Hi everyone, I'm new here and trying to navigate a big decision for our small company.
We're a team of about 20 people, fully remote. Right now, everyone just uses a standard VPN to access our internal tools and the AWS management console. Our leadership is pushing for a "zero trust" model and has Zscaler ZPA on the shortlist after some sales calls.
From what I've read, ZPA seems incredibly powerful, but I'm worried it might be too much for our size and complexity. Our use case feels pretty basic: secure access to a handful of web apps and our cloud console. The sales pitch was heavy on features we'd probably never use.
Could anyone with experience share what it's really like to run ZPA at a smaller scale?
My main questions are:
- Is the administrative overhead significant for a small team without a dedicated security person? I handle sales ops and CRM, so I'd be involved in the rollout.
- How does the pricing actually work at our scale? The quotes seem to be per user, but are there hidden costs for the connectors or bandwidth that make it less predictable?
- What's the real day-to-day impact on the end-users? Is the client agent stable, or does it cause help desk tickets for remote workers?
I'm trying to calculate the true ROI beyond just the "check the box" for zero trust. Any honest feedback on pitfalls or if we should be looking at simpler alternatives first would be a huge help. Thanks!