Zscaler Internet Access Reviews

I like the granularity of the control of all the traffic, including SSL inspection. I also like the fact that the user interface is intuitive.

The latencies with Zscaler are minimal compared to those of any other competitor. Other competitors do not really have the global scale that Zscaler has and cannot promise low latencies.

Zscaler should continue to make the user interface better. They should also improve the backup network and continue to expand it so that it can handle larger numbers of customers.

We've been working with this solution since 2017. Our customers use a cloud deployment of this solution.

The stability overall in the developed regions, such as the US and Europe, is fairly good. In certain regions, such as South Africa, Zscaler has not been stable for some time.

It is easy to scale. Additional sites and licenses can be added quickly and easily.

Zscaler's technical support is not too bad. They have been helpful when I have had issues, but I have not had to contact them much.

The initial deployment process is quite easy. I've implemented Zscaler Internet Access in large, multinational corporations and recently at a company that is in 64 countries in the world. The deployment is always fairly quick. I have also worked with smaller clients, and Zscaler deployment is even easier in these cases.

Zscaler is an expensive solution, but it's worth the price. 

Their services are unmatched by competitors. Some may come with half the features that Zscaler can offer and be much cheaper. However, they do not have the global coverage that Zscaler has, and they will not provide the same low latencies and the same speeds that Zscaler can.

My advice would be to ensure that you have a good implementer and reseller who can provide guidance. The reseller should be aligned with those who work in security and needs to be aware of anything that might need an exception that needs to be created. This will help avoid any surprises when the solution is live. The other important aspect to consider is training.

Overall, I would rate Zscaler at eight on a scale from one to ten.

We use the solution for internet access, web-based policies, and application-based policies. It has a device posture profile, which is new. 

DNS security is in progress now. I have done the test cases in my lab, however, now we are deploying it for 30,000 users. I'm working on that project as well. Apart from that, I have worked in ZIA's firewall and DLP.

The product is simple yet has a lot of features.

It offers a straightforward setup process. Setting up the solution is simple.

The solution is stable and reliable.

Users can scale the product.

There are some flaws which I don't like. Mostly I was an engineer for the proxy. In that case, there are limitations. There are limited categories and limited URLs which we can create.

We'd like to see a more user-friendly interface. 

Technical support could be better. They should be more technical. Also, they need to ensure when you ask for help, they communicate better amongst themselves what the issue is so that customers aren't constantly repeating themselves. 

I've been using the solution for about one year. 

It's quite stable and offers good performance. There are no bugs or glitches and it doesn't crash or freeze. It is reliable.

It's scalable and easy to expand. 

We have multiple clients that use the solution. We have between 8,000 and 50,000 clients. 

I've contacted technical support multiple times. They are okay. However, they could be better. We sometimes need more technical responses.

Often, our support person will change, and then we have to explain over and over the issue, what went wrong, and what's been done. It may take days to resolve things even if it is a simpler case due to the repetition and the fact we are changing from support staff to support staff. 

Neutral

The solution is very straightforward and simple to set up.

Users just decide if they want to connect via desktop or remote VDI servers, and that's it. They decide on what ports and protocols they want to connect. Once that question is clear, then they just have to just create the connection between the cloud and between the enterprise. After that, it's all about the configuration once you are done on the portal.

I don't deal with the licensing aspect. I can't speak to pricing. 

I'd rate hte solution seven out of ten. 

We use Zscaler to secure endpoints using a proxy.

This solution is used by 500 people. We have plans to increase usage by 10-20%.

It's a cloud based solution.

The most valuable feature is the ability to drop packets.

The OS capabilities and WSL support could be improved.

I have used this solution for about four years.

It's not very stable, but I think Zscaler is trying to improve that. This solution is typically deployed in endpoint environments like Windows, Linux, and even WSL, which is the Windows encapsulated version of Linux.

It's scalable.

We have used technical support to identify configurations, help us set up new use cases, and to secure endpoints that we want to be integrated.

Setup is about medium difficulty. We needed more background information on how to set up a proxy. Setup could be easier.

It took between 30 minutes and one hour to set up the solution, activate our Zscaler company profile, and to configure ZIA.

The solution is a little bit expensive. On a scale of one to five, I would rate it as a three.

I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

I would absolutely recommend this solution to those who want to start using it.

It's a cloud based solution, so Zscaler provides everything needed to set up and start using it, without complex requirements.

We primarily use the solution for a secure web gateway and secure internet access. 

We wanted something for an overall internet access solution, an in-office, and out-of-office solution. We chose Zscaler Internet Access. 

It is very transparent. 

It securely transfers internet connectivity seamlessly, without any problems or issues. It's very simple for the user. 

The product offers easy deployment. 

Security is very strong. There is seamless integration as well.  

There is no lag in service when accessing the internet. 

The initial setup was straightforward. 

It is scalable. 

The solution is stable. 

The technical support could be better. We need more of an online knowledge base, so we don't have to lodge tickets whenever we have a question or issue. 

We'd like to have more plugins and integration. 

Even in a CASB scenario, if we could get API and JSON-contained decoding, that would be helpful.

I've used the solution for over a year. 

The solution is stable and secure. We haven't had any issues. The product is great.

We have more than 1,000 people using the solution. 

The scalability is really good. We've had no issues with the scalability. We even don't know when the performance tuning is happening in the back end. The user is not experiencing any problems, even if all thousand-plus users have started using it at the same time. There's no slowness or lag which is experienced.

We use it on a daily basis and plan to increase usage in the future. 

If you want some support, you have to log a case. However, if there was more online support or a knowledge base that was readily available, it would be better. 

Positive

The set up is very straightforward. It's a pretty easy process. The deployment scenario is pretty simple. You can just deploy it through a simple policy. You can deploy it even in terms of the distribution of hardware to users. 

To set it up took about three and a half weeks, from beginning to end. 

I'd rate the ease of deployment at a four or 4.5 out of five. 

After it is set up, there isn't really much maintenance. 

We handled the deployment in-house. 

After three or five years, after not having any bad experiences, we can see some ROI. 

The solution is quite expensive. It's around double what others are offering. The price we pay includes everything. It comes as a bundle. 

I'd rate the affordability of the solution at a two or three out of five. 

While the product quality is very good, the price is very high.

We have looked into Netskope.

I'm an end-user. 

I am dealing with the latest version of the solution. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. The only downside is that it is so expensive. 

We are using the latest version of the solution. It's deployed on a private cloud through Zscaler.

We mostly use this solution in the distributed network where direct internet access has been growing. There are a lot of branches connected with their own internet access, so the solution secures the connectivity at remote locations. There's a very large network with many branches and users working across the globe.

There are about 5,000 people using this solution in my organization. Technical support uses this solution 24/7. We have an operations team and a monitoring and management team.

This solution helps to protect our network.

The cloud proxy and integration are some of the key features. Since there is cloud waste, we can quickly provision it and start working on the configuration. On top of that, they have added a few more features. They have integrated CASB, and file sandboxing is part of it.

We have used this solution for three years. We have seen a lot of traction in the market and a lot of users adopting this solution. We're able to control or manage all the remote locations from one place. When a user is traveling from one location and is connected to the internet, it connects to the bigger cloud and relevant policies will be applied to the user or the device. We have expanded the base from very few users to a large number.

The solution is expensive. They recently revised the pricing and packaging. Some of our existing customers have been asking for alternate solutions for a lower price.

I have been using this solution for about three years.

It's stable.

It's scalable.

Sometimes I feel that the Zscaler team is a bit lacking. The response is slow sometimes.

I would rate technical support three out of five. 

Setup isn't complicated.

I would rate setup as four out of five. Setup took a couple of hours because of some of the requirements. It can take up to a month depending on how many policy configurations need to be done and how many users there are.

Deployment was done in-house.

There are multiple bundles: enterprise, business, and transformation. Transformation includes all the features, but recently I've seen a few more line items that are additional costs. Overall, it's expensive.

They have standard bundling and additional licensing, which is a high cost.

We also evaluated Blue Coat. We have used Forcepoint too, but there were a lot of support challenges. That's why we went with Zscaler.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten. 

The product is pretty good. They are the leader, as far as Gartner Magic Quadrant is concerned. The functionality and bundling are good, but the pricing isn't great. I think Netskope is competition because of their features and better pricing.

The competition offers more flexibility. This is a cloud solution, so a lot of banking customers and government customers are a bit reluctant to use it. Some of the competition has the on-premises model as well. Zscaler could also work on their bundling, packaging, and pricing.

It's a proxy solution, and we use it for reverse proxy, DNS security, and storage security.

The users are at different locations, and Zscaler helps us to put the organization's central security controls on these roaming users.

The performance needs improvement. Some areas create performance issues and, depending on the use cases, require reconfiguration to perform again.

I've been using this solution for one and a half years.

It's on Zscaler cloud.

I find Zscaler to be very stable.

It's very scalable because it's the cloud version. We have 100,000 users across all levels.

I would give technical support an eight out of ten.

Positive

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

The initial setup was pretty easy. The deployment took about three months.

Our team of two members along with Zscaler's team implemented the solution.

We have seen an ROI. This is a well published product, and you get value for your money.

Because it's a cloud solution, we pay on a yearly basis. It is affordable and includes tech support and all features.

Each use case is different, and you have to evaluate it and take the risk.

On a scale from one to ten, I would rate Zscaler Internet Access at nine.

One of the use cases is VPN replacement. Zscaler Private Access replaces the VPN solution.

Zscaler covers all the features needed to replace a VPN or proxy solution. They are good. They've been on the market for 15 years now, so they are mature enough.

Zscaler needs to add client-to-client communication. It's always client-to-server communication. The cloud and branch connectors could be improved because we're still dependent on traditional firewalls. They should eliminate this. They should also provide WAN devices should to compete with the SD-WAN solutions also.

We have been building our competency and trying to sell Zscaler to customers for almost two years. We are doing this in our labs also, and we have one customer now. 

Zscaler is scalable. 

Zscaler is a cloud-based solution, so it's scalable. 

We worked with Zscaler support initially for some professional services. That service was excellent, but later we had to wait for them to make some changes, so that could be tricky. I rate Zscaler support seven out of 10. 

Neutral

Deploying Zscaler is quick and straightforward. You can easily onboard end-users to Zscaler Private Access once you deploy the application. There is a virtual application in your private data centers that detects the applications, and you can control access.

We have two or three engineer to deploy the solution. Two are usually needed  because there are different roles from a backup point of view, and we have a different set of people during the design stage. We need some people who understand identity solutions. We have a combination of two or three engineers who normally do deployment for around 1,500 users. One person is usually more than sufficient for maintenance because we don't get that many inquiries unless some changes are needed.

We work on a business case, not on ROI, so if the customer sees a positive savings on their business case after the five years or six years, they normally go for Zscaler.

The license is per user, and there's a minimum license per user per year. It's costly if you compare it to the traditional solutions like Symantec or Bluecoat. It's about 20 to 30 percent costlier than the traditional solution, but it gives you the flexibility to work from anywhere, and everything becomes effortless. 

I rate Zscaler Internet Access eight out of 10.

We have Windows 10 laptops. We wanted help securing our laptops for remote work, but we don't have the server for this infrastructure. Whereas, with this solution, the cloud server is managed by Zscaler. 

It is a pretty lean solution. We only need to manage the agent and some very small tools on the laptops.

Currently, we have an on-premise firewall. However, most of the time, users are not working in the office. Therefore, we need to use something, like a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), to help users. So, we are trying to protect users without a corporate firewall.

We just wanted laptops to have more secure features to help users and protect the company's data. There are two major things deployed on our laptops: Zscaler Internet Access and endpoint detection response (EDR).

Zscaler Internet Access has helped enable our digital transformation.

When you try to access suspicious websites, they will give you a warning. This helps us with user access without our office network.

Its cyberthreat protection is important for our needs. We use it for Internet access control, e.g., accessing web pages. We also use it when a user downloads or uploads files from the Internet.

When a user goes to the Internet to browse or download something, it is secured by this tool. This is important to us because it is another layer of protection.

They could provide more time for the onboarding the training of an IT person.

We did run into some compatibility issues. We just needed to test its configurations on the web portal and that detected the issues.

I have been using it for half a year.

We haven't had any issues with stability.

No maintenance is required.

We have 120 users. We have never tested it to go above 1,000 users. It shouldn't have problems because it is an agent working on the laptops using a centralized online server. 

The technical support is very good. We create a ticket every week or two.

Positive

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.

The initial setup was straightforward. It took about three days to set up.

Zscaler Internet Access has helped us reduce the time that we spend managing security policies by about four hours a week. We can use this time to focus on other things, especially the IT team.

Versus deploying and managing traditional network security hardware, the solution has saved us about four hours a week.

The solution has helped us reduce the number of infected devices in our organization by proactively preventing attacks because some users were unaware of some malware sites.

We evaluated two or three different vendors, but finally selected Zscaler Internet Access due to its reputation. Also, the GUI for Zscaler Internet Access was very clear when we tested it.

We are not using the solution for data loss prevention.

When you select this product, test it with other tools running on your machine to ensure there are no compatibility issues between different products.

I would rate it as nine out of 10.

The product is an Internet proxy solution. We use it to manage our users' Internet access, making sure that they don't go to the wrong site. We also use it for data loss prevention.

The main benefit that we have seen is performance improvements based on not having to backhaul traffic and getting cloud services closer to the user.

It provides a modern, cloud-first model. It allows the users quick access to the cloud, depending on where they are in the world. We have users all over the world who access cloud services in their native regions. Previously, we had to backhaul the traffic to our data centers somewhere in the world, then go back to that region. Now, we don't have to do that. A user and data stays within that region. There is no latency there.

It allows us to inspect all our traffic, including SSLs. This is extremely important because most sites use SSLs nowadays. Putting non-SSL inspected data directly into the source would mean that there is a potential for data loss. 

Protecting our customers' data is our number one priority. The data loss prevention rules that we have in place make sure that there is nothing within the packets relevant to our customers. 

The data loss prevention feature is the most valuable. It stops our users from inadvertently leaking our customers' data to the Internet or anywhere else it shouldn't go.

The cloud-native proxy architecture certainly seems fast enough. The performance is good. The multi-country nature of it allows us to keep the proxy closer to the user so a user's data doesn't transit as far as it would otherwise. It helps to keep latency down and the speed up. It also helps a little bit with cyber threats, but that is not necessarily its primary purpose for us.

Zscaler is constantly improving the network. They are adding new data centers and regions all the time. They listen to feedback, and based on where we tell them to go and put data centers, they add new data centers. For example, they created a couple of data centers in the Middle East, which has been very helpful for us.

One thing that they could improve is the ability to import rules from other platforms.

We have been using it for slightly more than a year.

Its stability is first-class. We haven't had any issues during the time that we have been using it.

It certainly scales to what we have asked it to do so far. We have over 50,000 users on it without a single problem.

From a technical support perspective, when we leave a ticket, the time it takes for them to close the ticket is very fast. Their resolution time is exceptional.

I would rate Zscaler Professional Services and technical support as eight out of 10. I am dropping two points because of some blanks in the time zone support.

Positive

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.

It was very complex, but there was training provided by Zscaler. That was very good for understanding it thoroughly. It was complex because we had to make sure that all our rules from previous platforms were migrated over so all our users had access to the same things that they had access to in previous models. 

We aren't yet fully deployed. We have been at it for about a year and a half. We currently have over 50,000 users deployed and another 120,000 to go.

The only pain points that we have are self-inflicted because of our slow rollout of the product, which is not actually Zscaler's fault.

We had Zscaler Professional Services helping us for quite a long time at the start of the project. They made sure that everything was set up correctly with no holes. They were very good and first-class.

So far, it has not saved us on costs as a result of retiring on-premises technology, next-generation firewalls, legacy proxies, or MPLS links. Though, we are expecting it to do that going forward.

I have not been involved with pricing and licensing.

We evaluated several solutions.

Try it, test it out, and make sure it works for you. It is not going to work for everybody because it is not a zero-cost solution. However, it does provide significant benefits in terms of its latency and capability to inspect your traffic as well as keeping your customer data secure.

It hasn't saved us time as compared to deploying and managing traditional network security hardware because we already had everything in place from a traditional standpoint. We take security very seriously. Security is paramount to what we do. We cannot, under any circumstances, allow our customers' data to be compromised. So, we have all the correct things in place from a traditional standpoint. We are now modernizing, and Zscaler Internet Access allows us to do that. However, we will not compromise at all. We have to move slowly to it.

It has not reduced the time that we spend managing security policies. The security policies used on Zscaler Internet Access are the same ones that we used with our previous technologies.

It has not really reduced the number of infected devices in our organization because we already had preventions in place with other technologies. We didn't previously have any infections. 

I would rate Zscaler Internet Access as nine out of 10. It is a very good solution.

You can have mobile employees who forward traffic into a Zscaler client, or you could use a PAC file. So, if users connect at the beach, a hotel, coffee shop or something outside their actual office, it will give them protection.

You can use it with a secured Internet using a web gateway to deliver to the cloud.

The benefits of Zscaler Internet Access are the speed of the solution and never having performance issues or limitations. The fact that none of my end users are experiencing any threats, zero-day, bots, or malware says a lot about the solution. 

Zscaler Internet Access enables the inspection of traffic, including SSLs. You want to make sure that nothing is coming in through your HTTPS traffic. For anything that is coming in that might be a threat, you want to ensure that you are using a good proxy for that. There is malicious traffic out there, so you want to make sure you are tracking and viewing that. There are a lot of threats that come through as well as a lot of programming languages, so you definitely need to inspect traffic.

It is worth it. It works. I don't need multiple alerts, because it is set up with the right policies. Definitely, it is a beneficial device which doesn't always need constant monitoring. It inspects the encrypted traffic and verifies what threats are coming in. It intercepts incoming traffic and decrypts it, then reviews it. So, why have antivirus scanning or web filtering if Zscaler can do it? It protects me from man-in-the-middle attacks as well. When you use a firewall, you have alerts and false positives, but Zscaler Internet Access pretty much decreases those errors and alerts.

There isn't congestion on your network when you are inspecting traffic with Zscaler Internet Access. 

• The integration of the gateway that inspects all ports and protocols. So, there is threat prevention. 
• The cloud sandbox
• VNS security
• Access control that will protect URL filtering and the cloud firewall. 
• Data protection that will protect your gateway, like your CASB or your cloud DLP. The capabilities of this will point your traffic to Zscaler Cloud.

The proxy architecture is the way to go. Zscaler uses it to protect their applications on the cloud. So, if you are using Box, Office 365, or even have an end user using LinkedIn or YouTube, then it will give you updated threat updates. It will also inspect all your traffic so you don't get compromised.

Advanced Threat Protection on Zscaler Internet Access has a few functionalities. It has ways to find threats. So, if they are actually hiding, you could do an inspection of your SSL traffic. You also have DNS security in Zscaler Internet Access that will help you route suspicious command-and-control attacks as well as detect threats when it does a full inspection. 

Zscaler Internet Access protects using data loss prevention. If you have a CASB exposing your cloud out into the network, then Zscaler Internet Access will go ahead and control that unknown cloud application in the CASB, protecting it. There is also data detection with exact data match. This improves the data coming into your cloud so you are protecting it. 

It offers a Cloud Browser Isolation feature, which exfiltrates browser activities from the end user's device. This feature can eliminate our exposures on that.

I like its features because they help me eliminate firewalls. I don't need to have firewalls, SIEMs, or an IPS/IDS. So, if all my end users are remote and using Office 365, I am already protecting them because they are in the cloud. I just have to attach the security application, which makes sure that any user who is mobile or remote is protected, without spending money on other solutions.

I wish there were a lot less products to learn, because there are a lot. They just keep surprising me with new features, even in the SaaS arena, and they keep improving in every facet. We are Zscaler partners, so I got certified in two platforms, but there is a lot room for improvement. There is just too much training, where they focus a lot on protecting the Internet as everyone is moving to the cloud. I would love for the training to be shortened.

I have been exposed to it for a year.

My clients have never really called to tell me that stability has been an issue. Feedback has always been positive. 

It is a scalable solution. It is easy to scale and secure remote users. If a company hires 100 more people, I don't think it would be a problem.

The largest environment, which I reviewed, had 2000 employees.

I would rate their professional services or technical support as five out of five based on their experience and expertise. They know how to answer all my client's problems. They are really quick to trigger and understand the client's needs as well as be very supportive. They do very well when helping their clients.

Positive

What I have seen when I am doing PoCs is you need some perimeters to start building this platform and integrating policies from day one. 

An improvement would be if they could provide an out-of-the-box experience, like 20 to 30 features all ready to go. In comparison, LogRhythm offers out-of-the-box features. With Zscaler Internet Access, there is firewall IPS, multiple security services, filtering, DLP, and CASB browser isolation. These are things that all users are going to be using. However, when an administrator or architect would start building this, I would definitely need to engage professional services to help clients do it.

Every customer is different. On average, it could be a two-week deployment. If you are using other devices, like Fortinet SD-WAN deployment, you definitely have to make sure your configured IPsecs are correct. You might have to review policies and your SD-WAN roles. You need to do a lot of cleaning up before you start deploying.

We have a client who wants to start deploying the Cloud Browser Isolation feature. You can embrace this cloud platform using IPAC Files, which is just a clean way of deploying it.

I have personally worked for other vendors doing professional services as part of a professional services team. Every client decided to purchase professional services because deploying Zcaler Internet Access is too complex.

I am saving money right now because I am not using old technology, like when we had everything on-premise and in the data center. Now, I just have to direct my end users to the Zscaler file and make sure that they are connected and secure. So, I am eliminating the total cost of ownership and the headaches of on-premise devices. I am also reducing their risk by making sure that they are protected in real-time.

When I talk to clients, they mention that there is a return of investment from improving the real-time protection. There is no need anymore to buy: 

• An antivirus
• A third-party vendor to protect your DNS, like Cloudflare. 
• Check Point SandBlast 
• Symantec DLP, Forcepoint, or Netskope since you already have DLP protection. 
• LogRhythm or Splunk for logging.

Those are the benefits. I have a lot of clients explaining this to me that this is the reason to have this solution. Zscaler Internet Access is transforming all that for web traffic security.

The pricing is fair based on its competitive market.

Palo Alto's vulnerability assessment requires an on-prem solution to work with your cloud. Zscaler Internet Access has already been bundled up to provide no-hassle, free Internet network connectivity that ensures protection. When you are using Palo Alto and want to assess vulnerability in your network, you probably need to use on-prem and cloud workloads. There is no reason to do that with Zscaler Internet Access.

Zscaler Internet Access has ease of development, like minimal setups needed for connectivity. You can continue securing protection, allowing your remote users to have access to your applications. Then, it is pretty quick to set up for Zscaler Internet Access. Some companies don't have many tools, so there are no delays there. When it comes to LogRhythm, there are a lot of things that you have to deal with. You have to deal with your log server as well as setting up your authentication server, firewalls, policies, rules, and zones, then you need to get it running and customize it based on your company's needs. Because LogRhythm has 30-plus features ready to go, it can be easier and smoother to deploy. However, there will always be a couple things where you have to do some preliminary requirements before you continue.

Overall, it is a secure platform.

I actually interviewed with Zscaler to work with them because I have been impressed with their technology overall, especially over Palo Alto Networks technology who is their competitor and has a SaaS solution as well. From the top to bottom, Zscaler Internet Access is a great security product that protects my end users and remote users in the cloud.

If you want total cost of ownership and zero-trust architecture, Zscaler is the right solution to fit the needs of any environment.

I would rate the solution as 10 out of 10.