helps with cyber threats because we inspect most of the traffic and we can see that a lot of threats are stopped directly in the secure web gateway."

    Owen N., Security Architect at Claro Enterprise Solutions, explains that the solution’s most valuable features include “The integration of the gateway that inspects all ports and protocols. So, there is threat prevention; The cloud sandbox; VNS security; Access control that will protect URL filtering and the cloud firewall; Data protection that will protect your gateway, like your CASB or your cloud DLP; The capabilities of this will point your traffic to Zscaler Cloud.”

    An Architecture Senior Manager at an insurance company mentions, "The data loss prevention feature is the most valuable. It stops our users from inadvertently leaking our customers' data to the Internet or anywhere else it shouldn't go." He also adds, “The solution provides quick access to cloud services, securing our data and allowing us to inspect all our traffic.”

    Offer
    Learn more about Palo Alto Networks WildFire
    Learn more about Zscaler Internet Access
    Sample Customers
    Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
    Ulster-Greene ARC, BanRegio, HDFC, Ralcorp Holdings Inc., British American Tobacco, Med America Billing Services Inc., Lanco Group, Aquafil, Telefonica, Swisscom, Brigade Group
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm19%
    Government13%
    Comms Service Provider10%
    Computer Software Company10%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company16%
    Government9%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company6%
    REVIEWERS
    Comms Service Provider31%
    Computer Software Company15%
    Pharma/Biotech Company12%
    Financial Services Firm12%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Educational Organization19%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Financial Services Firm9%
    Manufacturing Company8%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business44%
    Midsize Enterprise17%
    Large Enterprise38%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business23%
    Midsize Enterprise15%
    Large Enterprise62%
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business29%
    Midsize Enterprise16%
    Large Enterprise55%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business18%
    Midsize Enterprise28%
    Large Enterprise54%
    Buyer's Guide
    ATP (Advanced Threat Protection)
    November 2023
    Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, ESET and others in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection). Updated: November 2023.
    746,635 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Palo Alto Networks WildFire is ranked 3rd in ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) with 19 reviews while Zscaler Internet Access is ranked 2nd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 31 reviews. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is rated 8.4, while Zscaler Internet Access is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Palo Alto Networks WildFire writes "Intuitive, stable, and scalable zero-day threat prevention solution with a machine learning feature". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zscaler Internet Access writes "Configuring policies is user-friendly but challenges with stability". Palo Alto Networks WildFire is most compared with Cisco Secure Firewall, Proofpoint Email Protection, Fortinet FortiGate, Juniper SRX Series Firewall and Check Point SandBlast Network, whereas Zscaler Internet Access is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Netskope , Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Menlo Security Remote Browser Isolation.

    We monitor all ATP (Advanced Threat Protection) 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.