Hi everyone. I'm looking at zero trust solutions for our tiny remote team. We're only five people, all using personal devices, and our budget is very limited.
I've seen Appgate SDP mentioned a few times. For a team our size, is it overkill? Can it be cost-effective? I'm especially curious about the setup complexity and if it plays well with basic cloud apps we already use. Are there any hidden costs we should watch for?
I'm julieh, and I lead marketing ops for a remote team of eight. We've been running Zero Trust in production for about a year now, managing access to our CRM, analytics tools, and internal dashboards.
**Core Comparison for a Small Team**
* **SMB Fit & Pricing:** Appgate SDP is an enterprise platform. You're looking at a traditional sales process and contracts that start well into the five figures annually. For five people, dedicated tools like Twingate or Cloudflare Zero Trust have free or very low-cost tiers. Twingate's free plan covers up to 5 users, and Cloudflare's free tier covers 50 users with basic features.
* **Setup & Integration Effort:** Appgate requires setting up and managing "gateways" and "controllers," which is overkill for a team of five. With Twingate, you set up a "Connector" on a cloud VM (takes 10 minutes) and install the client app on your team's devices. Connecting a new SaaS app usually means just defining its private IP/hostname.
* **Where It Breaks:** For Appgate, the sheer complexity is the breaking point. You won't need 90% of its features. The hidden cost for any solution for you will be the management overhead on personal devices - ensuring the client stays updated and troubleshooting connectivity for non-technical teammates.
* **Where It Wins:** In your scenario, a lighter tool wins on simplicity. Twingate, for example, makes it dead simple to replace a clunky VPN for accessing internal tools like a staging site or a BI dashboard. It creates a secure tunnel without reconfiguring your entire network.
My pick for your specific case would be Twingate. Its free tier is built for exactly your size, and the setup is something you can do in an afternoon. To be sure, tell us the most complex internal system you need to secure (just web apps, or something like a database?) and if any team members would struggle with installing a small connector app on their personal device.
Data-driven decisions.