Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Netskope Private Access comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 2024

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 ZTNA as a Service
11th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
4th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (4th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (5th)
Netskope Private Access
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
7th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.8
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the ZTNA as a Service category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is 10.7%, up from 6.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netskope Private Access is 4.8%, up from 3.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA as a Service
 

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
Alexander Azikov - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide a seamless experience for end users with internet duplication feature
The setup and onboarding process is very straightforward - I'd rate it a ten out of ten for ease. We use CatoCloud as our cloud provider. They have points of presence, and we connect to the nearest one to our physical location. All the routing, inspection, and logic for what to route, block, or allow happens in the cloud, not on the local device. Our deployment took a couple of weeks because we installed the sites manually. If we had a team to help switch locally, it could have been done in a week. The deployment process is straightforward. We set up all the sites in their cloud system; then, they ship the sockets directly to the location or our main office. We connect the device to the internet, it gets activated, we assign it to a specific site inside the cloud, and it's online and ready to use. It's very easy.
Christian Dagal - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides network visibility, infrastructure protection and advanced security protections, especially the DLP (Data Loss Protection)
Room for improvement is more on the policies offered for DLP. Netskope detects certain data or contents, but there are some limitations on how we can customize those policies for DLP. In the next release, I hope we can see more use cases for mobile devices, not just for laptops or servers but also for key features that will be available on mobile devices or smartphones.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"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 solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"The main features we use are the firewall and secure web gateway."
"The most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"The product is efficient and easy to use."
"The Cato SASE Cloud Platform is a remarkable solution for managing and controlling all aspects of Zero Trust network access functions through its SASE capabilities. It's designed with an exquisite and practical architecture, making it a worthwhile investment for organizations looking to optimize IT spending and streamline management processes."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable feature is that it also works as a next-gen firewall because it has security features."
"Cato offers all the functionality found in other solution. The life cycle management is always very stable."
"The scalability is quite good."
"It is a stable solution."
"The product's scalability is good."
"In the VPN scenario, what was happening, the user would get back to the complete source. But in NPA, the application will go to the user. There is an outbound connection. There is no inbound. Storage providers are also not there. It's the best feature because it is the replacement of the VPN."
"It is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature is being able to see who is accessing the application, whether it is a managed device or a bring-your-own-device published by Netskope."
"With private access or next-gen VPN, they are able to keep you secure, but they are invisible in terms of how they do it. Anybody working from home and trying to bring up VPN quickly can pretty much get VPN up and running in a matter of minutes because this doesn't require any VPN technology on-prem. All the VPN technologies that you're using to access applications on-premise can be eliminated by using their software. If you're accessing Microsoft 365 or salesforce.com, you can go straight out from your home office or home internet to that application rather than having to come through a VPN. It still has all the policies enforced, and it mitigates any business risks in terms of how that user is accessing that application and what they're doing inside of it. VPN piece is really critical, especially at this time of Covid, and your latency also goes down. Your latency gets better by using the platform because they're intercepting your traffic, routing it through their local data center, and then sending it to whichever SaaS service or whatever you're going to. It does it better, faster, and quicker with all your governance policies enforced, rather than you having to go through your data center. So, all the traffic gets hauls there, and then that traffic has got to route somewhere else, and then it has got to go up to the cloud. Your latency actually goes down. They can guarantee 15 milliseconds or less pretty much across anywhere on the planet for about 95% or 90% of it."
"Netskope enables users to securely access private applications remotely without a VPN."
"The initial setup of Netskope Private Access is pretty simple and straightforward."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"The tool should improve its interface."
"The price could be better."
"For a packaged solution, needing external intervention or a system integrator to get other features not offered by Cato Networks could be an area for improvement. Cato Networks does what it's meant to do and is even overstretching capabilities when introducing new features. The product can only have very few features added on top of what its currently doing. Managed service providers can deliver the extra features you'd need. It's a set of managed services, and what Cato Networks does is very comprehensive. So, for the time being, when the actual incarnation of the SASE solution is deployed, Cato Networks is a very effective product. Naturally, technology will evolve, so everybody knows that in three, four, or five years, there will be a new kid on the block, a new game. Still, at the moment, Cato Networks only needs to improve a little regarding SASE delivery. The product is doing very well, but one feature the Cato Networks team is doing right is preparing for the future through deploying the SSE 360, so the security service is at that edge. It's an excellent strategy to prepare for the future. SSE 360 is what Cato Networks should invest in the most to keep prospering."
"Its functionality is a bit limited in some areas as compared to a Cisco solution. It is not as granular. It doesn't have the manageability, feature set, and capabilities of a larger or an enterprise-level solution. It just needs a more robust feature set and granularity."
"Cato Networks security could be better."
"Modifying or incorporating Cato Network to work with a third-party platform, such as Microsoft, or other Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings would be beneficial. Having more integration partners would help the users implement the solution."
"Cato Networks could improve their intrusion detection. There is not a lot in place."
"There isn't much to improve as we have a close relationship with them, providing information for research and development."
"Netskope Private Access allows mapping only one DNS server. If a user uses a secondary DNS on-premises, Netskope fails to disconnect them. This is an issue that needs to be addressed."
"We faced certain issues with China users as it can be rather challenging for them due to the presence of Great Firewall."
"I would rate the stability around seven out of ten. Sometimes, we face some difficulty, but it depends upon the complexity of the environment."
"The product is not easy to use."
"The solution needs to develop faster features. Its interoperability feature is not working. It takes six months to one year for any product to implement the improvements. However, the process should be faster to implement the changes quickly."
"The ability to provide more security around agentless access has room for improvement."
"The cost has room for improvement."
"I would like to see them go down the path of including SD-WAN. Currently, they don't do SD-WAN. If they could somehow natively do that inside of the platform, that would be amazing. I don't know if they're going to do it, but it would be amazing if they do."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
"You pay yearly based on the speed of your network. If you increase the speed of your network, you increase the cost for your throughput. It is by bandwidth for the most part and then licenses for VPN. There is some per-seat licensing for VPN access, but the majority of it is minimal. It is like $30 a year per client. The rest is based on how much bandwidth you'll use. You pay for that upfront for the year, and if you have to increase it, you increase it, and then they let you send more data through. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The price is not an issue for us, as it is priced more competitively than some other vendors."
"I rate the price of Cato Networks a four out of five."
"The pricing is on the higher side, almost an eight out of ten."
"The solution's pricing is flexible."
"Cato Networks seems more expensive than Cisco Meraki."
"If you compare with VeloCloud, the price is the same or even cheaper."
"The platform is expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap."
"It is not cheap, but the value of the solution is there. It's worth the investment."
"I believe that the price for Netskope Private Access is included in the features or functionality my company purchased from NetSkope."
"The tool's price is normal. It is not very cheap but good compared to the competitors."
"Netskope Private Access is more inexpensive than other products."
"When it comes to pricing, Netskope Private Access is relatively cheap compared to other solutions."
"It is significantly cost-effective compared to its contenders."
"It is not the most expensive option, being more affordable than Zscaler, but it's also not the most budget-friendly choice available."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which ZTNA as a Service solutions are best for your needs.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
27%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
5%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Energy/Utilities Company
7%
 

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?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
What do you like most about Cato Networks?
The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity....
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
We have been using Cato Networks as a solution for firewall and secure web gateway.
What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?
I would definitely recommend Cato Networks to other users. I'd rate the solution nine out of ten.
What do you like most about Netskope Private Access?
Even without extensive training, if you're a proficient IT professional, you can easily configure it.
What needs improvement with Netskope Private Access?
Netskope Private Access could improve by enhancing visibility of user performance and application performance. It sho...
What is your primary use case for Netskope Private Access?
Our primary use case for Netskope Private Access ( /products/netskope-private-access-reviews ) was for internal acces...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cato Networks
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.
Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects
Evalueserve, Stroock, Apria, Ather Energy
Find out what your peers are saying about Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. Netskope Private Access and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.