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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Symantec Proxy comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 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)
11th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
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) (11th)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Proxy
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
9th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Web Security Appliance is 2.4%, down from 3.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Proxy is 2.1%, 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.
Ganesh Basappa - PeerSpot reviewer
Granular control for web traffic with enhanced content inspection, but support needs improvement
There are many use cases in terms of content inspection, such as having granular control for file type extensions when trying to download file types by default. It depends on the requirements, and based on that, we customize policies. We have deployed it in an Azure infrastructure, and we have…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"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."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"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."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"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 most valuable feature is security."
"The setup was very easy and straightforward."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The solution offers content filtering and micro-content controls, such as regulating the types of images and their resolution."
"The best feature of Cisco Web Security Appliance is its policy framing. It also has a good UI and it can handle traffic well. Cisco Web Security Appliance is a good product."
"The features I like most are the DLP functionality for web security and malware protection."
"This solution offers categorization for YouTube and other specific applications from Facebook to WhatsApp, which can be controlled whether it's on mobile or PC."
"It integrates well with Cisco Email Security Appliance."
"The solution is scalable."
"The GUI has been effective."
"The tool's most valuable features are content-to-content filtration and SCCM protection."
"The proxy is valuable due to its reputation and categorization features for sites, which assist in blocking malicious sites."
"I would rate the overall solution a nine out of ten."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the URL database, malicious URLs, policies, and policy creation."
"The security features provided by Symantec Proxy, such as granular controls for web traffic and caching, set it apart from other secure web gateways."
"The most valuable features are content inspection, caching, SSL encryption, decryption, WAN optimization, and more."
 

Cons

"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."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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 reporting feature needs improvement."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The GUI is not user-friendly, so it needs to improve or be simplified."
"WSA is lacking firewall features."
"The licensing model needs to be more flexible."
"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."
"If a user wants to use it for other devices like mobile or smartphones, this product isn't so reliable."
"The product is great, however, incorporating features offered by competitors would be beneficial."
"The one thing I don't like about Cisco is that they are very much fragmented in terms of providing the complete solution. They keep on breaking their different feature sets into different boxes."
"The solution is priced high."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"Pricing is difficult to specify as Broadcom sells platforms that include multiple products, making it hard to determine the exact cost for the proxy component. Forcepoint sold only proxies, which was easier to measure."
"Prior to the Broadcom purchase, every appliance was application based, but now they have one ISG device and on top of it multiple applications are running. It has a single point of failure. If your device goes down, all of the applications would be down."
"Support services are lagging and not very responsive. I rate their support as five out of ten."
"The solution could improve by having better documentation."
"Improvements in log availability would greatly enhance its overall effectiveness."
"The initial setup is actually quite complex to install because our users don't have admin rights on the boxes and there's no remote install option by an administrator."
"Activating the SSL inspection is one of the challenges. We are currently moving to the O365 cloud, and one of the challenges is the performance when all of our users are connected to O365 by a proxy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The solution has a standard license."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is not the cheapest solution on the market, but it's well worth it."
"When you compare the price of this solution to the price of FortiGate, it's high."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"At the time, licensing fees were paid on an annual basis."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"I know from the manager that the price is too high and that other solutions offer the same features for less."
"I rate the product price a ten on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"There are no licensing fees required."
"Licensing is based on a subscription."
"Our cost was based on a three-year upfront CapEx contract."
"There is a license needed to use Symantec Proxy."
"Symantec Proxy has different expiry dates and renewal dates, which is a problem, so Broadcom should improve the licensing renewal process for the solution."
"In terms of cost, it is expensive. Its pricing has been a challenge for us since its acquisition by Broadcom."
"There is a different department that looks into the licensing part."
"The price is too expensive compared with that of another solution."
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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
20%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Non Profit
10%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
9%
 

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 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 Symantec Proxy?
We can address and rectify issues promptly, resulting in consistently positive outcomes.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Proxy?
Pricing is difficult to specify as Broadcom sells platforms that include multiple products, making it hard to determi...
What needs improvement with Symantec Proxy?
AI features could potentially improve the proxy by helping build rules more efficiently, suggesting unused rules, and...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management, ProxySG Appliance
 

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
Jefferies
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. Symantec Proxy and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,466 professionals have used our research since 2012.