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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Skyhigh Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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
7.1
Number of Reviews
17
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)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Skyhigh Security
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (9th), ZTNA as a Service (14th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (13th), Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) (20th), Cloud-Native Application Protection Platforms (CNAPP) (16th)
 

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 Cisco Web Security Appliance is 2.4%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skyhigh Security is 3.1%, down from 3.9% 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
IgnitiusMolepo - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures security for remote workers
The Cisco Web Security Appliance provides DLP to organizations. It helps prevent the unauthorized transmission of sensitive information by blocking such attempts. Additionally, it safeguards against malware attacks, particularly on websites not authorized by our company. Its role in protecting us from malware is pivotal. The organization itself handles the configuration and management of Cisco Web Security Appliance. Cisco assists in deploying and configuring the appliance and managing all associated services. Integrating the Cisco Web Security Appliance with other solutions is quite challenging. For instance, when we tried to integrate Netscape KSP, we encountered difficulties retrieving logs. Additionally, our solution failed to interact with the Web Security Appliance. Overall, the integration process remains problematic, hindering the effectiveness of our security infrastructure. We have both the cloud version and the on-premises version. For clients who require data sovereignty, we offer the on-premises version, which includes a data sovereignty tool. This allows them to enforce policies that prevent the transfer of logs to third-party data centres, ensuring compliance with their country's regulations. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
Santiago Gomez - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved the organization's PCI compliance with data loss prevention
I use the solution on a Macintosh computer and it has issues and does not work when I try to log in from the Safari Browser, but it works fine when I log in from the Google Chrome browser. The console has issues when the login is done through a Safari Browser. The console has to be more competitive and the compatibility of the browser needs to be better. I want to know about Skyhigh's competitiveness with other brands and about the vulnerability assessment and micro segmentations. I know Skyhigh has other products, but right now, I am studying what this new product is about. They only have English support, so I would like for them to add some Spanish support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"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."
"It integrates well with Cisco Email Security Appliance."
"It also has high availability."
"Great for assisting with connections to networks or apps."
"The solution offers content filtering and micro-content controls, such as regulating the types of images and their resolution."
"Cisco regularly upgrades features for the customer's security requirements."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance has very good security benefits for any company and is easy to integrate."
"This appliance gives me good visibility in the userbase and their activities."
"Since working with the tool, we have not found any threats in our organization."
"The solution provides great security, higher availability, and policy granularity."
"Skyhigh offers solutions like WLP and CASB. These tools provide instructions and guidelines for enhancing data security. Additionally, they offer additional software solutions for further protection."
"Good anti-virus filtering, URL categorization, and reporting capabilities."
"The product has a very high rating from reviewers. It's a well-respected product."
"A stable solution with good support."
"We have gained a deep insight into our Shadow IT usage as well as the different activities involved in Office 365."
"The solution performs well."
"What I found most valuable in Skyhigh Security is its stability. The solution also has good KB articles that make it simple for users to do the deployment of Skyhigh Security themselves, without the need for integrators."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"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."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"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."
"The solution is priced high."
"Setting up Cisco Web Security Appliance is highly complex and it takes about a week. We have to connect it to the Active Directory and configure all the policies for end users. It takes a long time to configure rules for our company data like port forwarding and separating the public and local components."
"The solution could improve the graphical user interface. It is not up to the regular standard of what we would expect from Cisco. Additionally, they need to improve the categorization when blocking in the settings. The CLI could have a better view than the graphical user interface but I did not investigate further."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The solution needs to be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"The product is great, however, incorporating features offered by competitors would be beneficial."
"The tool needs to improve cloud-based decryption."
"As Cisco Web Security Appliance is eight years old, though it's simple to access its UI, the UI needs a little bit of updating. If it could be more interactive similar to the latest gen solutions, that would improve the product. Adding a few more integrations would also make Cisco Web Security Appliance better."
"Skyhigh Security is complex to manage. While it should ideally be more user-friendly, customers often find themselves having to manage it post-deployment."
"You can integrate Skyhigh's rules with Active Directory groups. For example, you can allow access to a specific website for a defined set of users. I can do that, but the rules are not straightforward. It can look up the group in Active Directory. However, it doesn't always find the proper group name. The rule configuration should be simpler and more granular. The admin should be able to map 80 groups in the rules quickly."
"I would like to see more power being given to the admin. In the sense that in case an employee is facing an issue and they want to configure a service, like attaching an email in Gmail, for example, they should be given the option to make the service request and get that configured on the go."
"It would be nice to be able to get more advanced search functions to filter out data and quickly obtain the data that we need."
"The secure gateway could be improved."
"One area for improvement I've seen in Skyhigh Security is that it lacks support for unsanctioned applications, where customers have their applications. Those applications do not come from Microsoft or other popular vendors. For example, Microsoft has support for Teams and it has support for OneDrive, but it doesn't have support for custom applications built by customers. Customers have internal teams building and publishing applications to the external world, but Skyhigh Security doesn't have support for those applications, and this is the main problem I've seen. The solution only supports a pool of applications that are from Microsoft and other major SaaS vendors. McAfee doesn't provide support for custom applications, compared to other vendors who provide it. For example, Bitglass and Netskope both have support for custom applications. Another area for improvement in Skyhigh Security is that its API support is a little weak. I also have not seen a strong integration between the solution and other McAfee products."
"The only thing we have faced is that sometimes, randomly, the portal becomes too slow."
"The tool could improve flexibility with the creation of reports/querying data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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 probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"The pricing is too high."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"Licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"I rate the product price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"The tool's licensing is yearly."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"When you compare the price of this solution to the price of FortiGate, it's high."
"The solution has a standard license."
"Pricing for Skyhigh Security is okay, though there's always a scope for price improvements. Its pricing is okay compared to other products because other products have very expensive licensing costs. Along with the licensing, support is also provided for Skyhigh Security, so pricing is reasonable, but if there's proactive or better support, that will justify the pricing. I haven't interacted with the Skyhigh Security technical support team yet, so I'd give pricing a four out of five rating for now."
"It's an expensive solution."
"They definitely charge a huge amount. All the security service providers charge a huge amount."
"Skyhigh provided a FedRAMP solution, tokenization, a better shadow IT capability, and lower cost."
"There is an annual licensing cost to use McAfee Web Gateway. The purchasing of licensing can be difficult for the government sector."
"This is an expensive product, but you have to compare that with other solutions that are on the market."
"Commercially, I find Skyhigh Security a little costlier, compared to other products such as SentinelOne or Cybereason which are really novelty products. I'm not comparing Skyhigh Security with Trend Micro, but with other products, in particular the new, next-generation products. The price for Skyhigh Security is high in terms of value and ROI. I would rate the product price combined with product efficacy a six out of ten."
"The licensing fees are based on what environments you are monitoring."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
19%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Non Profit
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
53%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Manufacturing Company
5%
 

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?
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used it for student and faculty filtering on campus.
What do you like most about Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The most valuable features of the solution are the functions of proxy for the users who use the internet and the secu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Web Security Appliance?
Comparing with other products, Cisco has more functionality, but pricing is a challenge. Cisco is not a product for s...
What needs improvement with Cisco Web Security Appliance?
With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAN...
What do you like most about McAfee Web Gateway?
Data loss prevention and user behavior analysis are two valuable features.
What needs improvement with McAfee Web Gateway?
The solution has room for improvement in its DDoS protection. Additionally, the documentation needs enhancement to pr...
What is your primary use case for McAfee Web Gateway?
The typical use case for our clients is cloud security.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
McAfee MVISION Cloud, McAfee MVISION Unified Cloud Edge, McAfee Web Gateway, McAfee MVISION CNAPP, and Skyhigh Networks, McAfee Web Gateway
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

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.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Caixa Seguradora
Western Union.Aetna.DirecTV.Adventist.Equinix.Perrigo.Goodyear.HP.Cargill.Sony.Bank of the West.Prudential.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. Skyhigh Security and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
848,716 professionals have used our research since 2012.