We performed a comparison between Cisco Web Security Appliance and Zscaler Internet Access based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Zscaler Internet Access is the preferred choice when compared to Cisco Web Security Appliance due to its advanced features such as cloud-native proxy architecture, cloud browser isolation, and advanced threat protection. Users found it easy to set up and configure, with a stable and scalable performance. While pricing, reporting functionality, and technical support can be improved, users consider Zscaler Internet Access as a reliable and cost-effective solution for remote users with a strong return on investment.
"The solution is stable."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"Cisco regularly upgrades features for the customer's security requirements."
"The technical support is good. It is reactive and the documentation is very specific and very useful."
"The most valuable feature is that we can use it as a proxy."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance has very good security benefits for any company and is easy to integrate."
"The setup was very easy and straightforward."
"Since working with the tool, we have not found any threats in our organization."
"This solution offers categorization for YouTube and other specific applications from Facebook to WhatsApp, which can be controlled whether it's on mobile or PC."
"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 solution offers a distributed organization to master and to control all of the endpoints."
"The most valuable features of Zscaler Internet Access are it's on the cloud, high network performance, and the interception of users is very easy."
"We enjoy all of the proxy capabilities and the capability to integrate into the SIEM/SOC solution."
"After a proper implementation, the maintenance is very low."
"Whether you are in a hotel somewhere, or in Africa, it does not matter. You will get the Zscaler protection presence anywhere."
"The VPN is valuable, as the whole technology is very different from a traditional VPN."
"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 just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The tool needs to provide logs. They need to improve firewall threat defense."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The GUI is not user-friendly, so it needs to improve or be simplified."
"The licensing model needs to be more flexible."
"The transparent proxy is quite difficult to enforce on smartphones and tablets."
"Technical support needs to be improved because they take a very long time and there is no communication or notification."
"It should have a user-based quota, per-user quota, that can be defined on the appliance."
"The solution is priced high."
"They could provide more time for the onboarding the training of an IT person."
"Currently, the solution's interface is not that user-friendly."
"In terms of user experience, it could be better."
"They should enhance the audit reporting feature."
"The reporting functionality could be a bit easier to use. There is a reporting function, but it's quite hard to do any good reporting, from a user-management perspective. For example, if a department manager wants to know how his department is using the web, there is a way to get the data, but it's quite cumbersome to get it and show it well. And that's true for comparing between departments."
"We'd like to have more plugins and integration."
"If they can also integrate with the multi-factor authentication to prompt users to do another, second-factor authentication, that would be ideal."
"It also needs better integration with other applications as well. There are some restrictions."
Cisco Web Security Appliance is ranked 9th in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 29 reviews while Zscaler Internet Access is ranked 2nd in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 47 reviews. Cisco Web Security Appliance is rated 7.8, while Zscaler Internet Access is rated 8.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Web Security Appliance writes "Ensures security for remote workers". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Zscaler Internet Access writes "Provides integrated CASB and file sandboxing but could be less expensive ". Cisco Web Security Appliance is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Fortinet FortiProxy, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway and Symantec Proxy, whereas Zscaler Internet Access is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Netskope , Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks and FortiSASE . See our Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. Zscaler Internet Access report.
See our list of best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors.
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