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Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

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 Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
Akamai Enterprise Applicati...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
15th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
Access Management (19th), ZTNA as a Service (20th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (18th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (17th), Microsoft Security Suite (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 4.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Enterprise Application Access is 3.7%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 5.8%, down from 8.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps5.8%
iboss4.5%
Akamai Enterprise Application Access3.7%
Other86.0%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

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…
Abdulrahman Muhammadi - PeerSpot reviewer
information Security and IT Manager at Discover Dollar Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Integration with existing cloud workflows has simplified compliance and threat detection
Licensing cost is a significant concern. With Defender Plan 1, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comes with a pay-per-use model. Each feature has its own pricing when activated on VMs. For example, the vulnerability assessment has separate pricing, the base model including encryptions has separate pricing, and the compliance features have separate pricing. This applies to each VM and Azure resource individually. It is not straightforward where you can take one license and apply it to everything. Each feature has its own pricing model which can be tedious, as the costs keep accumulating. The only lacking feature currently is XDR (extended detection and response). Apart from that, I have only positive experiences with the whole Microsoft suite, except for the pricing structure.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"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."
"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."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"My favorite part of the Akamai Enterprise Application Access service is its SSO and auto-scaling capabilities."
"Application Access's most valuable feature is the accessibility of enterprise tech protection."
"The cost and the capability are great."
"The solution is very convenient and stable because you don't have to worry about attacks to public IPs or public networks."
"We've had a good ROI from Application Access."
"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."
"The major benefit is that it is a Microsoft tool, so if you're in a Microsoft ecosystem, this is the best tool that you can get in the market."
"After creating the policy you can be assured that a user's data is being protected."
"The impact of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps on our organization's ability to assess and manage app related risks has been significant because we have more visibility."
"The most valuable feature is its policy implementation."
"The solution is bundled with E3 and E5 licenses; that's the reason it's most commonly deployed, as it's part of the bundle and not a separate cost, and if your business requirements are relatively simple, it can get the job done."
"I would rate it a ten because I have not experienced any stability issues so far with Defender for Cloud Apps."
"It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notifications are pretty good."
"The compliance capabilities of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are quite extensive."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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."
"iboss can be improved because the integration could be better; you need to import all the sites that you access today, and there are a few problems whenever you import thousands of websites, making the integration process messy for the users."
"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."
"The technical enablement sessions are quite limited, and Akamai could help by providing more of them."
"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."
"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 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."
"However, the price of the solution could be better."
"There could be more granular roles that are out of the box included in the product."
"Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps’s technical support services needs improvement."
"The product is very good so far, however, it would be better if it could include more up-to-date threat protection."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
"I want them to enhance in-session policy."
"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."
"I would like for it to be available on Mac and for it to support all of the features of Microsoft financing products. It is really for Windows."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Licensing is based on user count."
"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"Where we are right now, this is an acceptable pricing. I would like to see more transparency given to the end user. The end user given to us is via the cloud service provider. There are different programs and license models. Some include this, and some include that. It is all over the place. There can be a little more consistency or simplification in the pricing so that your parts list is not ten pages long, and you are not trying to determine, "If I have an E3, does this cover that?", or "Do I need to pay separately for the license?" Simplification would probably be better."
"I'm not totally involved in the pricing part, but I think its pricing is quite aggressive, and its price is quite similar to Netskope. Netskope has separate licensing fees or additional charges if you want to monitor certain SaaS services, whereas, with MCAS, you get 5,000 applications with their Office 365. It is all bundled, and there's no cost for using that. You only have the operational costs. In the country I am in, it is a bit difficult to get people with the required skill sets."
"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"We utilize the Microsoft E5 licensing, which encompasses the entire Microsoft suite; however, it is costly."
"This product is not expensive."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
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911,952 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise19
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since a...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The fidelity of the signal in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has been a challenge in some areas. There have been i...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Soha
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
 

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.
Bugcrowd, InPowered, Spirent Communications
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Enterprise Application Access vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
911,952 professionals have used our research since 2012.