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Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs iboss comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 11, 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

Cato SASE Cloud Platform
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
6th
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
3rd
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
5th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.7
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
WAN Optimization (1st), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (4th), WAN Edge (4th)
iboss
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
7th
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
11th
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (7th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of Cato SASE Cloud Platform is 9.7%, up from 7.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iboss is 1.7%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

Featured Reviews

Alexander Azikov - PeerSpot reviewer
Provide a seamless experience for end users with internet duplication feature
The setup and onboarding process is very straightforward - I'd rate it a ten out of ten for ease. We use CatoCloud as our cloud provider. They have points of presence, and we connect to the nearest one to our physical location. All the routing, inspection, and logic for what to route, block, or allow happens in the cloud, not on the local device. Our deployment took a couple of weeks because we installed the sites manually. If we had a team to help switch locally, it could have been done in a week. The deployment process is straightforward. We set up all the sites in their cloud system; then, they ship the sockets directly to the location or our main office. We connect the device to the internet, it gets activated, we assign it to a specific site inside the cloud, and it's online and ready to use. It's very easy.
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

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The WAN aggregation feature is the most valuable."
"Cato offers all the functionality found in other solution. The life cycle management is always very stable."
"When I first encountered Cato, I didn't know how to use it, but after a week of training, I could onboard our systems to it, so the solution was easy to learn and navigate."
"It's a pretty straightforward solution."
"It's a cloud-based solution that integrates well with everything."
"Cato SASE Cloud Platform's self-healing model is the most valuable feature."
"It is a stable solution...it is a scalable solution."
"The most valuable feature of Cato Networks is the CASB and the documentation is useful."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"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."
"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."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"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."
"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."
 

Cons

"Modifying or incorporating Cato Network to work with a third-party platform, such as Microsoft, or other Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings would be beneficial. Having more integration partners would help the users implement the solution."
"The product's technical support could be more responsive."
"There isn't much to improve as we have a close relationship with them, providing information for research and development."
"They can't do one-to-one NAT (Network Address Translation) in AP (their access point), and that is something that Palo Alto can do."
"The solution is not cheap."
"The solution could be made more user friendly for the administrator to use the portal. It is difficult to use it for people who are not experienced with Cato Networks."
"Cato Networks security could be better."
"The product may be complex for users with few years of experience."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"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."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution depends upon the bandwidth required for different branches"
"The product is very competitively priced, and that's compelling. They don't charge the customer based on the operational cost like other brands such as Palo Alto. Cato has its own fully-fledged cloud, with their own data centers, equipment, and so on, which is an advantage. I rate the solution five out of five for affordability."
"The platform is expensive."
"You pay yearly based on the speed of your network. If you increase the speed of your network, you increase the cost for your throughput. It is by bandwidth for the most part and then licenses for VPN. There is some per-seat licensing for VPN access, but the majority of it is minimal. It is like $30 a year per client. The rest is based on how much bandwidth you'll use. You pay for that upfront for the year, and if you have to increase it, you increase it, and then they let you send more data through. There are no additional costs in addition to the standard licensing fees."
"The price is not an issue for us, as it is priced more competitively than some other vendors."
"Cato Networks seems more expensive than Cisco Meraki."
"The solution has reasonable pricing. It has a yearly subscription. The pricing depends on the permit to code. Sometimes, we need to increase the permit, and the cost will automatically change. There's no fixed cost. Unless we request additional modules such as DNS security, ELP, and decent features, there will be no additional cost."
"If you compare with VeloCloud, the price is the same or even cheaper."
"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 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 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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
24%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Cato Networks?
The solution is a simple WAN solution. We've onboarded the socket on the Cato platform, and it provides connectivity. There is no complex routing.
What is your primary use case for Cato Networks?
I use Cato SASE Cloud Platform primarily as a single vendor, integrated SD-WAN plus SASE solution.
What advice do you have for others considering Cato Networks?
I rate Cato SASE Cloud Platform at 9.5 out of 10. There is always room for improvement, especially in edge security features.
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 ExxonMobil. While iboss performed well, some competitors offered simpler implementati...
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 old proxies to cloud proxies, and we did POCs with different giants at that time. ...
 

Also Known As

Cato Networks
iBoss Cloud Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Paysafe, AdRoll, Pet Lovers Centre, Arlington Orthopedics, Humphreys & Partners Architects
More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs. iboss and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
856,873 professionals have used our research since 2012.