We’re a 50-person engineering shop (SaaS product, fully remote) and our leadership is pushing hard for a full SASE/SSE platform. Netskope is the frontrunner after the initial vendor bake-off, but the quotes we’re getting are… substantial. I’m tasked with the final due diligence.
From what I’ve seen in the POC:
* The inline CASB for our SaaS tools (GitHub, GitLab, AWS, GCP) is robust. Real-time API protection is a step up from our current proxy+DLP bolt-ons.
* The steering client for remote devices works well, but it’s another agent to manage.
* The policy engine is powerful, but complexity = admin overhead.
My main hangups:
* **Cost:** It’s priced per user, per month, with a minimum commit. For a team our size, the annual bill is easily into the mid-six figures. That’s a major line item.
* **ROI:** We’re not a huge enterprise with a sprawling, unmanaged device problem. Is the premium over stitching together a few best-of-breed tools (like a Zscaler Internet Access plus a standalone CASB) justified for our scale?
* **Contract Lock-in:** The sales rep is pushing a 3-year term hard, with aggressive discounts upfront. That makes me nervous.
I’d love to hear from teams of a similar profile:
* Did you see a tangible reduction in actual risk or incidents, or is it more about compliance/check-boxing?
* How steep was the operational learning curve? Did you need dedicated security staff to run it?
* Any gotchas during negotiation? We’re being told the “NewEdge” infrastructure is non-negotiable in the tier we need.
Stay pragmatic