Exinda vs Symantec Proxy comparison

The compared GFI and Broadcom solutions aren't in the same category. GFI is ranked #5 in WO , and holds a 4.8% mindshare in the category. Broadcom is ranked #12 in WSG , with an average rating of 8.4, and holds a 1.9% mindshare. Additionally, 87% of GFI users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Exinda and Symantec Proxy based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Riverbed, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in WAN Optimization.

To learn more, read our detailed WAN Optimization Report (Updated: January 2026).

Buyer's Guide

WAN Optimization

January 2026

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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

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

WAN Optimization Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Exinda	4.8%
Cato SASE Cloud Platform	20.1%
Aryaka Unified SASE Platform	16.1%
Other	59.0%

WAN Optimization

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Symantec Proxy	1.9%
Cisco Umbrella	13.6%
Zscaler Internet Access	12.4%
Other	72.1%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

Read full review

Marek Jaworski

Senior Engineer, Team Lead, Network Operations at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees

Allows us to have better control over our network by shaping traffic more gently

There might be room for improvement in the speed and throughput of some of their devices. They're getting a bit slow on some of the bigger devices. It would be helpful if there were some sort of an ISP model. Also, while I don't think it would be possible for them to do, it would be better if they had the Citrix support and the visualization to visualize your network. Besides that, it fits its purpose as a shaper and accelerator. Some people would say things like, "Add a firewall to it," but I disagree. I think a firewall's a firewall, and Exinda's a shaper and accelerator.

Read full review

reviewer2341938

Head of IT, Infrastructure, DevOps & Cyber Unit at a financial services firm with 201-500 employees

Integration with compatible platforms streamlines web security management

The GUI has been effective. The proxy fulfills all the tasks I require, and it's not overly complicated. There aren't any specific features within Symantec Proxy that stand out for threat prevention in my use cases. The integration with FireGlass has been essential since both solutions are from Broadcom, enhancing compatibility as opposed to my prior experience where integration was troublesome.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Some of the most valuable features of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall include its DNS zone setup and the zero trust policy."

"It is configurable via API."

"The solution protects our application, which runs on the HTTP protocol, from DDoS attacks."

"The integration of Cloudflare with Cloud Suite is its most valuable feature."

"The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10."

"Cloudflare WAF provides protection through rules and functionalities like Cloudflare's SDRAP."

"Cloudflare has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to handle and set up DNS for multiple clients; I can easily go in and access their accounts, make changes they need, and it's a one-stop shop."

"The rate limiting features and customizations in terms of URL match and applying policies are valuable to me."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"The most valuable features are the shaper, accelerator, and the reporting... it will shape the traffic better than, for example, a Cisco, because it's more gentle on the shaping side of things. Suppose you were selling a 20-meg link. Because you can shape to the nth degree of traffic, the 20-meg link feels like about a 30 to 40-meg link."

"It has the ability to prioritize, providing an automatic optimization. I can put it in a hierarchy and know that certain devices will be prioritized over others. It is able to identify the traffic. It can pick out whether if its a Zoom meeting (or something like that), then it's able to put that somewhere in the hierarchy based on the traffic type."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to provide very granular classes of service. That's important because it allows us to prioritize certain traffic types over others, to a very granular level."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to manage the traffic at the application layer. It makes things a lot easier. We're not digging for port numbers and IP addresses and different services... It makes us far more responsive in our ability to do things and speed up the process. We're a very small shop, so having something that's straightforward and easy to use is a big help."

"The most valuable feature is the ability to create policies where we can tailor them to the customer. It enables us to prioritize apps and users for bandwidth."

"Exinda can show you which product uses how much throughput and can help you manage it."

"The security features provided by Symantec Proxy, such as granular controls for web traffic and caching, set it apart from other secure web gateways."

"It enables us to manage bandwidth for users based on their privilege levels. For example, if a user wants to use a certain application or resource, we can provide access based on their privileges."

"The tool's most valuable features are content-to-content filtration and SCCM protection."

"The product is very good, and the URL filtering database is great."

"The Symantec antivirus suite and the proxy component are the most valuable feature."

"The most valuable feature is the caching."

"We can address and rectify issues promptly, resulting in consistently positive outcomes."

"Symantec Proxy’s technical support is very good."

More Symantec Proxy pros

Cons

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"They have some limitations with third-party integrations."

"The dashboard could be more user-friendly."

"The product can improve by having more multitenancy capability, which is currently not available."

"The solution's learning curve can still be further reduced"

"The platform's control features related to real-time authentication and response time need improvement."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"In terms of improvement, one thing that has always frustrated me about it is that when you look at real-time monitoring, you can only filter it by IP address. You can't filter it by anything else. It would be good if we could filter by VLAN."

"There might be room for improvement in the speed and throughput of some of their devices. They're getting a bit slow on some of the bigger devices. It would be helpful if there were some sort of an ISP model."

"A lot of working with this solution is really intuitive. I have picked it up mostly on my own. I'm sure that there are some things that maybe I hadn't thought of or really hadn't considered, and I think it would be good just to promote some day courses. I don't really see a whole lot that comes out for Exinda as far as training or informational sessions through our normal resellers. It would be cool to know more about the solution by utilizing educational resources or even have Exinda promoted a bit better."

"It should improve the quality of service. It can improve their connection to the internet and your IP."

"The updating of applications that the system knows about could be a little quicker. For example, Zoom had been out for a while, but it took a while for it to show up as an application that Exinda could natively handle. We had to write some things in order to handle Zoom, initially."

"What I don't like is the fact that I haven't purchased the overall management interface. That is the interface that allows you to manage multiple Exindas. Personally, I think Exinda should provide that for free. I think that if you buy more and more Exinda boxes, you shouldn't then have to incur a charge for the overall management software. While I can manage each Exinda separately, if they provided me with the overall management platform for free that would probably encourage me to buy more appliances."

"The deployment is quite difficult."

"The traffic filtering could improve. Our firewall traffic is limited. Additionally, it would be helpful if there was a dashboard and reporting feature."

"Support response time and case resolution could be improved."

"The tool’s reporting features must be improved."

"The solution is quite complex."

"The user interface could be improved, and the price could be lower as well."

"Improvements in log availability would greatly enhance its overall effectiveness."

"Technical support is an area that requires some improvement."

More Symantec Proxy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

"Cloudflare offers different types of subscriptions for businesses, enterprises, and personal users, and the pricing is negotiable."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"It starts at $20 and can easily go up to $200 monthly"

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"The solution is expensive."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

"The pricing and licensing are pretty fair and really competitive. There are other SD-WAN solutions that are pretty costly because they build in a service where they'll manage it for you, which is really great. I don't know if Exinda has that option as well. However, we are a small shop and cost-conscious. For things like this, we are accustomed to self-managing and this solution suits us just fine. For a tool that gives you, like the graphs and reporting, it has a fair price point."

"It is priced well for the market, for what it needs to do."

"The solution is very expensive."

"The price of the solution is reasonable compared to others on the market."

"The tool is pretty expensive."

"Licensing is based on a subscription."

"Symantec Proxy has different expiry dates and renewal dates, which is a problem, so Broadcom should improve the licensing renewal process for the solution."

"The product is highly priced. There are no additional costs apart from the standard licenses."

"In terms of cost, it is expensive. Its pricing has been a challenge for us since its acquisition by Broadcom."

"It's expensive. Clients often go to other products."

More Symantec Proxy pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

12%

Manufacturing Company

Financial Services Firm

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Government

University

Financial Services Firm

27%

Manufacturing Company

Government

Educational Organization

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	1
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	4

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't really use the rule-based logic feature or utilize the WAF's ability to scale as a cloud-based service. I don...

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What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I'm using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall on all my domains and any client domains I have; I set them up with a C...

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What do you like most about Symantec Proxy?

We can address and rectify issues promptly, resulting in consistently positive outcomes.

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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...

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What needs improvement with Symantec Proxy?

AI features could potentially improve the proxy by helping build rules more efficiently, suggesting unused rules, and...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 9% of the time

F5 Advanced WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

Steelhead vs Exinda

Compared 34% of the time

Noction IRP vs Exinda

Compared 34% of the time

Aruba EdgeConnect SD-WAN Platform vs Exinda

Compared 32% of the time

More Exinda Competitors

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 17% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 13% of the time

Symantec Secure Web Gateway vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 7% of the time

Skyhigh Security vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 6% of the time

More Symantec Proxy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

February 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Exinda

February 2026

Download Exinda product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Proxy

January 2026

Download Symantec Proxy product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management, ProxySG Appliance

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

Exinda is designed to help Network Managers solve pressing IT problems in today's complex network. Our award winning technology combines interactive analytics, an intelligent recommendation engine and powerful actions like shaping and optimization, all in one solution.

GFI

Symantec Proxy is designed to provide web security, web access control, and secure web gateway functionalities for organizations. It helps protect against web-based threats, enforce web usage policies, and provide secure access to internet resources.

Symantec Proxy Benefits:

Easy to use
Comprehensive security features
Ability to block malicious websites and applications
Efficient management of network traffic
Scalable and compatible with various operating systems and devices
Highly rated customer support and technical assistance

Symantec Proxy Features:

Web Filtering: Symantec Proxy offers web filtering capabilities to control and manage web access based on predefined categories or custom policies.
Malware Protection: The solution incorporates malware detection and prevention mechanisms to identify and block web-based threats, such as malware, viruses, and phishing attacks.
URL Filtering: Symantec Proxy uses URL filtering to categorize and assess the reputation of web domains and URLs in real-time.
SSL/TLS Inspection: The proxy solution supports SSL/TLS decryption and inspection to examine encrypted web traffic for potential threats or policy violations.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Symantec Proxy may include data loss prevention capabilities to prevent the unauthorized exfiltration of sensitive data through web channels.
User Authentication and Access Control: The solution supports user authentication and access control mechanisms to enforce user-based policies and provide secure internet access.
Reporting and Analytics: Symantec Proxy provides reporting and analytics capabilities to monitor web usage, user activities, security events, and compliance violations.

Reviews from Real Users

Below are some reviews and helpful feedback written by Symantec Proxy users.

PeerSpot user, Consultant at a financial services firm, says that Symantec Proxy "...enables us to manage bandwidth for users based on their privilege levels. For example, if a user wants to use a certain application or resource, we can provide access based on their privileges."

PeerSpot user, General Manager & founder at a engineering company, writes that Symantec Proxy has "A complex deployment, no proper user reporting, and a proxy component that works."

Muhammad Salahuddin, Unit Head - Network and Security Solutions at FPM Solutions, states that Symantec Proxy has "Good URL filtering but is expensive and doesn't have good technical support services."

Broadcom

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

UMass Dartmouth, MLB Network, R&R Ice Cream, Savills, Manhattan School of Music, Blum Shapiro, Cincinnati Public Schools, City of Richmond, Genting Casinos, The Salvation Army, VoIP Unlimited, Frontier Silicon, Lakeshore Toltest, CTI Foods

Jefferies

Find out what your peers are saying about Cato Networks, Riverbed, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and others in WAN Optimization. Updated: January 2026.

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