The primary alternative for Zscaler is Prisma Access. It stands out as the strongest contender. Additionally, there's NetScope in the mix, although it's not a direct comparison. Another player is Blue Coat, or rather Symantec, now Broadcom. They also compete in this space. However, from what I've observed, most clients transitioning from traditional proxy setups tend to gravitate towards either Zscaler or Prisma.

Prisma Access extends beyond mere web security. This puts it in a separate category, making a direct comparison with Zscaler Internet Access somewhat challenging. Prisma offers a broader array of features, including threat profiling, threat intelligence, diverse integrations, endpoint security evaluations, and deep packet inspection. These are areas where Zscaler Internet Access falls short. Zscaler, essentially a cloud proxy, serves a specific purpose. 

On the other hand, Palo Alto Networks not only operates as a proxy but also incorporates firewall functionality. It functions as a service, includes VPN replacement capabilities, and encompasses features like antivirus, anti-spyware, and IPS for threat filtering. Palo Alto holds an advantage in these aspects. However, if your primary aim is to replace an on-premises proxy, Zscaler is the way to go. Opting for Prisma Access exclusively for proxy functionalities might prove cost-prohibitive.

We used to have an on-prem solution doing pretty much the same thing as Zscaler, but as our strategy is cloud-first and internet-first, we thought that we should also use a cloud-based solution. We started to look at the alternatives, five or six years ago. What we saw was that there was only one, at the time, that was mature enough for our needs.

Since then, Zscaler has evolved quite a lot. In the beginning, there was no Zscaler Client Connector, an agent on your computer. It was all cloud-based, but that changed about a half a year after we started to use Zscaler. We assessed whether Zscaler fit our needs or not and we saw that for 75 or 80 percent of our needs, it was a good fit. Some aspects were not mature back then but they have matured over time.

We have used a different solution in the past. Zscaler, we can deploy on VM servers.

We are using it with 20% to 25% of our business at the moment. We are migrating to it from our previous legacy platform.

It adds an alternate layer of protection. We were already using a very powerful tool to do this, but that tool wasn't quite as fast and smart.

We previously used Westcon-Comstor, which was on-premises, but with Zscaler, we moved to the cloud solution.

We didn't have an Internet access control solution previously, only anti-malware for endpoint protection.

Our legacy systems only protected our on-premise network.

I have done the POC for Cisco Umbrella and Netskope before. Netskope is a user-friendly solution. But Zscaler is better than other solutions regarding its monitoring services.

We also use Cisco Umbrella and we tend to use that more. 

Not disclosing

With our legacy system, a VPN solution from Cisco called AnyConnect, we have to buy licenses and equipment, as well as storage in a data center. With this cloud solution, we just pay a fee and it's easy to use. Digital transformation is very important to us because it is a corporate objective. We started with Microsoft 360, and Zscaler is another brick in the wall, in that direction.

We are planning to downgrade our firewall and just keep Zscaler. We're not going to save money with Zscaler, but we are aligning with the corporate objectives by using it.

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.

We didn't previously use a different solution.

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

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.

We were previously using Pulse Secure in our organization. I needed to switch it on and off. On top of that, certain applications I could not reach. This was slow and proved to be unstable.

Zscaler, on the other hand, is more stable and also more secure.

I have used Cisco Umbrella in the past, which is similar. However, there are definitely differences between these two solutions. Cisco Umbrella is a DNS-based web filtering solution, whereas Zscaler is a cloud-based web application firewall combined with a regular firewall, antivirus, IPS, and other security features.

no cloud solution and we had to route back to office the road warriors trafic