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Cloudflare One vs Portnox comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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

Cloudflare One
Ranking in ZTNA
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (24th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (13th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (14th), Access Management (11th), Bot Management (4th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
Portnox
Ranking in ZTNA
7th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
41
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (3rd), Passwordless Authentication (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the ZTNA category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 9.6%, down from 11.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Portnox is 3.1%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare One9.6%
Portnox3.1%
Other87.3%
ZTNA
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
Maurice Mwaura - PeerSpot reviewer
Product Manager at Applied Principles Limited
Unified access control has improved compliance visibility and simplified passwordless access
There is work to be done when it comes to making the solution more seamless. For example, when a user is denied access, they would need a way to maybe self-resolve themselves, perhaps a way to generate a ticket on their own, something around resolutions. When it comes to users using the product, that is where good products are differentiated from products that are a bit of a challenge. Portnox has much to do in terms of their reporting. The generated reports need improvement. Things that other tools would say are normal are usually not present. For example, there is a page called NAS devices or NAS network that is able to show the switches that have been managed. Currently, there is no way of generating an easy report or an easy way of just generating something to tell the customer what they have been able to achieve so far. This is not done yet and is still very manual. I think there is work to be done there. More integrations around the various products being used would be beneficial. So far I have not encountered any major challenge. Where there was a challenge, I think support came in and helped us resolve. In fact, most of the challenges are not with the product; they are with the customer environment. I think that is just to update their documentation where they have come across a new vendor for easier integrations in the future.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The best feature is rate limiting. If I'm expecting 500 visits per hour, Cloudflare will limit the requests if I suddenly get 50,000."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"Clover is the best product globally."
"What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection."
"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."
"Enables me to work from two locations."
"Portnox provides excellent security by following Zero Trust security principles."
"Portnox saves me about fifty percent of my time."
"One of the features I enjoyed the most about Portnox was the ability to dive in with proper details on an endpoint."
"Previous to the deployment we didn't have complete visibility of all the endpoints, all the devices that are connected to the network, but with the deployment of portnox, we could see all the devices and where they're connecting, and we can equally segregate and apply different rules and policies to each location that we didn't monitor specifically."
"What I like most about Portnox is its cloud-native Zero Trust/NAC approach, its ability to integrate with a customer’s existing environment, and the ease of positioning it from a reseller perspective."
"Portnox helped to free up staff time and resources for other IT security priorities and IT work."
"Overall, the platform helps strengthen security while remaining easy to deploy, manage, and scale as organizational requirements evolve."
"Portnox is a winner for me compared to other vendors, especially other NAC vendors, in terms of pricing."
 

Cons

"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"Automation could be improved where you can easily add a TLS and SSL certificate to an application or web app if the developer did not include it."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"Cloudflare One is not very powerful, but for what we require, it is basic and sufficient."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"I believe there is a lot of room for improvement in terms of integration."
"The price could be better."
"I do not have anything in mind for Portnox to improve, perhaps except for the interface to make it much easier to use."
"We have been having some issues with it. That's why we're considering migrating to Portnox Clear due to some limitations with CORE."
"I believe there are some difficulties with the removal of devices that could be improved."
"One of the things for the on-premise is that sometimes you click on it and it takes a while for it to respond."
"Allowing for a search of MAC addresses in the interface, whether they are authenticated on the network or not, would be beneficial. Currently, it only finds authenticated MAC addresses, which complicates troubleshooting when the same MAC address is used for different requests."
"During my daily use, I noticed that if you have many devices being managed by a particular server, any device being managed by that server takes quite a bit of time to respond."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"It is not bad. It is a bit on the high side, but considering the cloud features and how much it costs to run the instance in the cloud, it is not unreasonable. We do have RADIUS servers for the US, Asia, and Europe."
"The licensing module should be reviewed to count the number of devices instead of port numbers of total switches. There is a case for this where not all ports for a switch are used by devices. Unused ports are calculated in the license, then the customer pays for license for those unused ports."
"We pay for port licensing and support on a yearly basis, and it's not cheap."
"The vendor price is fair."
"The pricing is a bit high, possibly due to the cloud features and running instances across regions like the US, Asia, and Europe."
"It's not cheap. It's not expensive. It's in the middle."
"The cost of Portnox Clear is reasonable."
"The users are not very happy with the new licensing option where there is only a subscription license. There is no perpetual license."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Healthcare Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business20
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler because it is currently too closed and too proprietary. Regarding additional fe...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN, strong authentication, and DDoS protection. The integration of Secure Web Gate...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Portnox Clear?
The pricing and setup cost as well as licensing is a bit high compared to the competition. If it were better, we could also have some pricing specific or special discounts to cater for SMBs.
What needs improvement with Portnox Clear?
If the MSSP offering could be the primary push or primary concern, it would be the best thing that could happen. Based on the Tanzanian market, AI governance is something that is coming through. Fo...
What is your primary use case for Portnox Clear?
Portnox is for the network access control use case. The use case focuses on wired network access, specifically how users are connecting to the network and how we are checking their security posture...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Access Layers Portnox, Portnox CLEAR
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Sallie Mae, Roku, Vuori, Legal Zoom, Anaplan, Aecon, H.I.G. Capital, McLaren Construction Group, PFCU, UK Mortgage Lending Limited, CCC Intelligent Solutions
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare One vs. Portnox and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.