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Axis Security vs Cisco Web Security Appliance 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)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Axis Security
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
18th
Average Rating
9.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (15th), ZTNA as a Service (16th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (16th)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
21st
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 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Axis Security is 1.0%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Web Security Appliance is 1.9%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.5%
Axis Security1.0%
Cisco Web Security Appliance1.9%
Other93.6%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

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.
Robert Oglesbee - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Visionworks of America
Easy to deploy, improved reliability and performance of our connectivity, and greatly reduced costs
Atmos is good for securing infrastructure from end to end, detection and remediation of threats, but there may be a few features that could be added to make it a little easier for networking and security folks to analyze the traffic. There are bad actors out there and they may or may not show up through the tool. That's something they can add. They need to improve the networking and security tools a little in the troubleshooting and "bad-actor" areas to help us analyze security threats a little better. They have some things built in, but I would like to see more advanced tools. There are major vendors out there, and if you use their VPN connection that's not going to help you without buying one of their other products. So that's a similar type of situation. However, they do give you a little more bang for the buck when it comes to monitoring. So I can see an improvement there, in Atmos, in the future.
Vusa Ndlovu - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Solution Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
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

"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"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 pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"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 solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"I rate Axis Security ten out of ten."
"The way the access connectors work is valuable."
"I would give it an A-plus for securing access to our applications, devices, and network. It does an extremely good job. Our security folks have analyzed it and tried to find loopholes, but they found none."
"The most valuable aspect is its ability to restrict unauthorized access, ensuring that only approved devices can connect to the network. T"
"The entire suite and the entire ZTNA process are very valuable."
"The most valuable part so far has been Axis Security's ability to create identity connections to various servers, allowing users to access them. By doing so, we've managed to replace any old or existing VPN access with Axis Security. We are slowly but surely getting rid of our traditional VPN."
"It's most valuable feature is its convenience."
"All I can say is that from a solution perspective, whatever the customer is basically looking for from our web security appliance, Cisco Web Security Appliance has met it all."
"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."
"The solution is one of the best enterprise-based products in the market and is not expensive compared to others."
"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 regularly upgrades features for the customer's security requirements."
"The solution offers content filtering and micro-content controls, such as regulating the types of images and their resolution."
"The technical support is good, it is reactive, and the documentation is very specific and very useful."
 

Cons

"Its pricing could be better."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"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."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"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."
"There should be a notification alarm with geofencing."
"They need to improve the networking and security tools a little in the troubleshooting and 'bad-actor' areas to help us analyze security threats a little better. They have some things built-in, but I would like to see more advanced tools."
"The support team should be more skilled in offering assistance."
"I would like more detailed logging in the Axis Security interface."
"I would appreciate more automated learning capabilities or increased integration with other security tools, allowing us to establish automation."
"I would like more statistics about what's going on in terms of usage. There is little-to-no usage reporting. That's one thing we've requested, and I think they're working on it."
"If a user wants to use it for other devices like mobile or smartphones, this product isn't so reliable."
"The pricing is too high, so that could be improved."
"This solution could be more secure. Purpose-wise, I don't necessarily see the point of this solution."
"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."
"The stability is lacking and is something that should be looked at. We don't find it to be very stable."
"Cisco lacks a GUI-based troubleshooting feature compared to products by other vendors."
"It should have a user-based quota, per-user quota, that can be defined on the appliance."
"The solution needs to be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
 

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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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 pricing is very competitive from what I've seen."
"The pricing is quite fair. It's better than what we gave up, which was Cisco AnyConnect."
"The pricing is too high."
"I know from the manager that the price is too high and that other solutions offer the same features for less."
"When you compare the price of this solution to the price of FortiGate, it's high."
"At the time, licensing fees were paid on an annual basis."
"There is a subscription-based license needed to use this solution."
"Licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"This is an expensive solution."
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902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Retailer
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
University
8%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business2
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Axis Security?
Axis Security is affordable. While I cannot provide financial specifics, we have never had complaints about pricing.
What needs improvement with Axis Security?
There should be a notification alarm with geofencing. When a person is at the gate, a notification alarm should alert...
What is your primary use case for Axis Security?
We monitor access for individuals who log in and out, as there are codes we log in with. The code is generated by an ...
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 primary use case for Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The user interface that I usually provide for the web app includes malware protection, URL filtering, data loss preve...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
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.
Cardenas Markets, Armis, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Visionworks
New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Caixa Seguradora
Find out what your peers are saying about Axis Security vs. Cisco Web Security Appliance and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.