Zscaler Alternatives

Cloudflare One is Cloudflare's SASE platform. For a Zscaler customer, one device agent and one dashboard cover both halves of what Zscaler sells as two products. The Secure Web Gateway replaces Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA), and Zero Trust Network Access replaces Zscaler Private Access (ZPA).

Pricing is the reason it ranks first. The Free plan covers up to 50 users at $0, with ZTNA and SWG included. Pay-as-you-go costs $7 per user per month with no user limit. Contract pricing is custom: it keeps logs up to six months with Logpush to your SIEM, and opens full DLP and unlimited CASB integrations as add-ons. For 200 users, Pay-as-you-go comes to $16,800 a year. On a Zscaler reseller listing, ZIA Business and ZPA Business for 50 users cost $15,360 a year together, so Cloudflare covers four times the headcount for about the same budget, on lighter features.

Tip: watch the logs before you watch the price. The Free plan keeps standard logs for up to 24 hours and Pay-as-you-go for up to 30 days. If your auditors ask for 90 days of web logs, plan for the contract plan. Our guide to leaving Cloudflare Zero Trust lists the limits people hit later.

Netskope is the Zscaler swap that loses the least. Netskope One brings a secure web gateway, CASB, DLP, zero trust network access (Netskope Private Access) and a cloud firewall under what it calls one engine, one client, one console and one network. The network is NewEdge, a private security cloud that Netskope runs itself rather than renting from a public cloud. Where Netskope is strongest is SaaS and data: it decrypts and decodes user activity in cloud, AI, SaaS and web apps, not just the URL, so DLP rules apply to what people do inside those apps.

The price is the weak point, as with Zscaler. Most deals are quoted, but Netskope's own AWS contract listing shows 12-month prices per 100 users, support included: $64,363 for the secure web gateway and $13,714.80 for Private Access. Both together cost $78,077.80, about $65 per user per month, against $25.60 for ZIA plus ZPA Business on a Zscaler reseller listing. Its usage listing, Netskope One SSE for AWS, bills $0.01 per GB inspected with no fixed tier: 10 TB a month costs $100, a floor for cloud workloads.

Cato Networks sells SASE in the original sense: networking and security as one cloud service. Its SASE Cloud Platform joins Cato SD-WAN with SSE 360, which converges a secure web gateway, CASB, DLP, ZTNA and firewall as a service, plus IPS and anti-malware. Traffic goes into Cato's points of presence, where its Single Pass Cloud Engine, SPACE, runs the firewall, threat prevention, CASB, DLP and ZTNA in one stack.

Cato's AWS listings show how it prices: by bandwidth, not by user. The SASE Cloud Platform costs $45,600 for 12 months for a 1 GB bandwidth pool that you can spread across sites. Cato SSE 360, the security part alone, costs $22,800 for the same pool. That is $3,800 and $1,900 a month. Contracts run 12, 24 or 36 months, and access expires if you do not renew.

Spread over 400 users, the SASE pool comes to $9.50 per user per month. Spread over 100 users, it is $38. If you are also replacing a firewall at each site, compare it with our business firewall ranking.

FortiSASE is Fortinet's cloud-delivered security for users off the corporate network. It lists SWG, ZTNA, CASB, firewall as a service, SaaS security posture management, a secure browser, secure SD-WAN and end-to-end digital experience monitoring. All capabilities run on one OS with one agent, FortiClient, which also brings endpoint protection and vulnerability management. Fortinet states a network of more than 200 points of presence. The real argument is integration: customers already on Fortinet Secure SD-WAN can connect it to FortiSASE in less than 5 minutes, and manage FortiGates and FortiSASE together in FortiManager.

Fortinet sells FortiSASE on AWS at $11,700 for 12 months per 50 users on the Comprehensive tier. That is $234 per user per year, or $19.50 per user per month. Against ZIA Business and ZPA Business on a Zscaler reseller listing, $25.60 per user per month together, it costs about 24% less for web and private access in one agent.

Watch the blocks and the refund line. The price is per 50 users, so 60 users buy two blocks: $23,400 a year, or $32.50 per user per month. The listing also says no refunds after activation. Our guide to leaving Fortinet shows the other side of that lock-in.

Cisco sells two things a Zscaler customer should look at. Umbrella is DNS-layer security: it blocks known malicious domains before the connection is made. DNS Advantage adds a proxy for risky domains, with URL blocking and file inspection by antivirus engines and Cisco AMP. Secure Access is Cisco's full SSE: web and SaaS access, zero trust network access with or without a client, and VPN as a service for apps that ZTNA cannot reach, all behind one console and one unified client.

Umbrella has public prices on AWS, sold by Cisco: DNS Essentials with enhanced support at $43.92 per user for 12 months, and DNS Advantage with enhanced support at $65.88. That is $3.66 and $5.49 per user per month. For 500 users, DNS Advantage costs $32,940 a year. Secure Access is quoted by user count and term, and renews by itself for another 12 months unless you cancel at least 60 days before the new term or untick auto-renewal at order. Cisco has announced the end of sale of Umbrella DNS in 2027; Secure Access DNS replaces it.

Watch the scope: DNS security is not a full proxy. The DNS tiers proxy only risky domains and include no private access, so they replace neither a full ZIA proxy nor ZPA. It makes a fast first layer if your Zscaler term ends before your new SSE is ready.

Check Point SASE, formerly Harmony SASE, grew out of Perimeter 81, which Check Point bought in 2023. It takes a different route from Zscaler's proxy: its Internet Access package inspects traffic on the laptop, with category-based web filtering, on-device SSL inspection, split-tunnel protection and AI-driven threat prevention on public Wi-Fi. A hybrid mode adds a cloud gateway. Browser Security with DLP, file sanitization, phishing protection and GenAI governance is built in, all managed from the Check Point Portal. Private access, the ZPA side, is a separate product, Check Point SASE Private Access, on more than 85 PoPs.

On AWS, Internet Access on-device Premium costs $3,600 for 100 users. On the 1-month contract, that is $3,600 a month, or $36 per user. On the 12-month contract, the same $3,600 covers the whole year, a 92% saving: $3 per user per month. The hybrid package with one gateway costs $6,360 on the same terms, and Private Access $11,160 (Premium) or $14,760 (Complete) for 100 users and one gateway.

Watch the contract length first: one month at the monthly price costs as much as a full year on the 12-month contract, and the listing states no refunds. Then watch the block: 40 users pay for 100, or $7.50 each per month on the yearly term.

Twingate does one part of Zscaler's job: private access. Users reach internal apps, servers and databases through connectors you deploy next to them, in a Docker container or as a systemd service on a Linux host. It replaces ZPA or a legacy VPN, not ZIA: there is no full web proxy, and DNS filtering is an add-on on Business and Enterprise.

Starter is free for up to 5 users and 50 resources. Teams costs $5 per user per month for up to 100 users and Business $10 for up to 500, both billed yearly at 15% off; month to month, they cost $6 and $12. Enterprise is custom. For 80 users on Teams billed yearly, that is $4,800 a year. ZPA Business costs $15.60 per user per month on a Zscaler reseller listing, sold in blocks of 50, so the same 80 users pay for two blocks: $18,720 a year.

Watch the plan limits: SSO comes through Google Workspace on Teams, and through Okta or Entra ID only from Business, so a Teams buyer on those identity providers pays $10, not $5. Teams stops at 100 users and Business at 500. If you also need a web gateway, pair it with Cloudflare's free plan. Our business VPN ranking covers the VPN side of the same choice.

Prisma Access is Palo Alto Networks' cloud-delivered security service. It covers the same ground as ZIA plus ZPA: a secure web gateway, ZTNA for private apps, a CASB with SaaS security posture management, and firewall as a service. For branch offices, it deploys firewalls in the cloud to protect remote networks. Palo Alto backs it with a 99.999% uptime SLA and a 10 ms security processing SLA, and you manage it from Strata Cloud Manager or Panorama, the console Palo Alto firewall teams already run.

Prisma Access is sold on quote. What is public is the unit: one mobile user per license unit, who can connect through the GlobalProtect app, an explicit proxy, or both, and 1 Mbps per unit for remote networks. Editions are Secure Web Gateway, ZTNA and Enterprise. Logs need their own Strata Logging Service license: ask for it on the same quote.

Watch the end date. When a license expires, the service runs for 15 days with the configuration frozen, then shuts down, and the tenant is deleted 30 days after expiration. Size the license on real users: the service counts unique users over the last 30 days. If your offices run Palo Alto firewalls, compare that stack in our business firewall ranking.