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Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs Aruba ESP comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Access Service Edge (SASE)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (6th)
Akamai Enterprise Applicati...
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (15th), Access Management (19th), ZTNA as a Service (20th)
Aruba ESP
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
26th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.2%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aruba ESP is 1.1%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.2%
Akamai Enterprise Application Access2.2%
Aruba ESP1.1%
Other93.5%
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
DE
Platform Manager at Globe Telecom
Centralized authentication streamlines global access with single sign-on and auto-scaling for seamless user experience
We use Akamai Enterprise Application Access for centralized authentication for our global customers. It provides a solution for consolidated authentication on our platform. We use the service to manage access for our global consumers, not for remote access for our employees My favorite part of…
SatishKumar13 - PeerSpot reviewer
Deputy Manager at Savex Technologies Pvt Ltd
Has improved remote connectivity with secure segmentation for traveling users
The scenario has totally changed after COVID. Earlier, people used to work from office culture, but now it has shifted to work from anywhere. Devices are not fixed either. Previously it was fixed asset, but now people are using smartphones, IoT devices, laptops, and other devices, connecting from anywhere. Segmenting network traffic is very difficult and complicated because putting a firewall across devices is very difficult and nearly impossible. EdgeConnect, which includes endpoint protection or SSE, is very agent-based. POPs are nearly reachable across the globe, so users can access services globally whenever they want to reach the data center or access the internet. It creates segregation, and after segregation, it comes with security functionality including CASB, web, anti-malware, and antivirus functionality. It protects the endpoint whenever connecting with unsecured networks. The first level post-check of security parameters matches all functionalities. Their segregation part allows us to define parameters through ZTNA functionality, Zero Trust Network Access where we can define postures, whether devices relate to corporate network or personal use, if antivirus is running, if OS is updated, and many more things. Based upon that, it helps customers protect the complete infrastructure, whether connecting with office network, unsecured network, or remote office.

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."
"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"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."
"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"The cost and the capability are great."
"The capability of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is what you're looking for, it's giving you the service that you're looking for. It's simple and doesn't use an agent. It uses LCSD responders, and they have a lot of services around the globe. That's the reason that we were very interested in using it because it has a lot of coverage. This is because it's under the GDS umbrella."
"We've had a good ROI from Application Access."
"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."
"The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks."
"My favorite part of the Akamai Enterprise Application Access service is its SSO and auto-scaling capabilities."
"Aruba ESP is a single place where you manage everything, and you have integrations with a lot of other vendors together on the same platform."
"It provides a single umbrella for the complete network infrastructure, which is a very key differentiator from other products."
 

Cons

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Its pricing could be better."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"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."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"If you provide enterprise services we have to stop telling the customers it's going to be per users or the transactions. That's not good for the customers, it's good for the vendors."
"The technical enablement sessions are quite limited, and Akamai could help by providing more of them."
"The pricing could be lower for Akamai Enterprise Application Access."
"The solution has two agents so should combine its enterprise application and security access into one agent."
"We need another approach to bring the solution to the cloud. In addition to Access Management, we would like to see if we can jump into Directories. I think ADs are going to go away and everything is going to be cloud-based and minimize the use of ADs because of the cost and some other dependencies to the cloud. Every time you buy AD it is more hardware, and everything's changing to software. The network's changing, the applications are changing, and for IT it is hard to keep up with it."
"Segmenting network traffic is very difficult and complicated because putting a firewall across devices is very difficult and nearly impossible."
"Aruba ESP should include more integrations with third-party vendors."
 

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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"Licensing is based on user count."
"The license can be shared based on the number of active users."
"The price is great it is all-inclusive, they use an enterprise cost model. That's what we like compared to other users. This is one of the main attractions of Akamai Enterprise Application Access. It's already an enterprise cost model established with us for services."
"Users need to pay a yearly license for three, five, seven, or ten years based on their requirements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
No data available
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...
What needs improvement with Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
The pricing is a bit expensive for our market. Although it is cheaper compared to alternatives, Akamai Enterprise App...
What is your primary use case for Akamai Enterprise Application Access?
We use Akamai Enterprise Application Access ( /products/akamai-enterprise-application-access-reviews ) for centralize...
What needs improvement with Aruba ESP?
The scenario has totally changed after COVID. Earlier, people used to work from office culture, but now it has shifte...
What is your primary use case for Aruba ESP?
I am working for the SASE portfolio as a product manager, so I cannot give any comment on other products. If there ar...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Soha
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Aruba ESP and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.