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Check Point Web Gateway vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
16
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Check Point Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Web Gateway is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 18.4%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Ajinkya Mohod - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effectiveness and is user-friendly
In terms of the effectiveness of the threat prevention technology in Check Point Web Gateway, the tool helps secure our company's environment, as threat detection and blocking work well. Others can definitely go ahead with the tool, especially if they want to secure their networks and manage firewalls or network traffic. In terms of the benefits offered by the product, I can say that it helps in securing network parameters, environments from network attacks, lateral movements within an environment, blocking of traffic, and managing the traffic. The tool improves our company's cybersecurity posture. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Rohan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent
The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple. The single pane of glass management makes it very easy to manage your rollout. We get a lot of "single panes of glass" and, eventually, you need a pane of panes of glass. But it's always good to have a clear and graphical view, and Umbrella's is nice and easy to read. Definitely, of the panes of glass that we do have, it's one of the easiest to use. The single pane of glass is good to group users together and separate people out. Some people need different types of security. Some people are more vulnerable. Some have more highly valuable assets, like C-suite people. It's really good to be able to have end-users defined inside of that. You don't have to jump around. You don't have to figure out who's who. It's all done through one pane of glass. What most people don't realize is that it's running in the background, which is a really nice aspect when it comes to security. Often, when you deploy a security tool, it takes up CPU performance. Everything slows to a grind. But Umbrella is so simple and easy and it doesn't affect the end-user experience. It's the best of all worlds. It's nice when people realize that they're being protected when they go to the wrong site. I think people are happy that they're protected, but it's nice that they rarely notice it. It's generally easy to maintain network connectivity, but with Umbrella, the nice part is that whichever connectivity you're on, you're always secure. With Umbrella, as long as you're online, you're going to be protected.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"It can also be used as a reverse proxy through the checkpoint."
"It is very stable."
"The most valuable features of Check Point Web Gateway are all the IPS. However, what matters for users is content and web filtering."
"The product is very user-friendly."
"The interface is simply amazing."
"It's easy to deploy this tool."
"It offers good security and we use it when we want to implement the best security in an organization due to the fact that it gives us broader visibility."
"It has an excellent threat prevention mechanism."
"The primary advantage of Cisco Umbrella is its ability to safeguard our users no matter where they are working from - whether it's in the office or remotely, as per the new work model that has emerged globally. This integrated security solution has simplified our lives by combining all the necessary security measures in one product. Additionally, deploying the product is all it takes to protect all our users."
"My overall rating for Cisco Umbrella is ten out of ten."
"It has improved our organization from a security posture perspective. We feel more confident now knowing that we can block phishing attempts or any type of malware that is DNS-related. This is a very nice feature that provides peace of mind."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"I like the original functionality, which allows for providing secure DNS services."
"The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want."
"Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"I would like to be able to see an integration with centralized management services."
"Most of the time, we are struggling when it comes to getting support."
"We would really benefit from some more visual features that can help view the impact of the security gateway in the organization."
"The support must be faster."
"I would like to see improvement in the tool's availability."
"Some documents needed to implement with the best practices are difficult to understand, take longer than expected to apply, and sometimes even require support."
"The learning curve is complex for new users."
"It is not user-friendly."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability. The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users."
"I feel that the application needs other characteristics that are available with other applications in the market."
"The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."
"Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability."
"The pricing could always be a little bit better."
"I would like for them to continue building on IPS and IDS functionalities."
"Looking at the full umbrella suite in the light of SASE, Secure Access Service Edge, they are clearly lacking in the inline CASB."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"Our customers pay a licensing fee annually or once in three or five years, per their requirements."
"This program is very, very expensive."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price as a seven out of ten."
"The product is not cheap. It is expensive."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The product is neither too expensive nor too cheap, so it comes at a good price point for my company."
"The price is very high."
"The price is on the higher side, even when compared to Azure Firewall Premium."
"It is expensive. Licensing is on a yearly basis. You need to do the support subscription."
"Licensing with Cisco can be a little complex, but I think it's comparable with that of other similar products. It's always hard to put a price on security, but the price is fair for the value it provides."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"The price could be lower."
"I think it's worth the money."
"The licensing and pricing structure of Cisco Umbrella is in line with standard systems on the market, and we have no specific requirements in this area. Overall, we have found it to be an acceptable pricing model for our organization."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Government
21%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
What do you like most about Check Point Web Gateway?
You don't have to wander around the tool since it is very simple. You can grab and get a hold of the tool very quickly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Web Gateway?
I don't have a comparison with other products. I know that Check Point is relatively expensive compared to its compet...
What needs improvement with Check Point Web Gateway?
Authentication is only possible through Check Point Identity Awareness technology, limiting some customers' deploymen...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zs...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Morton Salt, Medical Advocacy and Outreach, BH Telecom, Lightbeam Health Solutions, X by Orange, Cadence, Nihondentsu, Datastream Connexion, Good Sam, Omnyway, FIASA, Pacific Life, Banco del Pacifico, Control Southern, Xero, Centrify, Tradair, Laterlite, Phoenix International, Unisinos, Wilkin Chapman, Connexus Energy, Mutua Universal, Smart & Final, Central New Mexico Community Colleg, Grupo Financiero Multiva
Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Web Gateway vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
847,772 professionals have used our research since 2012.