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Palo Alto Networks WildFire vs Zscaler Internet Access comparison

 

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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.5
Palo Alto Networks WildFire reduces costs and streamlines threat management with efficient detection and seamless firewall integration.
Sentiment score
7.5
Zscaler Internet Access offers financial and security benefits, saving costs by eliminating legacy systems and reducing device infections.
The service generates a low rate of false positives, reducing the overhead of managing false positive events.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.6
Palo Alto Networks WildFire customer service is praised for expertise but varies in responsiveness, with challenges in smaller regions.
Sentiment score
7.1
Zscaler Internet Access's technical support is responsive and competent, with user ratings typically between seven to nine out of ten.
There is a lack of SLA adherence, and third-party partners do not provide prompt responses.
The service response times are aligned with standards, responding within a few hours based on the problem's criticality.
I find customer support to be quite adequate
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Palo Alto Networks WildFire offers scalable, customizable, and flexible solutions efficiently accommodating growth, highly rated by larger enterprises.
Sentiment score
7.8
Zscaler Internet Access offers excellent scalability, enabling seamless growth across various environments with efficient management and flexibility.
Wildfire is highly scalable.
I find Zscaler Internet Access to be highly scalable, which was one of the reasons for choosing it.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Palo Alto Networks WildFire is highly stable, seamlessly integrates, and is reliable with minimal issues and exceptional cloud performance.
Sentiment score
7.7
Zscaler Internet Access is reliable and secure, with minor regional issues and challenges like SSL inspection and latency.
Zscaler Internet Access is very stable, and I would rate its stability as nine out of ten.
 

Room For Improvement

Palo Alto Networks WildFire needs UI, pricing, deployment, integration, offline capabilities, support, and feature improvements for better user satisfaction.
Zscaler Internet Access requires improvements in integration, usability, performance, connectivity, and feature enhancements like VPN and multi-factor authentication.
The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings.
One feature I am missing is the ability to connect automatically to internal monitoring systems.
 

Setup Cost

Palo Alto Networks WildFire, perceived as costly yet advanced, targets enterprises, offering a 30-day trial and complex pricing.
Zscaler Internet Access is costly but valued by users for its features and global reach despite extra fees.
I would rate it an eight out of ten in terms of affordability.
Zscaler Internet Access is recognized as an expensive solution.
 

Valuable Features

Palo Alto Networks WildFire excels in real-time threat analysis, malware detection, easy integration, and improved network visibility with machine learning.
Zscaler Internet Access offers robust security with low latency, scalability, and ease of use for distributed organizations.
The most valuable feature of Wildfire is its sandboxing capability for examining suspicious files or locations.
The SSL inspection also offers added security, facilitating the exchange of critical data.
 

Categories and Ranking

Palo Alto Networks WildFire
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
68
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (3rd)
Zscaler Internet Access
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (2nd), Internet Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Palo Alto Networks WildFire and Zscaler Internet Access aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Palo Alto Networks WildFire is designed for Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) and holds a mindshare of 12.5%, up 12.2% compared to last year.
Zscaler Internet Access, on the other hand, focuses on Secure Web Gateways (SWG), holds 15.6% mindshare, down 17.2% since last year.
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP)
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

AjayKumar17 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enhanced cybersecurity with advanced sandboxing and effective in controlling DNS issues
Improvements are needed in the UI part. The dashboard should provide better visibility, especially in showing how many files are sent to Wildfire and their findings. This information should be integrated with the Dashboard so that system admins can see what is happening. Furthermore, technical support needs a lot of improvement, particularly in terms of responsiveness and adhering to service level agreements.
ShanavasVK - PeerSpot reviewer
Helps maintain a consistent posture of internet security while getting rid of VPN and hovering into zero trust
There could be a better way for the tool to categorize the traffic. For example, the tool does exceptions and everything overall. If I want to give guest access or provide access to guest users or any other internet access and if it does not go through the SSL inspection because, in our company, we can't have the root certificate on a device that we don't manage, which can be called out as an exception or an exclusion, but that doesn't provide a proper reflection of the picture of what is happening in the environment. There are granularities bringing it down. The tool I used or still have is Zscaler Cloud Connector to protect the cloud environment, which can have a bit more user-friendly installation and setup, and it would help a lot. The deployment process of Zscaler Cloud Connector needs to be more user-friendly. Improvements are required in the exception category. For example, suppose I report on a monthly basis what the breaches and traffic violating the SSL inspection area are coming from. In that case, I may find that half of them may be coming through some guest network, meaning the tool doesn't differentiate between the guest or normal networks or the corporate networks. Having options to differentiate different networks would be ideal so that it can show a true picture of things to users, as half of the things in the tool are not in our control and are not of our concern.
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Comparison Review

it_user206346 - PeerSpot reviewer
Mar 11, 2015
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto Networks
Cisco ASA vs. Palo Alto: Management Goodies You often have comparisons of both firewalls concerning security components. Of course, a firewall must block attacks, scan for viruses, build VPNs, etc. However, in this post I am discussing the advantages and disadvantages from both vendors concerning…
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
9%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

How does Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall compare with Palo Alto Networks Wildfire?
The Cisco Firepower NGFW Firewall is a very powerful and very complex piece of anti-viral software. When one considers that fact, it is all the more impressive that the setup is a fairly straightf...
Which is better - Wildfire or FortiGate?
FortiGate has a lot going for it and I consider it to be the best, most user-friendly firewall out there. What I like the most about it is that it has an attractive web dashboard with very easy nav...
How does Cisco ASA Firewall compare with Palo Alto's WildFire?
When looking to change our ASA Firewall, we looked into Palo Alto’s WildFire. It works especially in preventing advanced malware and zero-day exploits with real-time intelligence. The sandbox featu...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security functi...
Which is better, Zscaler internet access or Netsckope CASB?
We researched Netskope but ultimately chose Zscaler. Netskope is a cloud access security broker that helps identify and manage cloud applications, protecting your sensitive data from exfiltration....
 

Also Known As

No data available
ZIA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Novamedia, Nexon Asia Pacific, Lenovo, Samsonite, IOOF, Sinogrid, SanDisk Corporation
Ulster-Greene ARC, BanRegio, HDFC, Ralcorp Holdings Inc., British American Tobacco, Med America Billing Services Inc., Lanco Group, Aquafil, Telefonica, Swisscom, Brigade Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and others in Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). Updated: March 2025.
845,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.