Appgate ZTNA vs. Zscaler Private Access (ZPA)
A superior, secure, performant, and cost-effective alternative to Zscaler for Universal Zero Trust Network Access
Why Customers Choose Appgate for Universal ZTNA
Appgate ZTNA’s purpose-built, direct-routed architecture enhances network performance and security, offering full control over network traffic, flexible deployment options, and predictable pricing. Unlike Zscaler’s cloud-routed solution, Appgate ZTNA ensures low latency and high availability direct access to protected resources.
Benefits of Appgate ZTNA
Direct-Routed Approach
Appgate ZTNA minimizes latency, ensuring near-instantaneous access to applications and data for maintaining productivity and user satisfaction.
Minimized Attack Surface
Appgate ZTNA inherently reduces the attack surface, lowering the risk of interception or compromise. With no need to expose network traffic to a third-party cloud, Appgate ZTNA leverages Single Packet Authorization (SPA) to make the infrastructure invisible to unauthorized users, ensuring that only legitimate, verified traffic can reach the network.
Independence from Vendor Cloud
Appgate ZTNA enhances control over data flow and security policies, ensuring that performance is not impacted by external cloud service outages or slowdowns.
Ideal for Complex Network Infrastructures
Appgate ZTNA integrates and scales seamlessly in diverse environments, including on-premises locations, multi-cloud scenarios, and legacy systems. Appgate simplifies deployment and management, enabling organizations to expand their infrastructure effortlessly.
Full Control Over Network Traffic
With a direct-routed approach, Appgate ZTNA ensures organizations retain full control over their network traffic, avoiding the vulnerabilities and potential service interruptions associated with cloud-based routing.
Predictable Pricing
Appgate ZTNA simplifies scaling via its scale-out model without hardware requirements. Additionally, there are no additional charges for virtual appliances, making it a cost-effective solution that scales with the organization's growth.
Zscaler ZPA Limitations
Cloud-Routed Approach
Routing traffic through the Zscaler cloud introduces additional latency, creating performance bottlenecks, particularly during peak usage times or if there are issues with the cloud service.
Break and Inspect
Zscaler decrypts, inspects, and re-encrypts SSL/TLS traffic, introducing privacy concerns, adding latency, and limiting customer control over their data, potentially conflicting with compliance requirements.
Dependency on Vendor Cloud
Organizations using ZPA must rely on the vendor’s cloud infrastructure, increasing risks to service resilience. Any disruption or slowdown in the vendor’s cloud can directly impact the organization’s network availability, performance, and ability to maintain business continuity.
Limited Flexibility in Complex Environments
The cloud-routed model often struggles to efficiently handle complex network infrastructures. Zscaler’s dependence on cloud routing can limit its effectiveness in such diverse and dynamic environments.
Additional Tunnel and Routing Complexity
Zscaler’s architecture introduces an additional layer of intricacy by requiring multiple tunnels to handle traffic, adding extra complexity and latency.
Where Zscaler ZPA Falls Short
ZPA’s cloud-routed architecture redirects user traffic through Zscaler’s cloud, potentially causing latency and performance issues, especially during peak times or cloud outages. The "break and inspect" function within ZPA decrypts, inspects, and re-encrypts traffic, raising privacy concerns.
Architecture
APPGATE ZTNA
Direct-routed model enables users to securely access authorized resources, bypassing cloud brokers or gateways.
ZSCALER ZPA
Cloud-routed model redirects network traffic, creating performance inefficiencies and exposing potential attack vectors.
Performance
APPGATE ZTNA
Appgate gateways provide 8 to 10 Gbps throughput per appliance, enabling efficient traffic management with fewer appliances in high-bandwidth scenarios.
ZSCALER ZPA
ZPA connectors offer 0.3 to 0.5 Gbps throughput per appliance, requiring more appliances to handle high traffic, especially in large-scale deployments.
Scalability
APPGATE ZTNA
Dynamically scales to meet fluctuating network demands, ensuring low latency and consistent performance, even during periods of high traffic or when handling simultaneous connections in high volume.
ZSCALER ZPA
Traffic is routed through Zscaler's Points of Presences (PoPs) before reaching the enterprise data center, adding latency, particularly if users and applications are geographically distant from the nearest PoP.
User Experience
APPGATE ZTNA
Lightweight client provides fast, always-on access to critical resources for end users; while IT gains granular control, real-time visibility, and simplified policy management.
ZSCALER ZPA
The ZPA client struggles with weak Wi-Fi connections, leading to frequent authentication issues and requiring resets, causing ongoing user frustration.
Pricing
APPGATE ZTNA
Cost-efficient, predictable pricing model.
ZSCALER ZPA
Expensive, with significant increases at renewals.
| ZTNA Features and Functionality | Zscaler ZPA | Appgate ZTNA |
|---|---|---|
| Secure policy-based access to applications for remote users, including third-party | Yes | Yes |
| Policy creation in the admin UI | Yes | Yes |
| User experience monitoring | Yes | No |
| Support for VoIP use case | No | Yes |
| Redirects traffic to vendor cloud | Yes | No |
| Direct access to network resources | No | Yes |
| Dynamic policy model | No | Yes |
| API-first architecture | No | Yes |
| Secures IoT devices | No | Yes |
| Application and security infrastructure invisible to attackers | No | Yes |
| Architected to support universal ZTNA | Limited | Yes |
| “Security-as-code” | No | Yes |
| Universal protocol support for all TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc. | No | Yes |
| Network access control based on user attributes (e.g., location, role, etc.) | Limited | Yes |
| Adjusts user access based on business context and APIs (e.g., ITSM) | No | Yes |
| Step-up authentication enforcement at time of access | No | Yes |
| Extensive user device profile checks to control network access | No | Yes |
| Dynamically adjusts access based on metadata or detection of new applications | No | Yes |
| Validates device posture checks throughout user session | No | Yes |
| Supports “up” (client-initiated) and “down” (server-initiated) connections | Client Only | Yes |
| Supports 10K+ policies | No | Yes |
| Appliance supports multi-GB throughput | No | Yes |
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