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Cisco Umbrella vs Symantec Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
13th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (4th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (12th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
111
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)
Symantec Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
30th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Jack Hamm - PeerSpot reviewer
We experienced benefits immediately but the report generation is lagging
iboss excels on the networking side but lags slightly behind competitors like Zscaler and Netskope in terms of security feature parity. I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention. Using iboss for DLP instead of traditional endpoint solutions is preferable, but its current feature set requires some clunky workarounds. I'd also like to see better integration of DLP into the platform. Additionally, while it's improving, reporting can be slow at times. This is problematic when generating reports for executives who expect them immediately. I'd like to see further improvements in reporting speed and efficiency.
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.
Mohamed Elgindy - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to set up with good features and helpful support
The reports could be better. For example, the report is installed on the VMware Virtual Appliance. It must support other things like HighBar RE, et cetera. The cost has risen and it is more expensive than it used to be. There is not any reporting on the central appliance. If a new developer can add basic reporting, and real-time monitoring, it would be ideal. There is no real-time monitor. It'll be a great enhancement if Symantec can add a real-time monitor to the appliance. Other competitors have a real-time monitor on them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"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."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is really important. In today's era, administration costs and operational expenses will cost you a lot, and it reduces that as well. You don't need extra resources to manage all your parameter firewalls, looking at every single device to allow resources internal access. By just introducing the single-pane-of-glass management, it has lifted the burden off of management, especially the network management."
"One valuable feature is definitely its simplicity in terms of deployment. It is very easy to integrate it into the environment without any heavy lifting. Users didn't notice that we implemented it. You can start with a very low monitoring mode and start observing what Cisco Umbrella sees."
"The user interface is great. It's very easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs."
"Meraki features and cloud-based functionality are advanced and easy to manage centrally."
"Cisco Umbrella's integration with other solutions has been a great feature in terms of ease of administration. Administration and troubleshooting are faster. The single pane of glass is great as well. Another great feature of Cisco Umbrella is remote browser isolation. With this feature, you open a virtual browser, and it's seamless to the user. If the user ends up going to a bad website that's passed a policy and something bad tries to download, it will not download into the machine because it is a virtual window somewhere in the cloud. You are protected by this feature."
"​They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. ​​"
"If it didn't have a single pane of glass, we would not be using it. The single pane of glass gives you a one-stop shop. It's like going to Home Depot. You find all your stuff there. You can see all your threats and your endpoints. It's a very important feature and makes things very simple."
"It has certainly saved us time. If we go and look at what's rejected on the requests from the hospital itself, it has saved about 5% or 6% time."
"It is easy to manage. The graphical user interface is quite easy to navigate, and we don't have any difficulty in using it. It is a good solution."
"It has a faster implementation process compared to other products."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint security."
"It offers an easy initial setup."
"It is quite scalable. If a user needs to do more deployments, they can just add them."
"It's nice to have it in the cloud where we can pull the reporting together for it so we can see what's happening in machines at different locations."
"The most valuable features are the website blocking capability and SSL interception."
"In terms of most valuable features, I like the ICAP capability and URL filtering the most."
 

Cons

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"The firewall capabilities could be better. Cisco is starting to introduce some layer 7 capabilities now, but there's still some room to grow. They should continue with the development of Umbrella so that it is a full-blown cloud-managed firewall solution."
"It should have a real-time malware classification engine. It should check the malware on the website. It would be good if it had a real-time malware check for the websites because currently, it just compares the DNS queries of the blacklist. It should also have malware control over file execution and the types of files that the users are allowed to download."
"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"I would like to have more applications being recorded."
"The locks and management could be better. The product is fairly new, and it may take some time to get all the features up and running."
"If I want to see which users access a website, I need an Active Directory registered on Umbrella's cloud."
"The reports could be better."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"The major challenge is their support. The support from Broadcom is quite poor. It takes forever for them to get back to you, and when they get back to you, they ask you for so much information, which makes it more difficult. That's the only problem I have with Broadcom. This is one of the reasons why we are switching to another solution. Another reason for switching is that we have a plan to adopt solutions in the cloud so that we can offload the administration efforts to the vendor. In future releases, they can improve its reporting and the process for rules creation. They can also improve Broadcom on things such as security information and event management so that from my same platform, I can carry out functions and probably block websites. Such a feature would be nice. Currently, Broadcom is integrated with McAfee to block access to certain sites automatically. It would be nice if they can expand their integration to IBM Resilient Security Orchestration and Automation Response."
"Depending on the severity of the issue, I think they can be a bit slow - a few days for the low severity cases, but for the severe cases normally they contact you back in a couple of hours."
"It needs to be easier to set up rules for what sites it should allow or not allow us in certain areas of our computer for programs. It would also be nice really nice to have it give you better information about what it's finding. A lot of the alerts we get are very difficult to understand what it's actually telling you. It's too generic."
"There's a need for increased firewall functionality and capabilities. I'm not seeing a competitive Symantec cloud product. Specifically, functionalities with security as filtering from the cloud. I am aware that there is a product, a proxy in the cloud but I have compared it with other vendors and I don't find it that powerful. I think the worst thing that we're experiencing is very poor and inadequate technical support. It seems to me that tech support engineers aren't qualified to fulfill their job duties."
"Difficult and time-consuming to deploy and update."
"It's not user-friendly, and we end up making too many phone calls to get things fixed."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"Cisco Umbrella is not a cheap product. However, it's not a matter of the cost; it's more a matter of the value of security. It is easy to measure this value when you have a security incident. I think the price is a good trade-off for a product that can help you avoid security threats."
"Its value exceeds its pricing."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"The price could be lower."
"You get what you pay for."
"I think Cisco Umbrella is priced well. We have a mix of customers with different verticals such as education. We have clients in the commercial space as well. Umbrella is at a good price point for all of our customers."
"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."
"We did a good negotiation, and at the moment, its price is fine."
"There is an additional charge for advanced security features."
"Symantec Secure Web Gateway is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"Pricing and licensing is stunted and licensing is expensive. We have many customers who are now thinking about other solutions due to the cost."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
16%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Real Estate/Law Firm
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...
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.
What do you like most about Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
It has a faster implementation process compared to other products.
What needs improvement with Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
The platform’s data center is not capable of managing most of the traffic.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
Symantec Complete Website Security
 

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.
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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Symantec Secure Web Gateway and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
824,067 professionals have used our research since 2012.