Zscaler Alternative for Controlling & Monitoring Internet Use

Looking for an easy-to-use Zscaler Internet Access alternative to stop employees from visiting dangerous, inappropriate, and distracting websites?

Both Zscaler and CurrentWare can monitor and control internet use—which should you choose?

We’ll compare both solutions so you can choose the right fit for your company.

Trusted by

Cushing Terrell Logo
HBCS Revenue Cycle Logo
HBCS Revenue Cycle Logo
Morris, Manning, and Martin LLP Logo
Viking Yachts Logo

& many more

Trusted by

HBCS Revenue Cycle Logo
VES Veteran Evaluation Services Logo
Viking Yachts Logo

& many more

About CurrentWare’s Internet Security Features

With CurrentWare’s web filtering and monitoring solutions, blocking websites and auditing user browsing history is as easy as a few clicks.

CurrentWare extends your organization’s on-site internet usage policies to laptops and computers running outside the corporate network, allowing you to enforce internet use policies for remote workers.

URL Filtering—Block/Allow Specific Sites

  • Block users from accessing specific websites
  • Set exceptions for websites you would like to allow or only allow access to specific websites
  • Create unique internet restriction policies for each group of users or computers
    Screenshot of the URL filter from BrowseControl, CurrentWare's web filtering software
    Screenshot of category filtering window from BrowseControl web filter. Porn and social media categories blocked.

    Category Filtering—Swiftly Block Millions of Websites

    Use the web content categorization database to block millions of websites across 100+ URL categories.

    Easily block users from accessing social media, porn, games, known virus-infected websites, and more!

    “This software was easy to install and customize to our needs. Category Filtering is such a time saver and of course saving time is saving money!”

    Scott S, Senior Systems Engineer

    Keep a Pulse on
    Real-Time Team Activity

    View the real-time productivity, active website/application, and availability status of individuals and teams via an at-a-glance dashboard.

    • Get high-level views of the activity and productivity of individual users and teams
    • Easily see who is online now, who has gone idle, and who hasn’t logged in today
    • Dig deeper into user activity with insights into bandwidth usage, web browsing, software usage, and more
    Screenshot of the URL filter from BrowseControl, CurrentWare's web filtering software

    CASE STUDY

    Shady Maple Transforms Their Productivity With Internet Filtering and Monitoring Software

    Being able to identify negative browsing trends and put a stop to them within a couple of hours has meant that our employees are focused on the job almost all of the time. We have become an extremely efficient workforce.

    "When we first saw the employee tracking reports we were totally surprised by some of the behaviors that had gone under the radar" - Kevin Porsche, IT Admin, Shady Maple

    Find a Web Security Solution For Your Needs

    When to Use CurrentWare’s Alternatives to Zscaler When to Use Zscaler Internet Access
    • You’re searching for a cost-effective and easy-to-use filtering solution for blocking and monitoring internet access
    • You’d like an intuitive and flexible solution for controlling internet access, protecting sensitive data, and monitoring employee computer use
    • You’d benefit from more granular insights into user activity, including file transfers, internet browsing habits, and software usage trends
    • You have a large distributed workforce and dedicated system administration staff that will deploy and manage the solution
    • You want to consolidate multiple advanced network security tools & cloud security software (IPS, CASB, SWG, etc.) into a single Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
    • You are prepared to allocate considerable budget to a cloud security solution with comprehensive protection against cyber threats for your entire network beyond the benefits of a web filter

     

    Compare CurrentWare vs. Zscaler Features

    Compare the key Data Loss Prevention, Web Filtering, and User Activity Monitoring features of Zscaler Internet Access & Zscaler Data Protection vs CurrentWare’s Zscaler alternatives to choose the right fit for your organization

    Note: This section compares the employee monitoring and internet security features of Zscaler Internet Access (ZIA) & Zscaler Data Protection (CASB/DLP) to CurrentWare’s alternatives to Zscaler. It will not cover their end-user-experience monitoring tool Zscaler Digital Experience (ZDX) or their zero-trust network access tool Zscaler Secure Private Access (ZPA), which provides secure remote access to private applications.

    CurrentWare vs Zscaler features
    URL Filtering
    Web Content Category Filtering
    SSL Traffic Inspection
    Block File Transfers via Cloud Storage
    Block File Downloads & Uploads

    Endpoint-based
    Port Filtering
    Network-based
    Block Applications
    Custom Block Pages
    Manage Offsite Users
    Antimalware Scanning
    Enforce Google SafeSearch
    Time-Based Controls

    Web Security

    This section will compare the web content filtering and web threat protection features of Zscaler Internet Access to CurrentWare.

    CurrentWare’s web filter BrowseControl is a fantastic Zscaler Internet Access alternative for controlling employee internet use to improve productivity and mitigate security risks.

    CurrentWare has all the features you need to proactively block undesirable websites such as those with adult content and applications such as unauthorized cloud services providers  (Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) to keep your workforce secure and productive. 

    If you need advanced threat protection for specific security requirements, Zscaler goes beyond internet filtering and blocks malware with real-time deep analysis of network traffic and comprehensive security solutions including functioning as a cloud access security broker.

    Last updated June 2024

    CurrentWare vs Zscaler features
    User Activity Reports & Alerts
    Live Desktop Screen Viewing
    Screenshot Monitoring
    Productive vs. Unproductive Time
    Software Utilization Tracking
    Search Query Reports
    User Idle Time Tracking
    Monitor Remote Workers
    Location Insights
    URL Categorization
    Audit Local User Logons
    Track File Transfers
    Track Downloads/Uploads
    Stealth Mode Option

    User Activity Monitoring

    CurrentWare’s user activity monitoring features give you the insights needed to track employee performance, monitor remote workers, and ensure that employees follow acceptable use policies.

    While Zscaler does log internet traffic, it falls short as an employee monitoring tool. Their monitoring features are best used to detect and diagnose technical issues, track web security trends, and audit user activity in cloud applications for data security purposes.

    CurrentWare’s Zscaler alternatives offer more granular real-time insights into employee web browsing, productivity, and application usage.

    Note: Zscaler’s user activity monitoring features in this section are inclusive of Zscaler Internet Access and Zscaler Data Protection

    Last updated June 2024

    CurrentWare vs Zscaler features
    Block Unauthorized Removable Media
    Allow Trusted Removable Media
    Block File Downloads & Uploads
    Block File Transfers to Cloud Storage
    Block High-Risk Websites
    Block File Transfers
    Browser Isolation
    Cloud Access Security Broker (CASB)
    In-Line Content Inspection
    Data Fingerprinting
    Intrusion Prevention System
    App Blacklisting
    App Whitelisting
    Sandboxing
    Track Downloads/Uploads
    File Transfer Activity Reports & Alerts

    Data Loss Prevention & Cybersecurity

    Monitoring and restricting transfers of sensitive data to data egress points such as USB devices, cloud storage services, and more is critical for detecting and preventing insider theft.

    CurrentWare’s endpoint data leakage prevention capabilities ensure your sensitive data is safe against insider threats.

    In terms of data security, Zscaler’s platform includes a variety of advanced data loss prevention features that are best suited for controlling the flow of data within and between cloud apps.

    Zscaler’s endpoint client provides identical DLP capabilities to CurrentWare including removable media control, file transfer blocking, and upload/download tracking.

    Last updated June 2024

    CurrentWare vs Zscaler features
    User & PC-Based Policies
    Central Admin Console
    Multiple Consoles
    Manage Remote Users
    Stealth Deployment Option
    Client Integrity Protection
    On-Premises Deployment

    Self-Managed Cloud
    Cloud Deployment
    Cloud Native
    Free Trial
    NFR Licenses
    Active Directory Integration
    Windows
    Linux
    iOS/Android
    MacOS

    Setup & Deployment

    Thanks to its simple interface and setup process, getting started with CurrentWare is easy—whether or not you’re an experienced system administrator. 

    Several Zscaler reviews and community comments have noted that the setup and deployment of Zscaler can be incredibly complex and fraught with technical conflicts.

    Organizations would benefit from purchasing a Zscaler advanced support plan that includes a technical account manager to help guide their implementation and troubleshoot issues along the way.

    That said, CurrentWare is currently only available for the Windows operating system. Companies searching for MacOS web security solutions will benefit from Zscaler’s cross-platform compatibility.

    Last updated June 2024

    CurrentWare vs Zscaler features
    8:00 AM – 6:00 PM ET, Monday to Friday Support Availability 24/7
    Live Chat Feature
    Phone Support
    Training Videos
    Email Support
    Knowledge Base
    MSP/Reseller Program
    Annual Contract Type Annual
    English Languages English
    10 MOQ 50-1000

    Customer Support

    Even the best Zscaler competitors have to have a reliable technical support team to ensure that its customers get the services they need to integrate the filtering solution.

    CurrentWare takes pride in its dedication to customer success, whether you’re just starting your trial or actively using CurrentWare in your network. 

    Zscaler include a variety of premium support plans that can be purchased for an extra cost.  These plans include amenities such as a dedicated technical account manager, 24/7/365 access to support engineers, and a support SLA.

    Due to the complexity of configuring and maintaining the Zscaler platform it is recommended that organizations factor in the added costs of premium support in their purchasing decision.

    Last updated June 2024

    CurrentWare

    Get Started Today
    With a Free Trial

    Fully functional. Easy to use. Install in minutes.

    Zscaler Reviews

    Costs & Sales Practices

    Many Zscaler customers have expressed frustration with how expensive their solutions are. This concern is compounded by reports of questionable sales practices.

    Complexity, Bugs & Conflicts

    Zscaler’s integration into existing IT infrastructure can pose challenges, especially for organizations with complex systems.

    Customer Support

    The documentation provided by Zscaler can be complex and challenging to comprehend. Unfortunately, Zscaler reviews have noted that their customer support is lacking as well.

    Zscaler has been consistently screwing their customers recently, and has been caught inflating the number of licenses on multiple occasions

    …ZScaler has been losing customers and their sales teams have been aggressively pushing customers to buy more licenses…

    …Management over there at ZScaler does not give a single crap about screwing their customers, and it’s only about the numbers for them.

    Source: Comment on /r/Zscaler, 2023

    The Zscaler sales team was an absolute nightmare to deal with.

    They were incredibly pushy, didn’t listen to what we asked, tried going around myself and my boss when we said we were also evaluating Netskope, and then tried to dictate to us what we should/could evaluate in the POC.

    Getting pricing and even a demo out of them was difficult. The whole experience just left a sour taste in my mouth, and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with them anymore.

    Source: Comment on /r/cybersecurity/, 2022

    Zscaler Internet Access is a complex structured product, with many features hidden behind various subscription paywalls. To get all the features your company needs, you may be paying for features it doesn’t as well.

    Source: G2 Review, 2023

    ZCC [Zscaler Client Connector] is trash, it was a disaster, our daily work is always about ZScaler. Sometimes it just doesn’t work. The SSL Inspection of ZScaler ZCC is a nightmare to troubleshoot; Telephony Tool/voice app doesn’t work as expected, having a lot of intermittent issues.

    Source: Comment on /r/sysadmin, 2024

    If you are a company in the business of making software, keep this product away from your software developers. Far, far away.

    It does not play nice with many software development tools, even once you go through the pain of adding their root certificate in all the right places.

     

    Source: Capterra Review, 2021

    Works if you’re very cloud focused, tons of other companies doing ZTNA way better without a reliance on a vendor data center/PoP.

    SWG is decent if you’re okay with agents. Support is seriously lacking. Don’t even think about ZS if you’re running anything OT/ICS.

    I mostly hear complaints around performance since you’re sharing a PoP [Point of Presence] with thousands of other customers.

    When I used ZS previously I’d lose 500Mbps of bandwidth due to their processing, just trying to hit a SaaS app that ZS “directly peers with”.

    Recently, one of [my] customers told me that once they rolled out ZS to their manufacturing lines, they saw thousands of IPs start to hit their previously airgapped systems, all from the shared PoP

    Source: Comment on /r/sysadmin, 2024

    I have spent hours and even days interacting with Zscaler support, often with no solution ever found.

    After spending months fighting frequent issues that came up, I finally threw my hands in the air and left my company.

    Source: Capterra Review, 2021

    Support is incredibly terrible. Unhelpful and wastes a lot of time. I really can’t emphasize enough how frustrating the support was. I ended up just finding my own workarounds 90% of the time, after spending hours and hours on the line with support…

    Source: Capterra Review, 2021

    We’ve had nothing but problems, it’s been months and they haven’t fixed them.

    All routing works, but not to M365 or Azure AD?

    Support has you generate the same logs every call and they say they review them, but they don’t.

    Maybe we’re a 1 off, but I would avoid in the future.

    Source: Comment on /r/sysadmin, 2020

    End-User Experience

    As an end user of it, I hate it.

    For the first year or so that we had it, HTTP connections would just time out a few times an hour.

    That problem seems to be solved but it slows things down so much that sometimes I google problems on my phone’s cell connection because it’s faster.

    Source: Comment on /r/sysadmin/, 2020

    I don’t manage or administer Zscaler, we have a dedicated team but as an end user I’ve had 0 issues.

    Source: Comment on /r/sysadmin/, 2020

    From the end user perspective, I don’t think there is anything great about Zscaler. It sometimes can completely hinder your ability to do work.

    If you’re an employer looking at this for an option, know that because of Zscaler, your team may not be able to access their work without IT support for long periods of time.

    Source: G2 Review, 2023

    Zscaler works in the background and does not interfere with normal user operations. It does so consistently, wherever the individual works in the world

    Source: Trust Radius Review, 2018

    Breadth of Capabilities

    This is by far the best option for security for a company that is 100% remote and using cloud infrastructure to run their business.

    Source: Capterra Review, 2023

    Sysadmin perspective: It’s pretty great, a bit of work to roll out and tweak things and hopefully you have a good setup resource from Zscaler.

    If set up correctly, it’s more secure than a VPN and provides more security for your users and insight into issues they may be having.

    Source: Comment on /r/sysadmin, 2024

    Zscaler helps me browse the internet safely, without having me worry whether a particular website may be malicious or not.

    It has helped me prevent data loss and data theft due to the blacklisting of potentially dangerous websites and also provided me warnings in case of suspicious websites.

    Source: Capterra Review, 2024

    It can integrate with a lot of products as per the need like we can Integrate it with SIEM solution for exporting logs, or can integrate with IDPs to authenticate users.

    Source: Capterra Review, 2023

    Learn More About CurrentWare

    Benefits of CurrentWare

    See what you can do with the capabilities of the CurrentWare Suite

    Request a Demo

    Book a custom guided tour of our software with the CurrentWare team

    Case Studies & Reviews

    Don’t just take our word for it—Hear what our customers have to say!

    We’re Here to Help

    The CurrentWare team prides itself on its high-quality customer support. We will support you every step of the way—whether you’re just starting your free trial or actively using CurrentWare in your network.

    At CurrentWare, customer success is our priority at every stage of your journey. We take pride in providing high-quality and reliable pre and post-sale support to make your experience exceptional.

    We offer the same level of high-quality support to all of our customers—no extra fees or packages necessary!

    Mike Noseworthy
    Customer Support Lead

    Product Training

    CurrentWare provides the documentation, training, and other resources you need to take full advantage of the capabilities of our products.

    Technical Support

    Our expert support team is here to help you. Reach out to us over email, live chat, or phone from 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM ET, Monday to Friday.

    Not Satisfied With Your Vendor?

    Switch to Us & Get a Discount

    Make the switch to CurrentWare today to save up to 25% on your first year!

    CurrentWare’s Key Features

    Internet Off

    User Activity Monitoring

    Track web browsing, software use, search queries, and more

    Remote Screen Capture

    Screenshot Monitoring

    Take automatic screenshots or remotely view desktops

    Application Blocker

    Track Software Usage

    Get insights into software usage trends in your organization

    Stealth

    Transparent & Stealth Modes

    Run silently in the background or provide notice of monitoring

    Block USB

    Block USB & Other Devices

    Set full access, read only or no access on storage devices

    Allowed List

    Device Whitelist

    Allow only authorized storage devices to be used

    Block Files

    Block File Transfers

    Prevent files from being transferred to portable storage

    Reports

    DLP Activity Reports

    Track file transfers, storage device use, file operations, and more

    Internet Off

    Block Websites

    Block websites based on
    URLs & content categories

    Download Filter
    Block Downloads/Uploads

    Prevent uploading and downloading based on file type

    Application Blocker
    Application Blacklisting

    Block specific Windows
    applications from launching

    Internet Off

    PC Power Management

    Remotely track and control PC power states

    Internet Off

    Centralized Console

    Manage all your users from the
    centralized console with Active
    Directory import or syncing

    Internet Off

    Platform Security

    Protect your CurrentWare console
    with 2FA, passwords, privilege
    management, and more

    Internet Off

    Offsite Management

    Extend onsite security policies to computers running outside the corporate network

    Internet Off

    SQL Server Supported

    Database scaled for enterprise and
    large business operations using
    Microsoft SQL Server

    CurrentWare

    Get Started Today
    With a Free Trial

    Fully functional. Easy to use. Install in minutes.

    See How CurrentWare Compares to Other Vendors

    CurrentWare
    vs Insightful

    Employee Monitoring

    CurrentWare
    vs InterGuard

    Web Filter, DLP & UAM

    CurrentWare
    vs Endpoint Protector

    Data Loss Prevention

    CurrentWare
    vs Teramind

    DLP & UAM

    CurrentWare
    vs K9 Web Protection

    Internet Management

    CurrentWare
    vs WebTitan

    Web Filtering

    CurrentWare
    vs Veriato

    Workforce Analytics

    CurrentWare
    vs ActivTrak

    Workforce Analytics

    CurrentWare
    vs Zscaler

    Internet Management

    CurrentWare
    vs GFI WebMonitor

    Internet Management

    CurrentWare
    vs Forcepoint

    Internet Security

    CurrentWare
    vs Cisco Umbrella

    Internet Security

    CurrentWare
    vs Kaspersky

    Endpoint Security

    CurrentWare
    vs GFI EndPointSecurity

    Data Loss Prevention