The 10 best shadow IT tools in 2026: Push, Microsoft, Zscaler, and more

Shadow IT tools find the SaaS and AI apps employees use without IT's approval, show who's using them and how, and give security and IT teams a way to act on what they find. They come from different technical vantage points and tackle different primary use cases, from network security and identity to IT spend management.

As per Gartner, they all tend to cover four core requirements:

• Discovery across sources. No single data source finds everything, so tools combine some mix of identity provider and SSO logs, finance systems, email, network and security tools, endpoint agents, and browser extensions. The test is whether they find free tiers, trials, AI tools, and accounts on personal email or unmanaged devices, which never reach an expense report or the identity provider.

• Account and risk context. An app name alone isn't enough to act on. Security teams need to know who has an account, how risky the app is, whether people sign in with SSO or a password, how accounts are protected by MFA, and which apps hold OAuth access to corporate data.

• A path from discovery to action. Labeling apps as sanctioned or unsanctioned, then warning, blocking, or steering people to an approved alternative, rather than handing the team a list.

• Lifecycle and spend management. Automated onboarding and offboarding, license reclamation, and spend optimization, which Gartner treats as mandatory for SaaS management platforms and which matter most to IT and procurement teams.

How a tool discovers apps determines what it can see. Browser extensions see app usage and logins as they happen, wherever the extension runs, but don't see desktop apps or spend. Email and identity provider data shows accounts created with a work email or connected through SSO, but misses personal-email sign-ups. Finance data shows paid apps, but according to Zylo, expensed apps make up 41% of the software stack but less than 1% of SaaS spend, and free AI tools never reach a finance system at all. Network tools like CASBs and secure web gateways see the traffic routed through them, but not how someone signed in.

We've ranked the shadow IT solutions below on how completely they discover apps, how much risk context they give a security team, and what they let you do about it.

Quick picks

The 10 best shadow IT tools in 2026

1. Push Security: Best overall, with login context and real-time control

Push discovers shadow IT from the browser, where employees actually use SaaS and AI apps. It's a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Brave, Opera, and Arc, as well as enterprise and agentic browsers. Push sees the web apps people use and every login to them, whether the employee is in the office, at home, or on a personal laptop. Contractors and BYOD users self-enroll without MDM.

Each discovery comes with context that finance, network, and email-based tools can't collect. Push records which account was used and whether it's corporate or personal, how the user signed in (SSO, password, social login, or passkey), whether the account is protected by MFA and with which method, and whether the password is weak, reused, or breached. Push also flags ghost logins, shared accounts, and dormant accounts, and records OAuth consents granted in the browser across more than 20 major authorization servers, with the scopes requested and who approved them.

Security teams then label apps as approved or unsanctioned and warn or block users in the browser, or prompt them to switch from a password login to SSO. That keeps usage visible, where blocking a whole category at the proxy tends to push it onto personal devices. The same extension discovers shadow AI apps and agentic browsers, and detects and blocks browser-based attacks, including AiTM phishing, ClickFix, device code phishing, malicious OAuth consent, and session hijacking.

Skip it if: You specifically need spend, license, and contract management, or discovery of desktop apps, and don't need login and MFA visibility and enforcement.

2. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps: Best for Microsoft 365 E5 organizations

If you're on Microsoft 365 E5, Defender for Cloud Apps is already in the license. Its cloud discovery collects traffic data from Windows and macOS devices onboarded to Defender for Endpoint and from log collectors on firewalls and proxies. It scores discovered apps against a catalog of more than 31,000 apps and blocks unsanctioned ones through Defender for Endpoint or an integrated proxy.

The trade-off: The endpoint integration only covers devices onboarded to Defender for Endpoint, so personal devices and contractors' laptops depend on proxy or firewall logs and drop out of view off the corporate network. Microsoft also notes that by default it "can't discover apps that aren't in the catalog," which matters most for the long tail of new AI tools. Its in-browser session controls, delivered through a reverse proxy or natively in Edge for Business, only apply to apps that sign in through your identity provider, which leaves out most shadow IT.

Skip it if: You're not on E5, and need to see how people sign into apps outside your identity provider, including on personal devices and contractor laptops.

3. Zscaler: Best for Zscaler Internet Access customers

Zscaler Internet Access inspects web and SaaS traffic inline, and its Shadow IT report shows the cloud apps users reach, lets admins mark apps as sanctioned or unsanctioned, and feeds Cloud App Control rules that block or restrict them. Instance discovery tells a company's own tenant of an app from someone's personal one, so a policy can give full access to the corporate Google Workspace while making a personal one read-only.

The trade-off: Zscaler only sees traffic forwarded to it. Off the office network, that means devices running Client Connector, which Zscaler deploys through Intune or another MDM. Personal and contractor devices are covered only if they run Client Connector too, or through Zscaler's separate browser product. Traffic inspection also shows which app and tenant someone used, but not how they signed in or how their account is protected by MFA.

Skip it if: You don't already route your users' traffic through Zscaler Internet Access, and need to see how people sign in and how their accounts are protected by MFA, including on devices without Zscaler's client.

4. Netskope: Best for Netskope SSE customers who want inline data controls

Netskope One CASB identifies sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud apps through inline inspection and API connections, and, like Zscaler, tells corporate instances of an app from personal ones, backed by Netskope's DLP.

The trade-off: Discovery depends on how traffic is steered. Netskope's own client documentation notes that in its Cloud Apps steering mode, "Netskope does not steer All Web traffic" and is limited to the apps defined in the steering configuration. Shadow IT is, by definition, the apps nobody has listed, so discovering it means steering all web traffic through Netskope's proxy and decrypting it, a bigger rollout than steering a list of approved apps.

Skip it if: You don't already run Netskope as your SSE, and need to see every app in use, and how people sign into it, without steering all web traffic through a proxy.

5. Palo Alto Networks SaaS Security: Best for Palo Alto firewall and Prisma Access customers

SaaS Security is Palo Alto's CASB. Its inline component discovers unsanctioned SaaS apps from firewall and Prisma Access traffic, using machine learning and data from more than 70,000 customers to categorize new apps as they appear, and its AI Access Security extension covers shadow AI apps. Palo Alto also sells Prisma Browser for organizations that want to move users onto a managed browser.

The trade-off: SaaS Security Inline needs a Palo Alto firewall or Prisma Access license plus a Strata Logging Service instance. Palo Alto's documentation says that without logs from all of your firewalls, it "can't display SaaS app visibility data." Discovery is only as complete as your Palo Alto network footprint.

Skip it if: You don't already route your users' traffic through Palo Alto firewalls or Prisma Access, and need to see how people sign into apps, not just which ones they reach.

6. Cisco Secure Access (formerly Umbrella): Best for Cisco customers already running Umbrella DNS security

Cisco has folded Umbrella into Cisco Secure Access, which now spans DNS-layer security, a secure web gateway, and CASB. Its App Discovery report lists the cloud apps your organization uses, ranks them by risk, and lets you label them approved or not approved, with blocking set separately in policy.

The trade-off: App Discovery is built around DNS requests, with web gateway traffic added where you route it. A DNS lookup shows that a device resolved an app's domain, not whether anyone logged in, which account they used, or whether it was a personal or corporate tenant. Cisco also notes that discovery data is processed once a day, so new apps can take up to 24 hours to appear.

Skip it if: You need more than a domain-level view of which apps are in use, and need to see who signed in, which account they used, and how that account is protected by MFA, down to the method used.

7. 1Password SaaS Manager: Best for discovery plus license and lifecycle management

1Password SaaS Manager, formerly Trelica, was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SaaS Management Platforms. It discovers apps from identity providers, SSO logs, finance systems, device agents, browser extensions, and 1Password vaults, matches them against more than 40,000 app profiles, and feeds license reclamation, offboarding automation, and AI spend tracking through more than 400 integrations.

The trade-off: It's an IT operations and spend platform first, and its security signals center on app risk and access governance rather than attacks. Full coverage means connecting identity, finance, and HR systems.

Skip it if: Security is the main driver and you don't need license and spend management.

8. Grip Security: Best for SaaS account risk across email and the identity provider

Grip discovers SaaS use by connecting to corporate email systems and identity providers, then maps the accounts tied to each app. Its Grip Extend browser extension adds apps that never send email, sign-ins to apps outside the identity provider, missing MFA, weak or reused passwords, and shared accounts.

The trade-off: Login-level detail comes from an add-on to the email and IdP model, and Grip's Firefox listing is still marked experimental. Grip frames the problem as SaaS identity risk, so it suits teams running an identity governance program more than those wanting enforcement at the point of login.

Skip it if: You want browser discovery and real-time controls at the core of the product.

9. Josys: Best for IT teams combining discovery with identity governance

Josys builds its inventory from Microsoft Entra ID or Google Workspace, more than 350 app integrations, identity provider audit logs, and its own browser extensions, which find apps people use outside SSO. It also monitors apps for missing MFA and SSO, and feeds discoveries into access reviews, joiner-mover-leaver automation, and device management.

The trade-off: Josys is an identity governance and IT management platform, so shadow IT discovery is the starting point for access workflows rather than enforcement at login. Its own FAQ notes that browser-based discovery "builds a fuller picture over the following weeks as usage data accumulates."

Skip it if: You want shadow IT controls without adopting a governance platform.

10. Torii: Best for IT operations teams automating the SaaS lifecycle

Torii discovers SaaS and AI apps from finance, identity, and HR integrations plus its Secure Browsing extension, then ties each app to usage, owners, and spend. Its strength is automation: License reclamation, renewal tracking, and onboarding and offboarding workflows. Torii was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SaaS Management Platforms for the third year running.

The trade-off: On October 12, 2026, Torii announced a definitive agreement to be acquired by Freshworks, expected to close in Freshworks' fiscal fourth quarter, with plans to run alongside the Freshservice service desk. If Freshservice isn't your ITSM, ask how the roadmap changes after close.

Skip it if: You want security-led discovery, or you'd rather wait for the post-acquisition roadmap.

Also worth knowing

Zylo leads on finance-based discovery and was named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for SaaS Management Platforms. Zluri folds shadow IT discovery into an identity governance platform, and AccessOwl offers a free scan of Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 sign-in logs for smaller teams. If AI tools are your main concern, see our list of shadow AI discovery and governance tools.

Learn more about Push Security

Push Security is the most powerful AI-native security tool in the browser. Think EDR, but for the browser — high-fidelity telemetry and real-time control across every session, on every device, with no browser migration required.

Security teams use Push to detect and stop advanced browser-based attacks like AiTM phishing, ClickFix, and session hijacking; gain visibility and control over AI tool usage across their workforce; harden identities by surfacing credential reuse, SSO gaps, and shadow IT; and support data loss and insider investigations with browser-layer telemetry that other tools can't see.

Book a live demo to learn more.