We performed a comparison between Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and Zscaler Internet Access based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is the better choice when compared to Zscaler Internet Access. Its advanced security features like malware quarantine, traffic analysis, and vulnerability protection are more extensive. Prisma Access also integrates better with other platforms and provides network performance insights through its Autonomous Digital Experience Management reporting tool. Although Zscaler Internet Access is competitively priced and easy to set up, it lacks advanced security features and integration capabilities. Some users have also experienced performance issues and difficulties with technical support.
"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 solution is stable."
"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."
"Its frontend is user-friendly. It is easy to use for us."
"Prisma integrates well with Cortex XDR and Cortex Data Lake. My company has been also using Prisma Access in-house for nearly a year, and it integrates seamlessly."
"The most valuable feature of Prisma Cloud-native, in my opinion, is that it assists in identifying, analyzing, and remediating vulnerabilities."
"The stacked policies, event policies, and routing policies are easy to understand for someone with general knowledge."
"It supports auto-scaling for mobile users. It auto-scales depending on the mobile user traffic. For example, if 1,000 people are working from home today, and tomorrow, the number increases to 2,000, it is not going to be an issue."
"You have the ability to create your own expressions for your data. Palo Alto understands that DLP is not the same for all consumers. You might have a particular need to fulfill, and they give you the opportunity to create a custom expression to match the specific format that you have. For a confidential file property that you have in your files, you can add a metadata field. It gives you that opportunity to create that."
"The protection for web-based applications was helpful for my colleagues who didn't want a particular application on their devices. And the non-web access protection was more for our developers because they were writing and building code on their computers. Prisma Access was able to protect them."
"It protects all app traffic so that users can gain access to all apps. Unlike other solutions that only work from ports 80 and 443, which are predominantly for web traffic, Prisma Access covers all protocols and works on all traffic patterns... The most sophisticated attacks can arise from sources that are not behind 80/443."
"The users are at different locations, and Zscaler helps us to put the organization's central security controls on these roaming users."
"The solution’s customer service is good."
"Zscaler Internet Access's best feature is the granular policy controls."
"We enjoy all of the proxy capabilities and the capability to integrate into the SIEM/SOC solution."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to drop packets."
"The most valuable features I found in Zscaler Internet Access are the restriction of users for a particular URL, the security feature related to stopping DDoS, and the VPN."
"The solution replaces multiple vendor technologies with one which makes it worth the cost."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"If you compare Prisma SaaS against other products, such as Cloud Log, it's a little bit tricky to understand, but it offers different functionality that other products don't have. From a user usability point of view, you need some training for this product, as an admin, you need a couple of demos."
"There should be a dedicated portal or SASE-based solution. They're trying to add a plugin but it needs a dedicated portal because it is now an enterprise solution for multiple organizations. People should be able to directly log in to a dedicated page for Prisma Access, rather than going into a Panorama plugin, and always having to update the plugin."
"Sometimes, we encountered a portal crash. When we told Palo Alto they said it might be the browser or cache, but I think they need to improve it on their side."
"Palo Alto needs to improve the GlobalProtect agent to work as a secure web gateway agent, not only as a VPN agent because some companies would want only a secure gateway. They wouldn't want a full VPN. So, Palo Alto has to make the VPN agent work as a secure web gateway agent for those customers who want only the secure web gateway solution."
"There is room for improvement in the multi-environment visibility, especially around containers."
"The initial support team is not very good. Most of the time, I have found that they are one to three years experienced only. They don't have network expertise. They know about Palo Alto products but don't know how to troubleshoot the issues. We have to guide them most of the time to troubleshoot correctly since their approach is not developed."
"They can add some new characteristics. For example, when an incident triggers, they can automatically send a template for a particular match that is related to the policy. We don't have that right now. It is something to improve. There could be more automation for certain actions. For example, for a particular group, it can send an administrator alert to their manager. It was one of the concerns of our customers."
"The one thing that I've been a little bit disappointed with is when we have had to open cases with Palo Alto about Prisma Access issues. Versus their other platforms, like their firewalls, where we tend to get really quick responses and very definitive answers, the few tickets I've had to open for Prisma Access have taken them longer to respond to. And they haven't necessarily given me the kind of answer I was looking for, meaning a fix to the problem."
"Zscaler Internet Access could improve by adding a VPN feature."
"They block Zscaler IPs when the traffic origin is from Zscaler IPs. They've been blocked by certain government organizations so the end users are not able to visit those websites unless we ask them to unblock those IP. This is a bit problematic."
"Sometimes, support isn't available."
"What could be improved in Zscaler Internet Access is its price. It could be cheaper."
"The main issue with Zscaler Internet Access is proxy IP detection, which sometimes makes sites inaccessible."
"One thing that they could improve is the ability to import rules from other platforms."
"We'd like to have more plugins and integration."
"The solution is expensive. They recently revised the pricing and packaging. Some of our existing customers have been asking for alternate solutions for a lower price."
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Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is ranked 3rd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 27 reviews while Zscaler Internet Access is ranked 2nd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 32 reviews. Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is rated 8.2, while Zscaler Internet Access is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks writes "Makes us part of a bigger security ecosystem with updates taken care of for us, but pricing and support need work". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zscaler Internet Access writes "Configuring policies is user-friendly but challenges with stability". Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is most compared with Netskope , Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Private Access, Prisma SD-WAN and Microsoft Azure VPN Gateway, whereas Zscaler Internet Access is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Netskope , Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and CyberArk Privileged Access Manager. See our Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs. Zscaler Internet Access report.
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