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Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks 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)
Prisma Access by Palo Alto ...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (4th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (5th), ZTNA as a Service (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (2nd)
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
Amar-Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless policy management and supports secure remote work
Our primary use case for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is to control the internet and serve as an internet proxy. Additionally, we use it for secure remote work One of the most valuable features of Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is the ability to manage on-premise firewalls. We can…
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

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"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."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"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."
"This solution provides a DLP on the cloud and very few people have a scanning device for data at rest."
"I like it because it's very easy to use. You install the client and you have to know your gateway, but that's something we give to our users. Beyond that, it takes about three seconds to train them on how to use it. And it just works well. That's great for us because it means less administrative time."
"There are plenty of features this solution provides and the most valuable would be the complete security protection we are receiving. We are provided with similar security that the Palo Alto AWS solution has. This includes features such as a firewall and machine learning AI."
"The solution's most valuable features were the model's reduced complexity on the client side and its capability to provide security."
"Prisma helped us build a moat around our production systems. It's now impossible to log into our production from a non-MDM laptop. Prisma Access provides decent security overall."
"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."
"The stacked policies, event policies, and routing policies are easy to understand for someone with general knowledge."
"The best advantage of the product is that it is always on as a VPN, which gives us much more functionality."
"The scalability is amazing. Whenever we need to upgrade the users, it increases immediately."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) is the most mature compared to other vendors in terms of features and stability."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) is much more secure than VPN because users are only allowed to access specific applications rather than the whole network."
"It provides security and has a great service user experience."
"Zscaler ZPA is easy to administer and is organized in a straightforward and logical manner."
"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."
"Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) does an excellent job offering secure remote access to internal applications for our distributed workforce because it provides a granular way to grant access for specific people with specific applications."
 

Cons

"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"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."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"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."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"We are using the SaaS offering. We use our applications for microservices. We use Twistlock to scan containers, and it displays these results in Prisma, which is a good feature because we can see vulnerabilities with respect to these containers. We can see everything in a very detailed manner. However, when you have different environments for a single application, such as DEV, QA, PROD, and TEST, all these environments run multiple containers, which can lead to a very high number of containers. In such a scenario, it shows you the alerts for all those containers that have vulnerabilities. If you show the results of all the containers that share the same image, it is not going to add any value. Therefore, they should narrow down the alerts based on a container. It should show information for a single container. Otherwise, the person who is looking at the results gets the impression that he has to fix all these issues. This is something that they can improve."
"I would like to see support for custom applications."
"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."
"The solution’s stability could be improved."
"The frequency of updates could be reduced."
"Palo Alto Prisma 10 came out over a year ago. Palo Alto added this identity management feature. The legacy way Palo Alto selected which user is sitting on an IP address it passes through has been clunky."
"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."
"The BGP filtering options on Prisma Access should be improved."
"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 solution is not scalable; we deploy it in a high-availability environment, but it's not automated."
"Sometimes connection errors occur when users are unable to connect to the particular cloud."
"One area for improvement is setting posture profiles for vendor machines."
"The price is a concern as it increases every year and becomes more expensive, driving customers and other vendors to look for alternatives."
"I am not happy with the technical support from Zscaler Private Access (ZPA), particularly in India, where reachability is an issue with salespersons."
"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."
"There are some bugs in the solution."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"In terms of pricing, considering that it is a two or three years old solution, they should apply big discounts for the next two or three years. This approach will be better for them to capture the market."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks is an expensive solution, especially when compared to other solutions like Cisco. There are no additional charges apart from the standard licensing costs attached to the solution."
"The licensing model for this product is complicated and changes all the time, making it very hard for the user to comprehend the configuration."
"We have to pay additional costs for maintenance and support services."
"Prisma SaaS is more expensive than similar solutions but I think it's worth it."
"I would advise choosing your options according to your company's needs. Just go for what you want and do not pay for anything extra in terms of licensing. You need to determine how much bandwidth is required in your company network, and according to that, you should pay for the license. The mobile user license is based on the number of users who are going to use the VPN solution. You need to determine how many mobile users you are going to have in your network, and you should pay according to that. There are no other costs in addition to licensing, but if you go for the consultant services of Palo Alto networks to deliver the solution for you, then you need to pay something extra. That is not a part of licensing."
"Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks has flexible licensing models with different categories. It comes with different features which can be removed if not needed. However, its pricing is high."
"The licensing cost is about 18,000 euros."
Information not available
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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
14%
Manufacturing Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Government
6%
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 the better solution - Prisma Access or Zscaler Private Access?
We looked into Prisma Access before choosing Zscaler Private Access (ZPA). Palo Alto’s Prisma Access is a secure ac...
What do you like most about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
The most valuable features of the solution are in the areas of the secure remote access it provides while also being ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks?
From my experience, Palo Alto is more expensive compared to solutions like Netskope and Triscale.
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
Palo Alto Networks Prisma Access, Prisma Access, GlobalProtect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect Mobile Security Manager, Prisma SaaS by Palo Alto Networks, Prisma Access
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.
Concord Hospital, State of Colorado, Essilor International, RheinLand Versicherungsgruppe, University of Westminster, Universidade Nove de Julho, SPAR Austria, CAME Group, ZipRealty, Greenhill & Co., IKT Agder, Aviva Stadium, Animal Logic, Management & Training Corporation, Brigham Young University Hawaii, School District of Chilliwack
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Find out what your peers are saying about Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs. Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
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