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Prisma SD-WAN vs Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 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 Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (10th)
Prisma SD-WAN
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (6th), WAN Edge (5th)
Versa Unified Secure Access...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
19th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (10th), WAN Edge (12th)
 

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
Engineerinfosec67 - PeerSpot reviewer
Centralized management streamlines global network traffic control
Prisma SD-WAN requires a more seamless integration with other Palo Alto solutions, like Prisma Access. Although there has been improvement, further steps can be taken. Additionally, it would be beneficial if the solution integrated the SD-WAN features of Prisma SD-WAN with the security features of Palo Alto's next-generation firewalls, as they currently do not align.
PranavGupta - PeerSpot reviewer
A cloud-managed, cloud-delivered private access service efficiently connecting distributed users with. distributed applications without compromising on security or user experience.
Certainly, there are areas that require enhancement, and the current focus is on improvements. Presently, I believe that the emphasis should be on enhancing user interface (UI) features, particularly over end devices. The issue arises when attempting to log in to Versa from other devices, as the UI is not device-specific. Consequently, guiding someone to log in to Versa antivirus becomes challenging. Despite the absence of issues on the website, the lack of a login scope impedes graphical representation of user data or databases. Since work databases support only a limited range of features, I recommend augmenting features for end devices to address these limitations.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"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."
"The solution's most valuable feature is the visibility of the logs."
"The implementation of the solution is easy."
"Prisma SD-WAN offers capabilities such as path selection based on Layer 7 attributes and application quality of service at the application level."
"The gateway is available on the cloud which allows you access from anywhere and still connects to your home gateway."
"Overall, I would rate Prisma SD-WAN an eight out of ten."
"The security offered by the solution is pretty good."
"The dynamic routing in Prisma SD-WAN is high-speed and valuable because it quickly adjusts, so users do not realize the link is down."
"I like that the integration with Palo Alto is easy."
"It's very powerful, especially for engineering teams."
"This integration between SASE and SD-WAN is beneficial, as we have tested it with various customers."
"The division of Control Plane and Data Plane is most valuable. It can be deployed anywhere, and you can control it and configure it from anywhere. This is one of the good features of this solution."
"The most valuable aspects of the solution are the next-generation firewall features and geo-blocking capabilities."
"The granularity when it comes to configuration and security features are valuable."
"The most valuable features are the main steering and the firewall. The security features and SD-WAN features are also quite good."
"Versa FlexVNF is a scalable product because it does not have any hardware dependencies. This makes it a versatile solution that can be easily integrated with any firewall."
"The flexibility is a great feature."
 

Cons

"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The pricing model could be improved to make it more affordable for smaller companies."
"Prisma could be a little cheaper."
"They could add more advanced security features to the product."
"The only con is the pricing because it's more premium."
"We initially had challenges with AIOps, which was overwhelming, and could benefit from simplification or improved training."
"The pricing for Prisma SD-WAN needs improvement."
"The tool needs to work on price and complexity."
"Prisma SD-WAN can be built on top of a couple of hardware platforms, including the Palo Alto Next-Generation Firewall or the CloudGenix infrastructure."
"The web interface can be improved."
"The smaller units lack a lot of functionality."
"We are thinking about how to make customers consolidate the loads to an SD-WAN network so that the customers can have bigger chunk from the SD-WAN side so that customers can have critical data be transferred with NPS VPN and non-critical data or some labeled traffic can be transferred by the SD-WAN network. I think it's a very important direction for digital transformation."
"We've had the odd occasional stability issue with software upgrades."
"The solution's current customer support is not that good. So, they need to improve that. Also, the solution's UI is quite complex, so they need to simplify it."
"Versa provides analytics, but the reporting features have some shortcomings."
"Future releases should contain AI for the voice feature."
"The cost of Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is higher than other solutions available in the market."
 

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 probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"Prisma SD-WAN is a pretty expensive solution."
"If you're already invested in a Palo Alto product, it would be logical to use this solution. If not, there might be some other solutions that are more viable in terms of pricing."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing an eight out of ten."
"This solution stood out because it cost considerably less than the other SD-WAN solutions out there from Cisco."
"It is more expensive than Fortinet."
"I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of remote access and secure web gateway elements."
"While I cannot provide too much commentary on the price, I feel it to be fair for the moment."
"It is not very expensive because of the white box support. Its hardware is much cheaper than other products. With the support for x86 and white box, it is one of the most cost-effective platforms that are currently available."
"It is neither cheap nor expensive. I rate the pricing a five out of ten on a scale where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"Price wise, it's more expensive than is the competition. I would give pricing a rating of three out of five."
"We provide subscriptions for our customers on a yearly, not monthly, basis."
"The price is expensive but it makes sense for the market."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

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?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
What do you like most about Prisma SD-WAN?
The product's initial setup phase is straightforward.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Prisma SD-WAN?
The costs seem crazy to me since I'm relatively new to the pricing world of enterprise security solutions, but compar...
What needs improvement with Prisma SD-WAN?
The areas that need improvement include documentation/customer support and cross-communication between the support te...
What do you like most about Versa FlexVNF?
Versa is a good centralized solution, where you're setting up your infrastructure in a data center type thing.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Versa FlexVNF?
Both Versa and VMware are cheap in terms of the router. I find Versa a little more expensive than VMware in terms of ...
What needs improvement with Versa FlexVNF?
We've had the odd occasional stability issue with software upgrades, etcetera. They don't support certain other third...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
CloudGenix
Versa FlexVNF, FlexVNF, Versa Titan
 

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.
Open Networking User Group, Columbia Sportswear Company, Coca Cola
CenturyLink, RCN Business, Colt Technology Services
Find out what your peers are saying about Prisma SD-WAN vs. Versa Unified Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Platform and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.