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Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs Cisco Web Security Appliance 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 Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (10th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Akamai Secure Internet Acc...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
23rd
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Domain Name System (DNS) Security (9th)
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
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is 1.0%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Web Security Appliance is 2.4%, down from 2.9% 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
reviewer2159601 - PeerSpot reviewer
A user-friendly security SaaS provider with an easy setup
Akamai SPS Threat Avert is deployed on-cloud in our organization. Users should choose Akamai SPS Threat Avert based on their needs and the organization's capability. If it's a small-scale business, I would recommend exploring other solutions that will be fairly cheaper than Akamai SPS Threat Avert. However, if it's an enterprise business with a lot of transactions, security concerns, and compliance issues, I would advise them to go ahead with Akamai SPS Threat Avert. Although it's a good solution, Akamai SPS Threat Avert is expensive and best suited for enterprise-level businesses, not mid-level or low-level organizations. Overall, I rate Akamai SPS Threat Avert a nine out of ten.
Vusa Ndlovu - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced protection features offer robust security while integration process presents challenges
With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAND and wireless policies. The challenge arises when traffic is blocked from either wireless or wired connections. Although implementing it as a standalone is quicker, integrating BYOD with Cisco I and FTB can be tiring. Once it is done correctly, the functionality and reports become valuable, although the implementation part can still be challenging.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"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."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"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."
"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."
"The best feature of Akamai SPS Threat Avert is that it's very user-friendly compared to other technologies."
"It also allows you to decrypt SSL traffic, and that's a really important feature as well, which is something I also configured."
"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."
"It integrates well with Cisco Email Security Appliance."
"Great for assisting with connections to networks or apps."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance has very good security benefits for any company and is easy to integrate."
"Cisco regularly upgrades features for the customer's security requirements."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the functions of proxy for the users who use the internet and the security it offers against the not-so-secure web pages."
"The features I like most are the DLP functionality for web security and malware protection."
 

Cons

"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."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"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."
"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."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution."
"The licensing model needs to be more flexible."
"The tool needs to provide logs. They need to improve firewall threat defense."
"The FTD 21 model's Firepower Threat Defense does not have the multi-instance feature for the virtualization with the physical equipment."
"The tool needs to improve cloud-based decryption."
"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 transparent proxy is quite difficult to enforce on smartphones and tablets."
"Customer support is good but could be improved."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive."
"Regarding Cisco price-wise, it is always on a bit on the higher side."
"The licensing options begin with 100 users and this is a high threshold for smaller networks."
"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."
"The pricing is too high."
"Licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"There is a subscription-based license needed to use this solution."
"At the time, licensing fees were paid on an annual basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
26%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Government
8%
Educational Organization
4%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
17%
Non Profit
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
What do you like most about Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
The best feature of Akamai SPS Threat Avert is that it's very user-friendly compared to other technologies.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive.
What needs improvement with Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution. AWS and a lot ...
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...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Akamai ETP, Akamai SPS Threat Avert
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web 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.
MCNC, Educational Testing Service
New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Caixa Seguradora
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Zscaler, Fortinet and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: June 2025.
861,481 professionals have used our research since 2012.