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Check Point Harmony Browse vs F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) 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:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
4.7
iboss offers significant ROI by saving bandwidth and enhancing security, despite increased costs from cloud migration and device pricing.
Sentiment score
6.3
Check Point Harmony Browse significantly boosts ROI and security with reduced incidents and downtime, enhancing data protection.
Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager offers cost savings, quick ROI, and enhances security by ensuring crucial access and reducing costs.
With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I have seen some cost effectiveness from iboss; it has reduced certain support requirements, making it a more hands-off solution.
Managing Director
Our company successfully blocked a targeted phishing attack that could have compromised employee credentials and led to a costly data breach.
Operations Engineer at a media company with 51-200 employees
We have seen a return on investment with Check Point Harmony Browse, reporting a strong return where users have highlighted that the solution's security features, such as blocking phishing attacks and preventing malware downloads, have significantly reduced the number of security incidents, leading to a decrease in IT support costs and less downtime.
Engineer Cyber Security at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Iboss support is praised for responsiveness and knowledge, with some concerns about communication but generally favorable reviews.
Sentiment score
5.2
Check Point Harmony Browse's customer service is praised for professionalism but experiences varied response times.
Sentiment score
6.8
F5 BIG-IP APM customer service receives mixed reviews, with some praising responsiveness and others citing delays and communication issues.
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
The quality of the support is fantastic.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
The phone and email support provide efficient results with direct reachability to support engineers.
Senior Security Consultant at SecurView
Typically, I do not need to reach out to Check Point support because the solutions work well after installation.
Security Solution Architect at TD SYNNEX
The responses were timely, professional, and knowledgeable.
Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Even if they respond, they don't update me with the process or what's going on.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
Most of the technical support is managed in-house due to our extensive experience with F5 products.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
F5 technical support is responsive and helpful.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.3
Iboss efficiently scales to meet growing resource demands, supporting large user bases with robust support and adaptable infrastructure.
Sentiment score
7.8
Check Point Harmony Browse excels in scalability, integrating smoothly with third parties, and efficiently managing organizations of all sizes.
Sentiment score
7.3
F5 BIG-IP APM scales for diverse deployments, offering flexibility and effective tools, though hardware limitations might challenge scalability.
They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
If I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
Supporting thousands of endpoints without compromising performance.
Engineer Cyber Security at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
It is scalable as we monitor and manage endpoints and overall users across the system.
Senior Security Consultant at SecurView
Check Point Harmony Browse is virtually infinite in terms of scalability, and I've seen install bases of up to 5,000 users.
Security Solution Architect at TD SYNNEX
The product's flexibility and company culture contribute to resolving these challenges.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
I would rate the scalability of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) between seven and eight.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.6
Iboss is generally stable with reliable support, despite initial deployment challenges, and is often praised for minimal downtime.
Sentiment score
8.2
Check Point Harmony Browse is praised for stability and reliability, maintaining high ratings with no significant downtime issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
F5 BIG-IP APM is praised for reliability, performance, and minimal bugs, with minor suggestions for log clarity improvement.
It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
We've experienced zero downtime.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
In terms of stability, our experience with Check Point Harmony Browse has been positive with no major downtime so far, and the browser runs smoothly with regular updates.
Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
Check Point Harmony Browse is very stable with no communication or other issues encountered on my end.
Security Solution Architect at TD SYNNEX
On a scale from one to ten for stability, I would rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) a ten.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
Sometimes, the logs are not quite informational or easy to understand.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

Iboss struggles with Mac support, ISP integration in India, and needs improvements in security features and cloud integration.
Check Point Harmony Browse needs improvements in customization, integration, security, support, and user experience to meet diverse user needs.
F5 BIG-IP APM requires improvements in pricing, cloud integration, user interface, documentation, support, and additional features for enhanced performance.
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc.
The user interface can be better, and selecting the action for monitored or watch-listed IOCs can be more refined.
Senior Security Consultant at SecurView
Another area of improvement is extension compatibility since it currently works best with Chrome and Edge, but having wider browser support for Firefox and Safari would be beneficial for mixed environments.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
Integrating with Fortinet, Palo Alto, or third-party SIEM products such as Splunk would be a seamless advantage.
Information security professional at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
If I could copy and paste objects instead of picking and configuring them from scratch each time, it would be great.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
The main improvement needed for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is to integrate into the cloud-delivered services from F5.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
The ability to run the Anycast feature would be valuable, as the current solution only operates on-premises.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
 

Setup Cost

Iboss offers competitive, transparent pricing with valuable cloud solutions, appealing to enterprises for predictable budgeting and desired functionality.
Check Point Harmony Browse is flexible, scalable, and valued for easy setup, beneficial pricing, and effective security for organizations.
F5 BIG-IP APM is costly but valued for high performance, with unpredictable cloud pricing and additional fees for features.
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
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.
Network Administrator at a educational organization with 51-200 employees
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern.
Managing Director
Smaller projects tend to be more expensive due to fewer licenses, while larger projects of 500 to 2,000 users benefit from better pricing and discounts.
Security Solution Architect at TD SYNNEX
There were no significant upfront hardware or infrastructure costs since it's delivered as a native cloud service.
Assistant Manager at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
It is not too high compared to what we expected, but it is not too cheap either, which is why I rate it five.
Information security professional at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
 

Valuable Features

Iboss provides comprehensive cloud security with advanced features, enhancing data protection and management efficiency for network security.
Check Point Harmony Browse offers robust browser protection against phishing and threats, ensuring secure browsing without impacting performance.
F5 BIG-IP APM offers secure remote access with SSL VPN, multi-factor authentication, and comprehensive integration and security features.
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water
It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler.
Educational Technology Coordinator at a performing arts with 201-500 employees
iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted.
Managing Director
Everything is handled directly within the browser using a lightweight extension, delivering real-time threat prevention, including protection against zero-day phishing and malicious downloads without impacting user productivity.
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
The isolated environment in Check Point Harmony Browse is the best feature we provide, giving a separate, isolated environment for the production applications and company applications, which is really valuable.
Information security professional at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees
The real-time Threat Intelligence feature powered by Check Point's ThreatCloud is impressive because ThreatCloud integrates and correlates all malicious data from Check Point installations globally, collecting and analyzing this data with AI and machine learning to help prevent zero-day attacks effectively.
Security Solution Architect at TD SYNNEX
APM is quite flexible for customers to use, providing secure remote access through various host-checking conditions for both machines and users.
Solutions Manager at Macroview Telecom Limited
It provides robust security and offers integration with multi-factor authentication systems, which is crucial for an organization's security policy.
Business Development Manager at Pylones
A lot of features are useful to me, including mostly the authentication, SAML, or SSO, with no sign-on.
Professional Services Specialist at a security firm with 51-200 employees
 

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)
Check Point Harmony Browse
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
29
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Browsers (4th)
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Man...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
Network Access Control (NAC) (11th), SSL VPN (7th), Remote Access (18th), Access Management (15th)
 

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 Check Point Harmony Browse is 0.9%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is 1.5%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.5%
Check Point Harmony Browse0.9%
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)1.5%
Other94.1%
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.
AndreiBo - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Solution Architect at TD SYNNEX
Real-time threat intelligence enhances security and user confidence
At this point, I do not have any suggestions for improvements to Check Point Harmony Browse because I haven't encountered anything that would need changing. If a solution is installed correctly, it usually won't fail. It's hard to suggest new features for Check Point Harmony Browse because it's a sub-component of a larger Harmony Endpoint Security solution, which is handled separately under specific situations, and while it has many options, it already scans and delivers files efficiently. Regarding the scanning of large files in Check Point Harmony Browse, the process typically involves sending the file to Check Point cloud for scanning and returning the clean file to the user, which is inherently complex and I do not see how it could be optimized to be faster.
Senior Cyber Security Consultant at KoçSistem
Has provided reliable policy controls and secure web access for large enterprises
I consider Cloudflare when evaluating centralized access control features; Cloudflare utilizes multi-factor authentication and full API support, while F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) needs to enhance its API support. I recommend F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) for large companies such as Tüpraş and Ford. Tüpraş is one of the biggest companies in Turkey, along with other customers such as Tofaş, Euroko, Koç Holding, and more. For on-premises deployment, I would rate it a 10. For cloud deployment, I would rate it a seven. I primarily use it on-premises. I rate F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) eight out of ten.
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
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%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Security Firm
12%
Construction Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
15%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
8%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 Business20
Midsize Enterprise15
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise9
 

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 needs improvement with Check Point Harmony Browse?
The browsing speed of Check Point Harmony Browse can be improved. The user interface and compatibility are good, but ...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Harmony Browse?
Check Point Harmony Browse serves as our primary browser. Since browsers are the first point of contact for any issue...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Harmony Browse?
The pricing and setup cost of Check Point Harmony Browse are affordable for my organization.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 products are more expensive than other solutions but are valued for their quality and reliability, akin to purchas...
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) is not user-friendly and operates slowly. Additional features for architecture ...
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM)?
I am using F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) along with Bot Management, API Gateway, API Security, and F5 Cloud. ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
F5 Access Policy Manager
 

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.
Information Not Available
City Bank, Ricacorp Properties, Miele, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Harmony Browse vs. F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
902,988 professionals have used our research since 2012.