Zscaler Internet Access Reviews

We primarily use the solution for a secure web gateway and secure internet access. 

We wanted something for an overall internet access solution, an in-office, and out-of-office solution. We chose Zscaler Internet Access. 

It is very transparent. 

It securely transfers internet connectivity seamlessly, without any problems or issues. It's very simple for the user. 

The product offers easy deployment. 

Security is very strong. There is seamless integration as well.  

There is no lag in service when accessing the internet. 

The initial setup was straightforward. 

It is scalable. 

The solution is stable. 

The technical support could be better. We need more of an online knowledge base, so we don't have to lodge tickets whenever we have a question or issue. 

We'd like to have more plugins and integration. 

Even in a CASB scenario, if we could get API and JSON-contained decoding, that would be helpful.

I've used the solution for over a year. 

The solution is stable and secure. We haven't had any issues. The product is great.

We have more than 1,000 people using the solution. 

The scalability is really good. We've had no issues with the scalability. We even don't know when the performance tuning is happening in the back end. The user is not experiencing any problems, even if all thousand-plus users have started using it at the same time. There's no slowness or lag which is experienced.

We use it on a daily basis and plan to increase usage in the future. 

If you want some support, you have to log a case. However, if there was more online support or a knowledge base that was readily available, it would be better. 

Positive

The set up is very straightforward. It's a pretty easy process. The deployment scenario is pretty simple. You can just deploy it through a simple policy. You can deploy it even in terms of the distribution of hardware to users. 

To set it up took about three and a half weeks, from beginning to end. 

I'd rate the ease of deployment at a four or 4.5 out of five. 

After it is set up, there isn't really much maintenance. 

We handled the deployment in-house. 

After three or five years, after not having any bad experiences, we can see some ROI. 

The solution is quite expensive. It's around double what others are offering. The price we pay includes everything. It comes as a bundle. 

I'd rate the affordability of the solution at a two or three out of five. 

While the product quality is very good, the price is very high.

We have looked into Netskope.

I'm an end-user. 

I am dealing with the latest version of the solution. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. The only downside is that it is so expensive. 

We are using the solution for internet security. It's mostly web-based filtering.

We are into this modern world, meaning, we are working from home in hybrid scenario. Due to the pandemic, we have seen a lot of shifts towards a hybrid model of work. That provides lots of challenges in terms of security including, how to protect the users' machines and other devices. That is one of the core use cases. Wherever you are, you need to be protected. However, the traditional approaches such as a legacy-based proxy system won't work. 

If we have some kind of critical systems, we need to figure out how we can provide the access to all these users, all these remote or roaming users, access to these critical areas, and we need to eliminate those legacy-based VPNs. Zscaler is doing it best. Zscaler offers the best service since you are protected wherever you are.

The internet access is great. It offers good web filtering. It has DLP features. We can monitor our networks with ease. We can monitor the usage, bandwidth, chop, chalking, all these things we can monitor. On top of that, it is providing advanced threat protection ATP, which means any kind of malicious network or malicious payloads that are going through our network can be detected and it can be blocked. We can have a certain kind of block list. There are multiple levels of features.

We have fewer issues with Zscaler.

In terms of user experience, that is also excellent. 

In terms of reporting to senior management, it gives us a clear picture of what needs to be achieved about that solution.

It is easy to set up the solution. 

The solution is stable.

It is a scalable product. 

In terms of user experience, it could be better. It all depends upon the configuration, though. At the moment, they are one of the best. In terms of room of improvement, it depends upon the specific use cases of the customers.

For example, it might be that some of the users are having some kind of connectivity issue. It depends upon how those users are connected. It may not be a product issue. Or maybe they are using a VPN. Local banks won't allow connectivity to their application over a VPN or over a cloud-based proxy service, for example. In some countries, the local banks restrict these kinds of communications. There needs to be some whitelisting done to get those users connected. 

At the moment, we are trying to onboard that solution. In my previous organization, I have used that solution. In my current organization, we are trying to onboard the solution.

It is a stable solution. I never faced any kind of downtime for my critical services. They have a higher availability. If one of the locations goes down, automatically, it'll scale to a preferred location.

The solution scales very well. 

In the last three or four years, there has been a shift towards this product. We likely will increase usage. 

I've never directly dealt with technical support. My team handles any issues and would deal with them directly.

It is easy to set up. However, you need manpower and you need a team to deliver these kinds of things. It's not a plug-and-play thing. It has lots of configurations. We need to deploy the agents. We need to set up those configurations. If we have multiple offices, we need to understand the routing and what mechanisms are in place. That's why it takes a team.

The length of deployment depends on the company and environment. You're looking at the number of networks, the number of servers. 

I can't speak to the costs. I don't handle the licensing. 

I'm a customer and end-user. 

I'm not sure of the exact version of the solution.

Zscaler is a cloud service provider, so they are hosting their services on their own cloud. They might be using the public cloud. I'm not sure. However, it's not an on-premise solution. It's a cloud-based proxy.

You need to perform that due diligence. You need to understand your use cases, including the number of users and how many are working from home or roaming, et cetera. You need to understand hosting, and how to protect servers. There's a lot of understanding you need to have before you can begin implementing anything.  

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

The main use cases that our clients typically have and why we propose and implement the solution is for a proxy solution. It's designed to create a proxy site-to-site tunnel between the computer trying to access any resources on the Internet or within the offices. Most organizations have a significant number of remote workers - around 30 to 40 percent of their workforce is remote - and they log in from different locations globally, such as Japan, the US, Europe, and Asia. So they need one solution to cover these remote locations and provide a proxy solution.

In addition, we need to have minimum bandwidth latency, and Zscaler is the most suitable product we see. Whenever a customer comes to us with a large geographical spread in terms of their workforce, we propose and implement this solution across the cloud, as required.

One feature that is valuable to me from an implementation point of view is that it's very easy to implement. We just had to route in some IPs, and it automatically hops into the nearest Zscaler nodes, which they call it. They have more than 150 nodes across the globe. Essentially, if I'm trying to access a server in India at this point in time, and the server I'm trying to access is somewhere in Singapore or Tokyo, it creates a lot of internet latency. But with Zscaler, it's not the case because they have a server in almost every major hotspot in the world. In India, if you're connecting, they will automatically route to their nearest server. Since they have servers in so many places in the world, we can easily configure them to the nearest server. 

The end-user who's using it doesn't feel the latency, and it's really minimal, less than three milliseconds, six milliseconds, whereas the competition has more than ten milliseconds and eleven milliseconds as latency.

There are a couple of areas of improvement in the solution. Firstly, there are some performance issues when we add on additional controls. Zscaler Internet Access is a plain vanilla solution that allows you to add CSV or DLP on top of it. However, once you add these modules, the performance degrades for a bit, and the latency increases significantly. We're talking about a two-fold or three-fold increase in latency. They need to work on this. So the performance goes down when using a lot of features simultaneously.

Moreover, the implementation interface is not very good. It has some minor bugs, and it's not properly streamlined. However, these are not software issues that cannot be resolved. A simple reboot or a call to the reseller personnel can guide you in resolving these issues. But the experience can be more seamless if the interface is improved.

I have hands-on experience with Zscaler Internet Access, a cloud proxy solution similar to Cisco's proxy solution.

We've been working with Zscaler Internet Access for almost three years now. We use the basic Zscaler Internet Access with add-ons like CASB and DLP. This is the solution we sell and implement the most.

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

It is a scalable solution. I would rate it a ten out of ten. There are more than 15,000 users under different organizations. They are small and medium-sized businesses. The largest organization that deployed Zscaler had 8,000 users. 

The customer service and support team is good. 

Positive

I would rate the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult and ten is easy. The deployment process is quick, around 6 to 8 weeks. But that depends on the geographical locations we need to cover. If we only need to cover two to three locations, it's good enough.

The deployment process involves building the Zscaler package, which can be vanilla or vanilla plus bundle, and then remotely pushing it to the client machine using Microsoft Intune or whatever it is. Meanwhile, we have to build the configuration and policy based on the client's requirements.

First, what we do is we build the ZScaler package. The package includes the features that will be going through the solution. Once the package is built, it is pushed into the endpoints or machines, such as computers, laptops, and desktops, through Microsoft Intune or SCCM, or any other patching solution that they have. Meanwhile, we configure Zscaler to the nearest hub that the reseller has. They have more than 150 nodes across the globe, so we configure the nearest hub for them. Once that configuration is done, we have established a connection, and the systems have gone online, then you can actually use the solution.

So, it's basically a two-step process. Rolling out the package, rolling out the agent, and configuring the reseller to the nearest hub. That's it. It's a smooth process.

Zscaler is transparent about its pricing model. However, it is not a cheap solution. I would rate the licensing model a seven out of ten. 

My advice, generally, is that if a client has a growth prospect with an increasing number of employees moving across the globe, then Zscaler advises having a product that is scalable and fast. By fast, I mean it has low latency, making it very scalable. Zscaler Internet Access is a completely cloud-based product and is highly scalable. It is a reliable solution to have in your IT stack. 

Overall, I would rate Zscaler an eight out of ten. Zscaler Internet Access is highly scalable and has low latency, making it one of the most reliable products with good market support and presence. I rated it an eight and not a ten because there are a couple of constraints in scaling certain things. For example, some customers, such as federal institutions of the US, state of clutter, or some banks, want an on-premise solution. They want more control because Cloud will always have a security issue somewhere or the other, and Zscaler Internet Access does not have an on-prem solution. Also, when you increase the features, it does lag a bit, which should not happen.

We leverage it for web proxy and web security.

All internet access flows through the Zscaler proxy, regardless of whether people are in office or remote. I have greater control site access and I minimize the number of compromises that we experience to almost none.

Generally, the web proxy feature blocks malicious sites so that my end users don't inadvertently get compromised.

It needs better integration with other applications. It takes a fair amount of regular activity to apply the by-passes because it is very strict in its restrictions and frequently you have to go in and open things up to allow the workforce to work.

The logs that are consumed by our security solution could be a bit more definitive, from an audit perspective. It's sometimes difficult to determine which end user a particular generated alert is associated with.

Stability is good. We have a presence around the globe, it's very localized and that minimizes any kind of latency. Even though they still complain about it.

Scalability is good. Right now our internal workforce is around 120. I have no plans to increase the usage for now. They do have some features we don't use currently.

Technical support is effective.

In the past, we did use some other products. We used OpenDNS which subsequently became Umbrella. Zscaler is easier to manage than OpenDNS but now I think that product is even.

There is a short learning curve on the setup, so it's not complex, but it's not necessarily trivial either. The entire deployment took two to three hours. 

We have about 1.5 persons who manage all of our internal IT apps.

We did the implementation ourselves. 

There aren't any additional costs to the standard licensing fees.

Pay attention to the Zscaler recommended best practices. Don't try to figure it out on your own. Go with what they say to do.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

I use Zscaler Internet Access as an internet proxy for security.

The most valuable feature of Zscaler Internet Access is that it is a consolidated solution, it comes with many features, such as DLP.

Zscaler Internet Access could improve by adding a VPN feature.

I have been using Zscaler Internet Access for approximately one year.

Zscaler Internet Access is highly stable.

The scalability of Zscaler Internet Access is good.

The technical support from Zscaler Internet Access is good.

I rate the support from Zscaler Internet Access a four out of five.

The initial setup of Zscaler Internet Access is simple.

We did evaluate other solutions before choosing Zscaler Internet Access, such as Symantec.

I rate Zscaler Internet Access an eight out of ten. 

The solution is a cloud service, so when you have Zscaler Internet Access, you still often require firewall appliances at the edge to act as gateways to Zscaler. There are certain elements that you can't necessarily ever extract at a network level, which makes it difficult to go completely appliance-less.

You could see it as a downside, but if there's an unavoidable reality of how networking is addressed at this point, and I think that's the only thing that for us is unfortunate, having to always retain some type of alternate firewall or router capability inside the network in order to get to Zscaler, as an example.

We've noticed a trend of Linux support being available at a mobile and workstation level, which isn't available from Zscaler yet, but we are expecting it soon. Zscaler also doesn't offer easy Cisco Meraki integration, which is also on the roadmap, even though we've seen it becoming very common. If we try and use Zscaler with Meraki, it's a fairly manual process to get Meraki to connect to Zscaler, whereas in all other SDware products, there's a lot more automation. 

The only other thing we would love to see in Africa would maybe be an additional Zscaler hub in another strategic location like Kenya to really round out Africa because there are only two hubs in over 30 countries on the continent. One is in South Africa and one is in Nigeria. Africa is kind of a black hole for all cloud providers, which makes life tough for us because there are performance issues when delivering cloud-related services. A little bit more penetration into Africa would help with this.

At a platform level, it's very stable.

One of the primary features of Zscaler is that it's obviously infinitely scalable. That's one of the reasons we like it. It takes away the bottlenecks that we've seen in appliances historically. You can typically grow quite fast.

As long as the platform that they have, that we're connected to, is scaled property, which is their responsibility, then it should be very good. We did hit a problem a while back where they didn't scale properly and we had some major issues. We just hope that it'll never be repeated. It's all about how they manage it, however.

We have about 80,000 users right now. We're selling to more customers, so we're trying to double that number in the next 18 months.

Technical support has been generally very responsive at picking up the tickets in a fairly short amount of time. My experience has been very good.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

The initial setup was straightforward. The biggest thing for us was to build our own policies. The deployment itself was only a few hours.

We are an integrator and a service provider for Zscaler in the region, so we handled the implementation ourselves.

We have seen an ROI, but the return of investment isn't really as strong as we would like. That has more to do with the reality that South Africa is a very unique and difficult market and the rand depreciation has made all global services expensive in this market. Zscaler, however, leads the local market in value versus functionality. 

Roughly, we might spend $70,000 a month on the solution.

We don't pay for anything beyond the standard licensing fee.

We work with the customers that use a range of different types of proxy services. In my personal experience, I've only ever used Zscaler.

We use the ZIA Business Suite, a version of Zscaler Internet Access.

We use the public cloud deployment model.

The solution is very straightforward. That's what we like about the cloud - all the capabilities that are there, and that are available immediately.

There are things customers really have to have before they integrate the Zscaler. They need to understand ADFS and have it integrated properly into their own network. As long as the customers that you work with do the work required of them before integrating Zscaler, then it's seamless. The problems we encounter happen when customers don't get to the point they need to in order to take it on as a product. 

I would rate the solution nine out of ten.

We primarily use the product for proxy services. We are using that to manage services with a third party, so we are not directly exposed to Zscaler.

We enjoy all of the proxy capabilities and the capability to integrate into the SIEM/SOC solution. We also like the capability to have local agents on PCs.

We are using that in managed services, so we are happy with the managed service as it is.

It's a very complete solution and well-organized. 

Sometimes it's not easy to use during large deployments of workstations. It's a bottleneck from a network point of view.

It's a technical solution, so you need to have good architects knowledgeable on Zscaler.

We don't need any other added features.

I've been using the product for nearly two years. 

We have around 1,000 users on the solution. 

We do not have plans to increase usage. 

We have other products as well. In the current set of products, I'm not forcing any swaps or changes.

It's a managed service. We are not exposed to the initial setup process.

It's a managed service, so it's included in the service.

We don't have a direct relationship with Zscaler as we use it in a managed service. 

I'd advise new users to be sure that they have good architects to integrate. It's quite complicated.

Sometimes the complexity of integrating with legacy and other complex setups is a chore.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use this solution mainly to protect or provide internet security for our customers including URL filtering for SSL interception, tech protection and to provide phishing protection for our web links.

The URL filtering has been the most valuable feature. 

They're constantly improving because they have a very short development cycle where they add more features every one to three months. If we like a particular feature, we request it through a product enhancement and if it gets accepted, it gets implemented within that year. 

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.

We've been working with Zscaler for almost a year and a half.

This is a stable solution. It's a cloud service so we've never faced any outages. The availability has always been 100% for the past one and a half years. I don't think we've had any incidents with any of our data centers. Even if they do have a problem with a data center, they usually switch to the nearest region.

This is a very scalable solution. 

We have had different experiences with the technical support. I would rate them a seven out of ten. The response time is good but sometimes it is difficult for them to pinpoint the root cause of problems.

We previously used Symantec. The main problem with Symantec was that they did not have a local data center here in UAE. That was one of the biggest requirements for our customers.

The initial setup is very straightforward. They provide the cloud settings and then it's your responsibility to direct your traffic towards the Zscaler Cloud and they manage everything else for you. The infrastructure is managed by the vendor and themselves. We don't have to worry about any maintenance. 

We have experienced a return on our investment. We have used competitor solutions but the experience with this particular solution was much better.

We have purchased it for a maximum of 2000 users at one location and 5000 at another location but I am not sure of the amount we paid.

It's easy to deploy and easy to use. There's a lot less administrative overhead so you won't require a very big team to manage it. It's the biggest benefit.

I would rate this solution a ten out of ten.