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Cisco Secure Access

Cisco Systems, Inc.

Reviews from AWS customer

10 AWS reviews

External reviews

31 reviews
from

External reviews are not included in the AWS star rating for the product.


    reviewer2634264

Secure access has strengthened banking audits and simplified managing multi‑layer protections

  • February 11, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We operate in the financial industry, specifically banking, where security is a primary concern when it comes to financial transactions. Our use case always prioritizes security requirements specific to the financial industry.

What is most valuable?

Cisco Secure Access offers exceptional ease of use as its most valuable feature. The single pane dashboard gives my team the ability to perform tasks on one dashboard and execute changes with a shorter duration. This is particularly beneficial because we have multiple layers of security when it comes to the data center, which helps us capture requirements in a single go.

Our security posture has improved significantly with Cisco Secure Access. Being in the financial industry, we undergo multiple audits from various regulatory bodies and government agencies. Cisco Secure Access helps us answer their questions and meet their requirements.

What needs improvement?

From a licensing perspective, there could be some enhancement. What I have observed from Cisco regarding licensing and pricing is that there are multiple license tiers, whether Essential, Advanced, or multiple layers of licenses. This creates confusion about which license type we need and which type this product requires. Some clarity or enhancement in this area could provide greater visibility and peace of mind.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for around five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Cisco Secure Access is reliable and helps us execute policies during runtime without any downtime.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Cisco Secure Access is scalable.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I did not evaluate any other solutions because we run most of our products from Cisco, which helps us achieve quick adoption.

How was the initial setup?

I would not characterize Cisco Secure Access as easy or difficult to deploy. When it comes to security, you need to understand the application requirement, the flow, the requirement from the user's perspective, and how the data will flow. This understanding helps us gain visibility so we can deploy exact rules.

What other advice do I have?

I do not currently use it as a VPN as a service. I plan to use it for the hybrid private access feature, but it has not been adopted yet.

We have started a proof of concept for using ZTNA because we were using other products from the Zero Trust perspective, but we are currently in the phase of running a proof of concept to roll out this functionality as well.

I would rate this product an overall score of eight out of ten.


    reviewer2802273

Secure remote work has become seamless while browser isolation protects users from threats

  • February 11, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

The main use cases for Cisco Secure Access are placing the product and attempting to place the product for the customer. People who do not have an SSE solution and do not know what it is need to be educated about it. I have to explain what it is and what the advantages are. There are two situations: people who do not know that they need it already and people who really need it and do not know which product to choose. Therefore, I guide them to a Cisco product.

The first targets for Cisco Secure Access are organizations with remote customers who are working from different places. They have many on-premises apps and many SaaS apps. The benefits are that people just need to connect and they have their whole environment available for everybody. It feels the same as if they were in the office, plus they are safe against malware.

What is most valuable?

A feature of Cisco Secure Access that I appreciate the most is its remote browser isolation. When I show them remote browser isolation, they see nothing different initially. Then, you have to look down right where there is a small Cisco blue square with text stating this page has been isolated, and suddenly the customers think that is wonderful. It is one of my favorite features because it puts a browser in the background. Many customers already have something similar to browser in a box, but it is local. When I explain to them that they can have the same feature in the cloud, which is safer, they appreciate it.

The good thing about Cisco Secure Access in terms of multi-organization management capability is that if you have multiple organizations, they were working with different softwares. Now they just work with one software, which is beneficial. It is pretty easy to manage. That is why I prefer to use it. Since you have one software, you do not need different teams. There is just one team working on the software. You can have two teams as a backup, but ultimately it is just one team for one software, which is good.

What needs improvement?

I am not using the AI assistant feature for Cisco Secure Access because it is not working properly. Sometimes if you write something very basic such as where can I find the connectors, it responds to go there. However, as soon as I target a specific case, it responds that it is unavailable at the moment.

Regarding the AI Access feature, I would say it has room for improvement. It is not bad; it is good, but it could be better.

In general, I think Cisco Secure Access can be improved. I have worked a lot with Cisco Secure Connect, which is very intuitive and easy. With Cisco Secure Access, things are very complicated. Everybody who has experience with Cisco Secure Connect and touches Cisco Secure Access responds with surprise and confusion about why this is needed and where to find things. I believe there is room for improvement. You have workflows, which is already good, but you can push the workflows even more. It is just the basics, and workflows with really specific problems and specific instances would be good.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding crashes, bugs, or downtime, I do not think we faced any related to Cisco Secure Access as far as I remember. We saw downtime because customers were doing their own things, but not because of the software.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I do not know about the help desk ticket volume since in most cases, we are in direct contact with the customer. It could be, but I do not think so.

How was the initial setup?

My experience with deploying Cisco Secure Access involves starting a proof of concept when the customer is almost ready to buy. I have a flyer that I set up to explain how it is going to work. Before starting the proof of concept, I create a questionnaire, asking how many private apps they have and how many remote workers they have, and I gather all the information. We usually conduct a proof of concept with the customers, meeting their requirements in a short amount of time. As soon as the customer is satisfied, they can test in real time how it is going to function. You also have to educate the customer on what is new, explaining how the traffic apps work, including blocking pages, warnings, and all features. It is fundamental during the proof of concept, as the customer has many questions about why certain things are done a particular way. That is pretty much how the deployment works. We do the proof of concept, present the software, take the formula to meet the requirements, put them in place, and as soon as it is ready to go, we make the switch and it runs.

What was our ROI?

I believe it is too soon to say that I have seen a return on investment from having Cisco Secure Access. The good thing with it is that you can also place other products, such as Cisco Duo for example. Today, I saw Neil present something at the convention, and now you can combine Cisco Duo directory with Cisco Secure Access. So, there will be a return on investment, but it is too soon.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Cisco Secure Access is positive. It is good because you want to push Cisco Secure Access, and regarding the price, it is very much below other products. So for the price, it is good now. I recommend keeping it that way.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Since I am working for the Cisco competence center, I did not consider another solution before choosing Cisco Secure Access. We just sell Cisco, so no Palo Alto, no FortiGate, no Zscaler.

What other advice do I have?

I definitely use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access.

The transition from VPN to ZTNA with Cisco Secure Access has not really influenced users. People use the VPN to connect so they can directly access their on-premises apps. ZTNA is more for contractors and everything for the browser, but we do not really use it.

I use it in a client-based manner.

I am not really using the hybrid private access feature for varying the enforcement location for ZTNA private traffic right now.

My experience with the Insight feature, particularly digital experience and monitoring, is positive since ThousandEyes is already included in Cisco Secure Access. Customers can see a lot of details and monitoring, and they appreciate it. They do not usually use it, but they can see everything. So this is good.

It has impacted the incident resolution time since we have not had an incident regarding our customers. So, I would say it has potentially helped.

I have not integrated Cisco Identity Intelligence at this time.

For everything overall regarding Cisco Secure Access, I would rate it an eight. It is not a bad product, but for certain things, there is definitely room for improvement.


    YordanYordanov

Remote access has strengthened security posture and delivers reliable zero trust connectivity

  • February 11, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our main use case for Cisco Secure Access is remote access to the company.

What is most valuable?

The features of Cisco Secure Access that I like the most are the DART, which is an engine that inspects the hardware and software on the end client.

I appreciate that feature because I can ensure that the user is connecting from a company device or laptop with all security features up to date before they can connect to our local network.

The reason my company needs Cisco Secure Access is security. We want to improve our security posture and achieve zero trust.

What needs improvement?

There may be features that need further development, such as AI or integration with other products, but I cannot provide specific recommendations for improvement.

For how long have I used the solution?

I would say that over the last 15 years, Cisco Secure Access is the best solution for remote access because I work with other companies as well, but Cisco Secure Access is the best one. It works and does not require improvement.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Cisco Secure Access has impacted our help desk ticket volume and end-user experience because sometimes users encounter issues. Since we have many features activated, users sometimes cannot connect or attempt to connect multiple times, which generates service desk tickets.

How are customer service and support?

I have worked with many technical engineers for Cisco Secure Access, and I think they are very professional and provide a good experience.

I would rate them a 10 out of 10.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I never seriously considered migrating away from Cisco Secure Access.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment process of Cisco Secure Access is very easy because there is a wizard with seven steps that allows you to configure it, and it works without complications.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment for me when using Cisco Secure Access is that you purchase it once and it works. That is why it is the best solution. You do not need to open cases or invest additional time. You simply configure it and it works.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I do not have information about the pricing, setup cost, and licensing because I am not from the sales or pre-sales team. What I know is that we are also using Cisco Duo for authentication and have a good price for our company with more than 2,000 users.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

If other companies are using another company's solution, such as Palo Alto or Check Point, they should try AnyConnect and will see that it works better than other products.

What other advice do I have?

In my company, from the beginning, we have used only Cisco Secure Access with no other options. From the start, it was Secure Client and AnyConnect. I would rate this product a 10 out of 10.


    reviewer2802201

Reliable VPN access has ensured secure daily connections to our data center with minimal tickets

  • February 11, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

I use Cisco Secure Access for VPN resources in my day-to-day work to implement the VPN tunnel to the data center.

What is most valuable?

The best features Cisco Secure Access offers include stability. With 4,000 people using it and not many tickets, Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted my organization by providing stable VPN access to the data center.

This stability has led to measurable outcomes, as we have fewer tickets.

What needs improvement?

Cisco Secure Access is good, and I feel nothing more is needed for improvement. I chose a rating of nine out of ten because of the zero downtime, but that is nearly not possible, and I cannot tell you what to do better.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for eight years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Cisco Secure Access is good, and I feel nothing more is needed for improvement.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

With 4,000 people using it and not many tickets, Cisco Secure Access has positively impacted my organization by providing stable VPN access to the data center.

How are customer service and support?

I will contact our partner manager if the vendor has any questions or comments about my review.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Neutral

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We do use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access, and we already have Zero Trust, which has influenced our transition.

How was the initial setup?

Cisco Secure Access is deployed in our own on-premise data center.

What about the implementation team?

We are a partner of this vendor, which represents our business relationship beyond being just a customer.

What was our ROI?

The stability has led to measurable outcomes, as we have fewer tickets.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

We do use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access, and we already have Zero Trust, which has influenced our transition.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We do use VPNs in Cisco Secure Access, and we already have Zero Trust, which has influenced our transition.

What other advice do I have?

I would evaluate the AI access feature of Cisco Secure Access for providing deep visibility and control over AI applications, tools, and large language models by saying we will keep an eye on it and talk to our partner manager about the use cases of the AI implementation. My advice to others looking into using Cisco Secure Access is that it is a good solution. I gave this review a rating of nine out of ten.


    Andy Thomas

Secure access has enabled consistent remote work while posture checks keep every device compliant

  • February 11, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Cisco Secure Access serves as our main remote access tool for all of our users, which number about two and a half thousand endpoints. Our primary use case involves deploying Cisco Secure Access across all clients for connectivity, as we are a very remote organization, mainly in the UK, with many people accessing from three main sites, including working from home. Additionally, it supports all of our internet connectivity from our offices, and all of our laptops have the remote agent, so it is essential for that as well.

We have implemented the ZTNA in Cisco Secure Access. We have adopted both client-based and clientless options within Cisco Secure Access. We currently have about five or six services on a clientless basis, which aligns with what Cisco recommends, and we are working to put more behind that. The client side consists mainly of some legacy private applications that remain on-premises that we have not yet migrated to clientless.

What is most valuable?

The features of Cisco Secure Access that I appreciate the most include the posture assessment side. Being in security, I value being able to get an end posture assessment on the device to ensure it has the latest updates and can take action against devices that do not meet core requirements. Furthermore, ZTNA access is a key area that we are currently migrating to.

The benefits of these features for my company include providing flexibility, which is a primary concern for us. Security keeps all of our users secure while allowing flexibility in their work locations, ensuring they receive the same policies and centralized control regardless of location. This gives us peace of mind that we maintain control from end to end.

What needs improvement?

To improve Cisco Secure Access, I believe there should be better clarity from Cisco regarding where organizations should focus their investments. When we onboarded a year ago, we fully adopted the VPN client; in hindsight, we might have done a split focusing more on ZTNA. The direction felt unclear at the time, and after attending two or three Cisco Lives, it seems ZTNA is the main focus, yet Cisco does not provide adequate guidance on best practices that align with other organizations. There is a noticeable gap in engagement from customer success managers about upcoming features and tools. Additionally, integrating with other third parties is essential; I see limitations in our Cisco XDR platform's integrations, and consolidating everything into a single pane of glass would greatly enhance visibility. Although AI Canvas is aimed at addressing some visibility issues, they seem to be behind and require more time for development.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Cisco Secure Access for just over a year.

How are customer service and support?

I would evaluate the customer service and technical support as very good. Although technical support has been hit and miss at times, with some technical cases taking weeks for comprehensive feedback and necessary improvements, we have also submitted feature requests that resulted in visible changes. With our established point of contact within Cisco, our experience has greatly improved; we no longer log all issues through technical cases, as we can go directly to our account managers or customer service team, which expedites resolution. Based on my interactions, I would rate the customer service and technical support an eight or nine.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

The main factors that led me to choose Cisco Secure Access after Check Point included cost; Cisco was substantially cheaper, and we also had a poor experience with Check Point, which we found unreliable. We faced constant tickets and multiple versions of the same client causing inconsistent user experiences, leading to difficulties in product cohesion. Ultimately, cost was the most persuasive factor.

How was the initial setup?

The deployment process of Cisco Secure Access was straightforward. Deploying the client itself was very straightforward. We encountered a few teething issues mainly due to integrating with all our data centers and replacing our firewalls simultaneously with FTD firewalls; however, Cisco Secure Access deployment itself was simple.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment from Cisco Secure Access, from my perspective, is the end usability from a client perspective. The end user experiences no interaction—they simply see that it works. Ticket numbers are very low, and it operates smoothly. It is one of those tools that needs to work right out of the box, and thankfully, it does; it is reliable, and the setup time was quick and straightforward.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Cisco Secure Access has been very competitive overall; it is cheaper than what we experienced with our previous renewal, which influenced our decision to switch. Overall, it has been a very positive experience.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

In the process of choosing Cisco Secure Access, we considered only two options: renewing with Check Point or switching to Cisco.

What other advice do I have?

The impact of the Secure Access deployment on help desk ticket volume and the end user experience has been a big improvement overall. We previously used Check Point, and migrating to Cisco has been a very positive experience. Our account team on the Cisco side has played a significant role in our customer success journey, resulting in low ticket numbers; after an initial peak of incidents due to teething issues, we now experience very low ticket numbers on a day-to-day basis.

Regarding the AI Access feature of Cisco Secure Access for providing deep visibility and control over AI applications, tools, and large language models, we are not currently using it as we do not incorporate any application layer integrations within Cisco Secure Access at the moment. However, it is something we are working towards, as I believe it is a relatively new feature. The AI Access feature is on our wish list, and we certainly intend to implement it. We know we need to do more around the DSPM functionality, which Cisco is working on, so as that stack builds from Cisco's side, we will look for an entry point to ensure full coverage that the tool provides. Currently, it is probably a little early for us to jump in, but in six months, we might consider it.

We are not using the Hybrid Private Access feature for varying enforcement locations of ZTNA private traffic; we are aware of it, but it requires integration with Security Cloud, which we have not completed yet. This feature is on our wish list.

We do not use the DEM feature, which is Digital Experience Monitoring, but we utilize ThousandEyes, which is installed on the Cisco client.

Transitioning to Zero Trust and least-privileged principles has been made easier from some perspectives with Cisco Secure Access. The identity-first approach is a significant part of this journey, and I know Cisco's ongoing improvements over the next twelve months will benefit this process. The traditional VPN is phasing out, with ZTNA being the new standard; however, some of our legacy infrastructure poses challenges in fully adopting ZTNA.

For companies considering Cisco Secure Access as their main solution, I advise starting the conversation early. Transitioning is not straightforward; it takes time. With all the ongoing changes in the product and AI integrations, early planning is crucial. While migration can occur quickly, incorporating add-ons and extras requires more time to effectively integrate into the product. We still have not fully utilized features we have had for a year, as we are still assessing their impact and exploring potential duplication with existing tools.

Regarding how Secure Access has helped prevent users from uploading sensitive and proprietary information to LLMs, we have not utilized that feature; we currently use Microsoft Defender Purview for this purpose. I understand it is a relatively new feature in Cisco, but we have not adopted it to that level yet.

I would rate this product overall as a nine out of ten.


    Arthur Falkenstern

Unified remote access and web controls have simplified management but still need finer role rights

  • February 10, 2026
  • Review from a verified AWS customer

What is our primary use case?

My use case for Cisco Secure Access is to replace our on-premises, not site-to-site, remote access SSL VPN as we are going from on-premises to cloud service.

The second use case is to replace our Umbrella service, as we currently use Umbrella and will migrate to Cisco Secure Access as well, along with all the policies.

What is most valuable?

I consider the most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access to be that it merged everything into one dashboard, the Cisco Secure Access dashboard. Previously, we had web access in one location and remote access in another, and we could not link them to each other. Now everything is in one place, and we can base the access control on usernames because we have the Azure Active Directory integration. We can also build policies based on that and can see or identify the impacted users.

Cisco Secure Access benefits our organization by offering Points of Presence close to our employees because we are spread across the world. Until now, we had only European gateways, so traffic had to go from India, for example, over to Europe and then sometimes back, which was delaying a lot. With Cisco Secure Access, we have a presence close to the user.

What needs improvement?

What we really find challenging is that we do not have granular role-based access control models. The only options we have are full admin or read-only. We have different departments in the company that have different responsibilities. While we as a networking team are full admins, we do not want to manage the policies regarding which websites are allowed and what is not allowed. That should be managed by our compliance team.

The granular access issue is coming from the product limitation at the moment, as it does not offer us the option to tell it that a particular role can only manage websites, allowed sites, and blocked sites. Categories or something similar are not possible.

If I had to improve the product, that would definitely be role-based access control. Though from another point of view, this limitation may also be a benefit because it forces us to implement our own front-end to use API calls. Using API, you can limit the access to that particular key.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate Cisco Secure Access as very stable until now. We have not seen any service degradation during the maintenance activities that Cisco performs, which seems to happen frequently because we receive notification messages. However, we do not experience any service degradation, so that feels stable at the moment.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I find the scalability of Cisco Secure Access is working well at the moment. The main benefit is that we do not need to care for hardware anymore in the future, such as lifecycle management. However, the migration is a little challenging because the technical background that we had, such as the routing and what happens there, is not really visible to us in the cloud service. Those are the challenges, but we are working with TAC and onboarding people that are assigned to us at the moment from Cisco.

How are customer service and support?

My experience with Cisco's technical support is good because the person assigned to us is guiding us. He understands what our use case is and he is guiding us on what we should configure and what we should not configure.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before, we were using Cisco Firepower as SSL gateways.

How was the initial setup?

I would describe my experience deploying Cisco Secure Access as working well, though we are hitting bugs. I have the feeling that whenever we explore a new product from Cisco, we hit a bug. At the moment, we are dealing with challenges because a new feature that was implemented is to support multi-tenancy. When we originally started, that feature was not available, so we had only one organization. Now we have a multi-organization feature, so we were migrated to it. However, we feel that with this migration, something was left behind that is not working properly. In our original organization, we have issues applying permissions for users, and we always have to raise TAC cases with the people who help us resolve it. They are currently working on that.

What was our ROI?

I have not seen a return on investment yet, as we are still building. We are in an extended pilot phase at the moment, where one country, India, is migrated to this solution, and we are deploying one by one, starting with less critical sites first, and then we will see.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not evaluate any other solutions before. It was basically a move recommendation by Cisco since we stuck with Cisco, as we had a subscription before. With the contract renewal, Cisco pushed us in a direction where we could keep using the old environment for free as part of the renewal, but we decided to go straight to the new product and migrate.

What other advice do I have?

We use VPN as a Service for our users to remote access our company, and web browsing is going through Cisco Secure Access as well. I am not using the AI Assist feature in Cisco Secure Access yet. I am not aware of VPNaaS in Cisco Secure Access. We are not using Zero Trust yet, as that will be a stage three. First, we want to get rid of the on-premises VPN gateways and then start developing Zero Trust, so it is not in use at the moment. I am not sure what Hybrid Private Access means, but what we have is an integration from Cisco Secure Access to our SD-WAN, where the Cisco Secure Access Points of Presence are directly connected with our SD-WAN cloud, optimizing the communication. I am not sure if that is what is meant by Hybrid Private Access. I would rate this product overall a six out of ten.


    Marcus Ley

Secure access has strengthened zero trust adoption and has simplified protecting sensitive data

  • February 10, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My adventure with Cisco Secure Access started when I began my work, and my main use cases are focused on ensuring secure connectivity and protecting sensitive data.

What is most valuable?

My favorite feature of Cisco Secure Access is incredibly beneficial for a company, as it enhances security and user experience significantly.

Using ZTNA in Cisco Secure Access has positively affected my transition and my clients' transition to Zero Trust and least privilege principles, reinforcing the security posture.

The impact of Cisco Secure Access deployment on help desk ticket volume and the end-user experience has been remarkable, and I am using the AI assistant feature, which streamlines support. Cisco Secure Access has helped in preventing users from uploading sensitive and proprietary information to LLMs effectively, and I have heard from my clients regarding how they see it. They find that it works well and meets their security requirements.

What needs improvement?

In terms of usability and efficiency, the multi-organization management capability of Cisco Secure is robust. I believe Cisco Secure Access can be improved by changing some features, enhancing the user interface, and streamlining reporting.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used VPNaaS in Cisco Secure Access, and it has greatly influenced my transition from VPN to ZTNA by simplifying secure access for users.

How are customer service and support?

I evaluate the customer service and technical support of Cisco as consistently reliable.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

I would describe the deployment experience of Cisco Secure Access as straightforward, without major challenges.

What was our ROI?

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Access is the significant reduction in security risks and improved operational efficiency.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with the pricing, setup costs, and licensing of Cisco Secure Access has been favorable.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I have worked with other tools that do similar things to Cisco Secure Access.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to other companies thinking of deploying or getting Cisco Secure Access is to thoroughly assess their needs and goals, as it is crucial for maximizing the benefits. I gave this review a rating of 9.


    Anders Hallberg

Unified access rules have improved visibility and now simplify managing internet and remote traffic

  • February 10, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

We are about to start up with Cisco Secure Access now. We started this last year, but we have a lot of Umbrella that we are moving over to Cisco Secure Access. The main use cases for Cisco Secure Access are mostly the internet, but we are also looking for the client part, including ZTNA and so on, to move over that part from the traditional SSL VPNs.

What is most valuable?

The feature of Cisco Secure Access that I appreciate the most is the visibility and the ability to have one rule set for all the traffic. You can see the LAN connections and get them with SGT tags. This means you have all the things, not just your managed clients streaming through the policy set.

The features I have mentioned benefit our company overall by giving us one single pane of glass. We can see all the rule sets. We are partners, so we are building for our end customers and they appreciate having one single control point of the network. This is the most important aspect.

What needs improvement?

I am not using the AI assistant feature of Cisco Secure Access much yet. I think it is a little bit limited right now. This is something that can be improved, and I think it will be.

I hope there will be a good way to transform Umbrella installations over to Cisco Secure Access to improve the transition. I have not looked much into that part yet, but I hope there will be a smooth transition. Otherwise, that is an improvement that needs to be made.

For how long have I used the solution?

We are about to start up with Cisco Secure Access right now, with the migration beginning last year.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before using Cisco Secure Access, we were using Umbrella, which is also Cisco. We used Umbrella and also have a lot of traditional VPN as a service, SSL VPN and so on. We are coming from that part and moving to ZTNA. We are in a transition.

What was our ROI?

From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Access is that we have not reached that point yet. As we have end customers, it is more up to them to say, but we think that it would be a better improvement and a better experience for the users, and probably fewer tickets and easier troubleshooting. I think it will provide a return on investment in the big picture.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

My experience with the pricing, the setup costs, and the licensing of Cisco Secure Access is that it is not cheap, but I do not have exact numbers on what it costs. Comparing to Umbrella, I think we are getting a more future-proof solution, and I hope it is worth the money.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not consider other solutions before choosing Cisco Secure Access because we are almost 100% into Cisco with our services. We are using Cisco SD-WAN and Catalyst, for example, and we are looking forward to integrating that with Cisco Secure Access also. We are also using ICE and so on. We are quite integrated into the ecosystem with the services we are delivering, so we will use Cisco Secure Access for that part.

What other advice do I have?

The impact of Cisco Secure Access on our help desk ticket volume and the end-user experience has been evolving. I do not have numbers for the help desk, but I think it is going in the right direction.

The deployment of Cisco Secure Access requires that if you do the internet part, you have to get the customer involved. They have to know which applications work well with a proxy and so on. For the ZTNA part and the client part, it is the same. You have to know your traffic patterns and so on, and you may have to start with a bigger, more allowing rule set and turn it down afterwards.

My advice to other companies considering Cisco Secure Access is to look over their needs and see what great opportunities it can bring to the company. The single pane of glass could be beneficial. You will also get your services together in one appliance, and not so spread out. I would rate this solution an 8 out of 10.


    reviewer2801928

Granular zero trust access has unified hybrid resources and simplifies partner connectivity

  • February 10, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

My main use case for Cisco Secure Access is providing access to private resources. For example, we have outstaff or any external partners, and we don't want to provide them wide access to our network. Cisco Secure Access provides us the opportunity to give access granularly, exactly for the resources that are needed for our partners, outstaff, and so on. It's one of the scenarios, and of course, besides ZTNA, we use internet access, which provides us the opportunity to control users through a web proxy and apply some policies to control them.

Regarding whether the deployment of Cisco Secure Access has impacted the help desk ticket volume and the end-user experience, I believe it has improved significantly. For example, we have two separate infrastructures; it is a hybrid one. In Ukraine, we have infrastructure in local data centers, and in Europe, we have it in the cloud with Google. To have access to private resources, we needed two different profiles of VPN. Using Cisco Secure Access and building IPsec tunnels between Cisco ASA and Cisco Secure Access, we can combine these two separate infrastructures and use only one account to access resources in Ukraine, in local data centers, and in Europe.

What is most valuable?

The feature I like the most about Cisco Secure Access is the whole concept of zero trust. It is exactly what we need, and I believe that Cisco Secure Access is the future of cybersecurity. For this year, one of the challenges for our team is to provide secure access instead of VPN.

An example of how Cisco Secure Access benefits the organization is that it can be maintained from one console, so we don't need a lot of staff to maintain it. With our current architecture with VPN, we need a lot of technical staff. We have a lot of processes like installing certifications, creating accounts in Active Directory, and so on. At that moment, we have Azure as an identity provider. We're connected with Cisco Secure Access, and we can do all of this from one space. And of course, if we're talking about security, it's the observability. We can control it from one admin panel.

What needs improvement?

In general, I think features can be improved. We have some issues regarding the routing, regarding some configurations, and so on. But we communicate with local Cisco partners, managers, and engineers, and they always help us to solve these issues. They are trying to push Cisco engineers to improve and develop more features that would be relevant for clients. So in general, I don't have any bad experience.

For how long have I used the solution?

In my current field, I have been using Cisco Secure Access for more than seven years, and I believe this is the second year of implementing Cisco Secure Access.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Regarding customer support, I did not use it at some point, and we did not have any crashes or downtime during this period.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Cisco Secure Access is scalable to the growth of the organization.

How are customer service and support?

Regarding customer support, I did not use it at some point, and we did not have any crashes or downtime during this period.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

At the moment we decided to use Cisco Secure Access, I didn't think of having another solution. In the production environment, we use Secure Client. Of course, we had experience with another solution, with your competitors. We tried, for example, ZTNA from Cloudflare, but for our needs, we use exactly Cisco Secure Access.

What about the implementation team?

The experience of deploying Cisco Secure Access depends on internal collaboration. If internally you have a nice collaboration with another team, it is easy. Because to deploy it, you need to collaborate with the DevOps team, with network engineers, and cybersecurity. If every one of these teams understands the reason why we would like to use it, it is quite easy and fast.

What was our ROI?

I cannot answer whether I have seen a return on investment from having Cisco Secure Access.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Regarding costing and licensing for Cisco Secure Access, we use a lot of services from the Cisco security bundle. Cisco Secure Access is part of this bundle.

What other advice do I have?

I decided to use Cisco for a specific reason because historically we have used a lot of solutions by Cisco. At that moment, according to the functionality of Cisco Secure Access, it was one of the best solutions on the market.

Cisco Secure Access definitely utilizes the hybrid private access feature, with the configuration of conditional access and so on. Regarding the integration of Cisco Identity Intelligence with Cisco Secure Access, I am not sure.

The usability and efficiency of multi-organization management in Cisco Secure Access is quite high-level. Overall, I evaluate the AI applications in Cisco Secure Access positively as I don't have any bad experience. The AI Assistant in Cisco Secure Access is helpful sometimes, especially if it is something simple. I use the AI Assistant feature of Cisco Secure Access just during the configuration of the policy.

Cisco Secure Access is both a client-based and client-less solution. It depends on the case and situation. For some resources, for example, that store some sensitive information, I prefer agent-based.

The influence of Cisco Secure Access on the transition from VPN to ZTNA regarding users is that we just want to simplify the process of accessing private resources, and it only improves the user experience. The deployment of Cisco Secure Access has improved the help desk ticket volume and end-user experience by allowing us to combine hybrid infrastructure and reducing complexity with a simpler, unified access solution. Overall, I believe Cisco Secure Access deserves a rating of eight out of ten. It is a fast-growing solution, and I understand that it is in the process of developing, but your team is so responsible, and they are ready to help at any moment.


    Andreas Baumgartner

Remote work experience has transformed, and real-time collaboration now works smoothly

  • February 10, 2026
  • Review provided by PeerSpot

What is our primary use case?

Our main use case for Cisco Secure Access is that we need a new way for our remote workers to work. We were working with VDI and remote desktop solutions, but these do not scale out for real-time traffic such as Webex.

What is most valuable?

The feature of Cisco Secure Access that I appreciate the most is the possibility to secure traffic at home on laptops, so they get secure access to the internet. We provide a good way to support all real-time applications. I also appreciate the GUI because it is very simple to use and does not require much time to learn.

The features of Cisco Secure Access benefit our company because we roll out very quickly. Customers are happy with the solution and we received positive feedback that they appreciate the way of working now. Real-time applications work much better, so they enjoy Webex now and can also use video.

What needs improvement?

Cisco Secure Access can be improved because, especially for administrators or troubleshooting, it would be beneficial to have more detailed GUIs with more logs. Currently there is very minimal information, so it would be helpful if there were more detailed information, particularly for administrators and troubleshooting.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Cisco Secure Access for one year, including a half-year proof of concept.

How are customer service and support?

I have had experience with customer service and technical support already. It was not very good because we always have to escalate to engineering with our problems, so the TAC cannot help us.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Before Cisco Secure Access, I was using VMware Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. I switched due to cost because VMware raised costs significantly and we moved away.

How was the initial setup?

My experience with deploying Cisco Secure Access is that the setup was very fast, especially when connecting to Entra with cloud solutions, which was very simple. We have our own IDM system, which was a little more tricky. Documentation is sometimes limited.

What was our ROI?

The biggest return on investment when using this product is that I can be proud of my work. Previously, they were doing video calls over virtual desktop and remote desktop, and they all said IT was not working. Now they see that IT is working.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

I considered other solutions before choosing Cisco Secure Access and I tried Palo Alto as well. I chose Cisco Secure Access instead of Palo Alto because we use many other Cisco products and it is easier to combine them, such as DNA and Meraki.

What other advice do I have?

I do not know yet how Cisco Secure Access deployment has impacted help desk ticket volume and end-user experience. We do not have many tickets at the moment, so it appears the customers are happy. We are in the rollout process and have not fully rolled out yet, but at the moment it looks good. We received positive feedback from our service desk.

At the moment, we are not using the AI assistant feature in Cisco Secure Access. We use the API, but not the AI. I would evaluate the effectiveness of AI supply chain risk management by stating that we do not use it, so I do not know at the moment.

We do not use the VPNaaS Cisco Secure Access feature. We use ZTNA. Cisco Secure Access has affected our transition to Zero Trust and least privilege principles as we started with small applications, not everything, but we can roll it out to different customers and it works well at the moment.

We are not using the hybrid private access feature for varying the enforcement location for ZTNA private traffic at the moment. It is only with customers' business devices, so no private devices. I use the Experience Insights feature, which is the Digital Experience Monitoring or DEM. It looks very interesting and you get a lot of information. Currently it is only for interest.

We have not integrated Cisco Identity Intelligence with Cisco Secure Access at the moment. The advice I would give to other companies that are considering this solution is to do a proof of concept first. Try all your applications you want to deploy and then you will succeed. Cisco Secure Access has not helped prevent users uploading sensitive and proprietary information to LLMs because we do not block this or check it. I would rate this review as a 9 out of 10.