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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs TitanHQ WebTitan comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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)
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
TitanHQ WebTitan
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
25th
Average Rating
9.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (7th), Web Content Filtering (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (8th)
 

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 TitanHQ WebTitan is 1.3%, down from 1.5% 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.
Pusa Alexandru-Catalin - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides basic email protection features but needs improvement in learning capabilities
TitanHQ does a middle-of-the-road job like Bitdefender and SensorNet, and it has a learning feature, though it's not as advanced as previous technology. In the past, I used a far superior product with no false alarms and minimum spam. This tool learned quickly from my inbox, offering simple yet useful features, such as two links embedded in the email footer indicating whether the email was spam or not.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"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."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Since working with the tool, we have not found any threats in our organization."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance has very good security benefits for any company and is easy to integrate."
"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."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance can integrate with Active Directory, enabling us to manage all the end-users within AD. It's helpful for setting rules based on individual users and groups. For example, you can configure policies for inbound and outbound traffic."
"It also has high availability."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is user-friendly and easy to manage. It protects your environment while accessing the internet."
"The features I like most are the DLP functionality for web security and malware protection."
"This appliance gives me good visibility in the userbase and their activities."
"One of the most valuable features is the setup, right out-of-the-box. We rarely touch anything to do with WebTitan. That low administration is one of the huge features."
"Their report tool is the most valuable. By using the URL-base filtering, their reports give me a clear view of who is accessing what as well as which computer may have a virus or malware."
"If someone is doing research and they're being blocked, and if we feel that it's a legitimate use, we can get them into the site they're looking for."
"It has been easy to understand and use the customization options provided by WebTitan."
"It's extremely stable. I would say it's flawless. We did have some concerns that, if it did fail, all internet access would stop for our people because the proxy wouldn't be there. That concern has subsided over the years because it's proven that it doesn't really fail."
"The web content filter is the most valuable feature."
"The DNS proxy is also valuable. It has nothing to do with blocking websites, which we can do by sending all our DNS requests through WebTitan. However, the DNS proxy gives us more information about the machine sending the request. If you cross-reference that information with WADA, you can determine which user is making the request and create a user-specific policy or profile."
"Not a whole lot of oversight is required after WebTitan is installed. I get email notifications and occasionally browse the reporting. This is pretty important because I don't have the bandwidth to actively monitor all this stuff 24/7. It is just not possible. Therefore, it is important that it doesn't require a lot of my time once it is deployed and working."
 

Cons

"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."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"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."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"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 tool needs to improve cloud-based decryption."
"They need a better graphical interface, and they need a better ISE mechanism."
"Sometimes reporting is a little bit short."
"There are certain shortcomings related to the product's management capabilities, where improvements are required. The solution needs to provide better management of the category of web pages."
"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."
"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."
"This solution could be more secure."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"It works for us, and I have no real complaints about it. It is self-intuitive, but it could have intuitive help where you don't have to email somebody asking how you do something. They might already have it, but I've never used it."
"The only thing I can think to change would be to give more options under the various categories for what you want to be blocked. There should be a way to be super specific."
"I would like to have a live chat feature with their support. This is one of the things that I like that they haven't offered yet. If they have live support, then at least I can work with an engineer when I have a problem and not have to wait for the engineer to respond."
"For security, it's very restrictive. For us, it blocks a lot, even too much, so we have had to create exceptions. A new implementation takes a bit of time to train it up, to put in all the exclusions, but once you have that done, it's just a matter of adding things as they come up."
"The technology employed by TitanHQ doesn't learn enough and is still on the basic side."
"The technology employed by TitanHQ doesn't learn enough and is still on the basic side."
"I've been trying to install an OTG on Windows 7 machines, and I simply can't get it to work."
"I wasn't aware of WebTitan's Azure AD integration until now. The takeaway is that those types of enhancements should be broadcast from TitanHQ a little more openly than they are."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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."
"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 probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The pricing is too high."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is not the cheapest solution on the market, but it's well worth it."
"The solution has a standard license."
"Licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"This is an expensive solution."
"At the time, licensing fees were paid on an annual basis."
"When you compare the price of this solution to the price of FortiGate, it's high."
"The pricing is good. It's a substantial cost, but they've held their prices over the years, which has been good."
"There are lots of products out there, and most of them are a lot more expensive. Overall, I'm very happy with SpamTitan. It has been a great solution for a very small library."
"WebTitan helps reduce costs associated with web filtering. In the event that somebody was compromised due to browsing the Internet, there will be at least one device offline. The time and energy spent cleaning that thing up and getting it back online, as well as having that user set up with some sort of a solution so they can continue working, makes it well worth the money. If a single device has been compromised, my time and the potential of having to buy additional hardware is worth at least a couple thousand dollars. Worst case scenario, if our entire organization or the majority of our organization got compromised, then it could get into the 50,000-plus for recovery. It depends on if it is a massive ransomware attack where it has pretty much crippled our entire business."
"For licensing, if I remember right, we told them how many users we have, and they told us the price, which we okayed. There were no add-ons. There might be a slight increase like everybody else, but there weren't any add-ons."
"It's very reasonably priced. We don't have to go for a monthly plan or anything like that. There are no extra costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"The cost could be lower, though it is not currently prohibitive for larger companies."
"The licensing, although I can't remember the exact cost, was very affordable. I want to say it was maybe $40 per license."
"The pricing of WebTitan is good. It's the right price. We paid more and more for Cisco Umbrella."
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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
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Computer Software Company
21%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for TitanHQ WebTitan?
The pricing of TitanHQ is more or less similar to other tools. I would be willing to pay more for a better service.
What needs improvement with TitanHQ WebTitan?
The technology employed by TitanHQ doesn't learn enough and is still on the basic side. I had previously used 'only m...
What is your primary use case for TitanHQ WebTitan?
I mainly use TitanHQ for email protection, specifically for no false alarms and minimal spam.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
WebTitan, WebTitan Web Filter
 

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
Clarks, Pepsi, Purple, Comcast, Virgin, McDonalds, Sprint, Adtran, Xirrus, Eir, ViaSat
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. TitanHQ WebTitan and other solutions. Updated: April 2025.
846,617 professionals have used our research since 2012.