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Portnox vs Symantec Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Portnox
Ranking in ZTNA
8th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (5th), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
Symantec Zero Trust Network...
Ranking in ZTNA
25th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
4.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (30th), ZTNA as a Service (22nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the ZTNA category, the mindshare of Portnox is 3.2%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is 2.1%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Portnox3.2%
Symantec Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)2.1%
Other94.7%
ZTNA
 

Featured Reviews

Maurice Mwaura - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Applied Principles Limited
Unified access control has improved compliance visibility and simplified passwordless access
There is work to be done when it comes to making the solution more seamless. For example, when a user is denied access, they would need a way to maybe self-resolve themselves, perhaps a way to generate a ticket on their own, something around resolutions. When it comes to users using the product, that is where good products are differentiated from products that are a bit of a challenge. Portnox has much to do in terms of their reporting. The generated reports need improvement. Things that other tools would say are normal are usually not present. For example, there is a page called NAS devices or NAS network that is able to show the switches that have been managed. Currently, there is no way of generating an easy report or an easy way of just generating something to tell the customer what they have been able to achieve so far. This is not done yet and is still very manual. I think there is work to be done there. More integrations around the various products being used would be beneficial. So far I have not encountered any major challenge. Where there was a challenge, I think support came in and helped us resolve. In fact, most of the challenges are not with the product; they are with the customer environment. I think that is just to update their documentation where they have come across a new vendor for easier integrations in the future.
cto543714 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Restricts access to applications but improvement is needed in integrations
Over the last year, I have been working with customers because it's changing and maturing. These things are rolled out in segments and chunks, not all at once. Additional internal work is often required to make it functional, such as properly configuring the active directory. This internal work can take up to three months. The process varies, and implementing Symantec ZTNA quickly is not realistic. I wouldn't recommend the tool to non-core customers because you won't get the support you need. I'd rate Symantec ZTNA a seven on a scale of one to ten. They're still integrating different pieces into their solution. The challenge with ZTNA is that different companies implement it slightly differently, with some features present in one product but missing in another. ZTNA is a tricky acronym that companies use, but when you look closely, you find that each vendor might only have some of the expected features.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the features I enjoyed the most about Portnox was the ability to dive in with proper details on an endpoint."
"We are very satisfied with this solution; we like it because it is agentless."
"The simplicity of the product is commendable."
"With Portnox, you have a large-scale view of the systems on your estate, and you can use the ID of that user to search and get substantial information about a user."
"The visibility of the product is excellent."
"The technical support is top-notch and great."
"Portnox saves me about fifty percent of my time."
"The cloud-based feature is very nice."
"The most valuable feature of this product is restricting and controlling what people have access to. If I want a contractor to connect to my network, I can give them access to only the specific things they need without giving them full VPN access to my entire network. That's the main benefit everyone gets from it. The value depends on how many users and applications you have and what you want to share."
 

Cons

"While Portnox is solid, there is definitely room for improvement, particularly with the user interface."
"I guess the only thing that might really make a difference is a change in the pricing structure."
"The licensing is based on a per-port price, even when you are not using all of the ports, and this is something that could be improved."
"In Portnox, the area that has room for improvement is that older data is not fetching correctly."
"We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitations with CORE."
"One area for improvement in Portnox is the initial setup complexity and documentation for custom policy creation."
"One thing they can look at is increasing the number of support staff so that there will be more people supporting the solution than they currently have."
"The solution did have some stability issues, however, all I had to do was restart it."
"For areas of improvement, the main issue is with integrations. The Symantec ZTNA comprises many products cobbled together on the back end. Sometimes, the integrations work well; sometimes, they don't. For example, if you want to use two-factor authentication, you need to integrate that into the solution. Or if you want to accept protocols other than web coming to your secure gateway, that's another integration. Supporting different devices like Macs, Samsung phones, or iPhones also requires more integrations. Ensuring all these integrations work properly is an ongoing process and a moving target."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The users are not very happy with the new licensing option where there is only a subscription license. There is no perpetual license."
"Portnox CORE's pricing is adequate and cheaper compared to other complex solutions. Its licensing costs are yearly and include support. Cost is calculated per device."
"Pricing is not cheap. It is based on licenses per port. After licensing is purchased, you only pay for support."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"The vendor price is fair."
"It is not bad. It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable. We do have RADIUS servers for the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"Pricing varies depending on the situation. In competitive situations, it's usually priced competitively. Nobody pays the full MSRP. Typically, you negotiate and work with them on the pricing."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Manufacturing Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Construction Company
7%
Construction Company
13%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise15
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
The pricing and setup cost as well as licensing is a bit high compared to the competition. If it were better, we could also have some pricing specific or special discounts to cater for SMBs.
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
If the MSSP offering could be the primary push or primary concern, it would be the best thing that could happen. Based on the Tanzanian market, AI governance is something that is coming through. Fo...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
Portnox is for the network access control use case. The use case focuses on wired network access, specifically how users are connecting to the network and how we are checking their security posture...
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Also Known As

Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
Symantec Secure Access Cloud, Luminate.io, Luminate
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Sallie Mae, Roku, Vuori, Legal Zoom, Anaplan, Aecon, H.I.G. Capital, McLaren Construction Group, PFCU, UK Mortgage Lending Limited, CCC Intelligent Solutions
NEX, AIG, Fiverr, Upwork
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, Tailscale, Check Point Software Technologies and others in ZTNA. Updated: August 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.