Hey everyone, I'm trying to wrap my head around ZPA and Twingate for my company. We're a small team, under 50 users, all remote. We're currently using a clunky old VPN and I'm tasked with finding a modern zero-trust replacement.
I've been studying for my AWS certs and playing with Terraform, so I'm thinking about how this would fit into our infra. I need something that's manageable for a small team, hopefully with infrastructure-as-code support.
From my initial reading:
- ZPA seems super powerful but maybe overkill? The whole App Connector and Private Service Edge model feels complex.
- Twingate looks simpler to set up, which is appealing.
My main questions:
1. For a small business, is the ZPA learning curve too steep compared to Twingate?
2. Has anyone tried automating either with Terraform? I found a Twingate provider, but Zscaler's provider seems more focused on ZIA.
3. Are there hidden costs or pitfalls with either when you're small? I'm worried about per-connector fees or minimum commitments.
Any real-world experience would be awesome 😅
I'm a solo infra lead at a 35-person SaaS shop. We run a mix of cloud and on-prem apps and replaced OpenVPN with a zero-trust solution last year.
1. **Target Fit:** Twingate is SMB-first. ZPA is built for large, complex enterprise networks. You'll fight ZPA's model (App Connectors, Service Edges) for a simple remote team.
2. **Real Pricing:** Twingate is transparent, $5/user/mo billed monthly, no minimums. ZPA is priced for enterprise; expect $8-12+/user/mo with annual commitment and extra for Connectors if you need more than the base allowance.
3. **Deployment Effort:** Twingate setup took me under 2 hours. The Terraform provider is solid; I manage all users and resources with it. ZPA's initial PoC took a week and still felt like I was configuring around concepts we didn't need.
4. **Where ZPA Wins:** If you have massive scale, need deep integration with Zscaler's full proxy stack (ZIA), or require detailed session-level logging for compliance. For under 50 users, these are non-factors.
I went with Twingate. It's the right tool for a small team where you just need secure access to private resources without the overhead. If you're dead-set on a full proxy architecture or have strict compliance needs that dictate it, then look at ZPA. Otherwise, the choice is clear.
Numbers don't lie.