Hi everyone! I've been diving into the whole SASE thing for my company (we're around 50 people, mostly remote). We're currently using a mix of things and it's getting messy. My boss asked me to look at FortiSASE since we have some other Fortinet gear, but also told me to get a full picture of the market.
I've done a bunch of reading and Zscaler and Netskope come up *everywhere* as the big alternatives. I get that they're leaders, but I'm curious about what else is out there. We're not a huge enterprise, so sometimes the biggest names can be overkill or have a pricing model that doesn't fit us.
Can anyone recommend other SASE or even SSE (I'm still getting the acronyms straight 😅) platforms you've actually used or evaluated? I'm especially interested in ones that play nice with SaaS apps (like our CRM and project tools) and are known for being user-friendly for the admin (which would be me, and I'm still learning!).
Things I'm trying to compare are: how well they handle web filtering and data loss prevention for cloud apps, the client experience for our team, and of course, the cost. Are there any solid "challenger" brands or maybe even more integrated platforms from folks like Cisco, Palo Alto, or others that aren't just Zscaler/Netskope/Fortinet? Real-world experience would be super helpful.