SMB ZTNA / SSE comparison. GoodAccess is compared against its top commercial plan (Enterprise). Pricing and plan names are intentionally omitted.
Cipherscale is an AI-native Security Service Edge (SSE) platform for SMB and mid-market teams. It unifies Zero Trust access to private apps, SaaS, and the internet through customer-deployed Gateways. Its architectural choice is a customer-owned data plane: traffic stays end-to-end encrypted between devices and Gateways — Cipherscale's control plane never touches the data, delivering native data sovereignty. Administration is conversational: admins describe outcomes in the Intent Bar, and the AI Copilot plans configurations with human-in-the-loop Action Validation before bounded MCP services apply them. Continuous device posture (OS, certificates, disk encryption, antivirus, processes, geo, time of day) gates every access decision. Universal ZTNA is delivered by the same on-prem Gateways for both remote and on-premises users, eliminating hair-pinning.
GoodAccess is a cloud-delivered ZTNA / business VPN platform purpose-built for small and medium teams, offering identity-driven access, DNS-based threat protection, and a worldwide footprint of dedicated cloud gateways. Each customer gets a dedicated cloud gateway with a static public IP from a catalog of 35+ global locations, which can be used to IP-allowlist SaaS apps. The Enterprise plan adds SCIM provisioning, advanced identity-based access control, threat-blocker DNS filtering, device posture checks (OS, AV, encryption, browser), split tunneling, custom integrations, and premium SLA support. Identity supports SAML, OIDC, and SCIM provisioning with major IdPs (Microsoft Entra ID, Okta, Google Workspace). GoodAccess is positioned for usability: minimal IT involvement and quick deployment without on-prem infrastructure, but the data plane is vendor-operated cloud gateways rather than customer-deployed enforcement points.
Choose Cipherscale if you want a customer-owned data plane where traffic never traverses the vendor's cloud, AI-native intent-based administration, Universal ZTNA without hair-pinning, and Gateway-IP pinning that is enforced at your Gateways — especially when data residency and sovereignty are non-negotiable, or when the team needs to use AI to operate a more capable SSE without growing headcount.
Choose GoodAccess if your priority is the fastest possible setup with no on-prem infrastructure, a global catalog of vendor-managed cloud gateways with static IPs for SaaS allowlisting, and a UX optimized for small teams without dedicated network engineers. GoodAccess is a strong fit for SMBs replacing legacy business VPNs that want a managed cloud gateway with DNS-based threat protection out of the box.
|
Capability |
Cipherscale |
GoodAccess (Enterprise plan) |
|---|---|---|
|
Architecture & Data Sovereignty |
||
|
Category |
AI-native unified SSE (ZTNA + SWG + SaaS protection) |
Cloud ZTNA / business VPN with DNS filtering |
|
Data plane location |
Customer-deployed Gateways. Vendor control plane never sees traffic. |
Vendor-operated cloud gateways (35+ global locations); per-tenant dedicated gateway with static public IP |
|
Customer-owned data plane |
Yes |
No — dedicated gateways are vendor-operated |
|
Static public IP for SaaS IP-allowlisting |
Yes — your Gateway public IPs |
Yes — dedicated cloud gateway static IP |
|
Underlying tunnel protocol |
WireGuard® |
WireGuard / IKEv2 / OpenVPN |
|
Universal ZTNA (single policy, on-prem & remote, no hair-pinning) |
Yes — local Gateways enforce policy |
Traffic backhauled to vendor cloud gateway for inspection |
|
Administration & AI |
||
|
Conversational / intent-based admin |
Yes — AI Copilot, Intent Bar, Prompt Catalysts |
No (admin via web console) |
|
Human-in-the-loop change validation |
Yes — Action Validation |
Standard change workflows |
|
AI-driven cloud gateway deployment |
Yes — conversational GCP / Azure |
Not applicable — gateways are vendor-managed |
|
Conversational Root Cause Analysis |
Yes |
No |
|
AI auditing & least-privilege recommendations |
Yes |
No |
|
Adaptive guided onboarding (milestone-based) |
Yes |
Standard onboarding wizards |
|
Bounded AI execution (LLM separated from deterministic services) |
Yes — MCP services |
Not applicable |
|
Zero Trust & Identity |
||
|
OIDC support (Google, Microsoft) |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SAML 2.0 SSO |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Multiple IdPs active simultaneously |
Yes |
Generally one primary IdP per tenant |
|
SCIM user provisioning |
(coming soon) |
Yes (not available in all plans) |
|
RBAC roles |
Owner, Administrator, Auditor, User |
Owner, Admin, Member |
|
Device posture: OS & version |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Device posture: disk encryption |
Yes (native) |
Yes |
|
Device posture: antivirus running |
Yes (native) |
Yes |
|
Device posture: specific application/process |
Yes (native) |
Limited |
|
Device posture: digital certificate present |
Yes |
Limited |
|
Location-context (geo) policies |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Time-of-day policies |
Yes |
Limited |
|
Identity-based microsegmentation |
Yes — dynamic firewall rules at Gateway |
Yes — identity-based application access policies |
|
Access Use Cases |
||
|
Private application access (TCP & UDP) |
Yes — via Gateways |
Yes — via cloud gateway and Branch Connector |
|
SaaS protection by Gateway-IP allowlisting |
Yes — pin SaaS to your Gateway IPs |
Yes — pin SaaS to dedicated cloud gateway static IP |
|
Internet access security / Secure Web Gateway |
Yes |
Yes — threat-blocker DNS filtering + SWG capabilities |
|
Content filtering (categories) |
(coming soon — 43+ categories) |
Yes — DNS-based category filtering |
|
Known malicious IP / domain blocking |
(coming soon) |
Yes — multi-feed threat intel |
|
Split tunneling precision |
On-demand routes to authorized resources |
Yes — configurable split tunneling |
|
Clientless / agentless web app access |
Not a current capability |
Limited |
|
Networking |
||
|
IPv4 / IPv6 dual stack |
Yes |
Yes (IPv4 primary) |
|
CGNAT IP range for internal operations |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Active-active load balancing & failover |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Site-to-site full-mesh |
(coming soon) |
Branch Connectors and gateway interconnects (not full mesh) |
|
Distributed enforcement selected by RTT |
Yes |
User selects from catalog of vendor PoPs |
|
Observability & Operations |
||
|
Connection & access logs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Admin / configuration audit logs |
Yes |
Yes |
|
SIEM streaming |
(coming soon) |
Yes (not available in all plans) |
|
Public API for automation |
(coming soon) |
Yes |
|
Email alerts for critical events |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Client platforms |
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android (Ubuntu coming soon) |
Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, ChromeOS |
|
Enforcement-point deployment options |
AI-driven GCP/Azure, Terraform, CloudFormation, Docker, Ubuntu/Debian |
Vendor-managed cloud gateways + Branch Connector (Linux/Docker) |
"Coming soon" reflects Cipherscale's own documentation as of May 2026. GoodAccess feature attribution is to the highest commercial plan (Enterprise); features marked (not available in all plans) are reserved for higher commercial tiers.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.