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Most buyers should pick Okta.
Choose Okta if you need workforce or customer identity with some visible pricing: Starter is $6 per user/month billed annually, and Core Essentials is $14. Choose Zscaler if you need a broader inline zero-trust security platform for users, workloads, and AI, and its access model fits. The trade-off is price opacity: Zscaler publishes no rates, while its Essentials details include a 500-user minimum for ZPA Standard and capped app connectivity.
01Side by side
| Okta | Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price | $6/user/month, billed annually | Not published |
| Free plan | No | No |
| Best for | Workforce and customer identity | Broader zero-trust security |
| Core strength | Identity, authentication, and access management | Inline access control and threat response |
| Learning curve | Review ease-of-use score: 7/10 | Review ease-of-use score: 5/10 |
| Integrations and data | OIDC/SAML options; workflows vary by tier | App connector and segment limits vary by tier |
| Team/seat costs | Per-user rates published for some workforce tiers | 500-user ZPA Standard minimum; prices unlisted |
| Support | Review support score: 5/10 | Review support score: 5/10 |
Okta Choose Okta if
- Choose Okta if workforce identity pricing transparency matters.
- Choose Okta if you need SSO, MFA, or Universal Directory.
- Choose Okta if customer identity is part of the requirement.
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange Choose Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange if
- Choose Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange if you need inline access controls.
- Choose Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange if securing AI models is in scope.
- Choose Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange if its app limits fit your deployment.
02Pricing compared
Okta publishes some workforce rates: Starter is $6 per user/month and Core Essentials is $14, both billed annually. Essentials is $17 per user/month, also billed annually. Professional and Enterprise rates are not published. For customer identity, Okta lists an Enterprise base platform at $3,000 per month; suite and add-on prices are not published here.
Zscaler publishes no prices or billing terms for either listed platform. Its Essentials Platform includes ZPA Standard at one user per 20 subscribed, with a 500-user minimum, plus limits on app connectors and segments. The Zscaler Platform removes the connector limit but still lists 20 app segments. Budgeting requires a quote, and buyers should check whether the included access limits fit before comparing total cost.
03Features and depth
Okta is primarily an identity and access product. Its workforce plans list single sign-on, multifactor authentication, directory, workflows, and—at higher tiers—lifecycle management, access governance, device access, and identity threat protection. Okta also describes customer identity products for consumer apps and business partners, plus tools for verifying AI agent identities, setting permissions, and auditing actions. The breadth is useful, but several capabilities are add-ons or sit in plans with unpublished prices.
Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange is positioned as a broader security platform. It sits inline on connections and limits each entity to authorized resources, with products aimed at users, workloads, AI agents and models, and SOC threat response. Its plan details matter: Essentials lists up to 20 App Connectors and 10 App Segments, while the Zscaler Platform lists unlimited connectors and 20 segments. These are different jobs, not direct feature-for-feature substitutes: Okta centers on identity management; Zscaler centers on securing connections and access.
04Ease of use and learning curve
Our review scores Okta 7/10 for overall quality and 7/10 for ease of use; its support and user-sentiment scores are lower, at 5 and 5.5. The review also advises checking migration effort and higher-tier costs before committing. The pricing details show why: some workforce features require higher tiers or add-ons.
Zscaler’s published review gives it 6.3/10 overall and 5/10 for ease of use. Its plan limits make sizing part of the buying process: confirm user minimums, app segments, connectors, and workload traffic against your needs. The materials do not document setup time or migration steps for either product, so we can’t claim one is easier to deploy.
Questions people ask
Is Zscaler awful?
The published review rates Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange 6.3/10 overall, with a 5/10 ease-of-use score and 4.5/10 user-sentiment score. That does not establish that the product is awful. It does flag reasons to scrutinize fit, access limits, support expectations, and the quote before buying.
Who is Okta’s biggest competitor?
The published material does not identify Okta’s biggest competitor, so we can’t name one as a fact. Zscaler is not a direct like-for-like match in this comparison: Okta focuses on identity and access management, while Zscaler focuses on inline zero-trust security and authorized connections.
What is zero trust connectivity on Zscaler?
Zscaler describes its Zero Trust Exchange as sitting inline on connections and connecting each entity only to resources it is authorized to reach. The platform is positioned to secure users, data, workloads, AI agents, and models, while helping SOCs respond to threats.
Which is better, Zscaler or Palo Alto?
The published material covers Zscaler and Okta, not Palo Alto, so it does not support a fair Zscaler-versus-Palo Alto verdict. For this comparison, choose based on the job: Okta for identity management with some published rates, or Zscaler for inline zero-trust access with unpublished pricing.