Cisco Secure Access vs Fortinet FortiCASB comparison

Cisco and Fortinet are both solutions in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category. Cisco is ranked #3 with an average rating of 8.4, while Fortinet is ranked #18 with an average rating of 7.0. Cisco holds a 6.5% mindshare in CASB, compared to Fortinet’s 0.6% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Fortinet users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Secure Access and Fortinet FortiCASB based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Palo Alto Networks, Cisco, Netskope and others in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB).

To learn more, read our detailed Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

March 2026

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.7%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Access is 6.5%, up from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiCASB is 0.6%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Access	6.5%
iboss	2.7%
Fortinet FortiCASB	0.6%
Other	90.2%

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701851

Managing Director

Enhances web security with a single pane of glass and flexible deployment

I don't see any need for improvement; one of the really good things about iboss as a company is that they listen to customer feedback. I have suggested enhancements, and they are responsive, making changes for the better, and they do a lot of testing. To improve iboss, although we haven't used it, we considered the VPN solution that comes with the highest tier licensing, which includes DLP and various other add-ons. We prefer using another product which automatically logs you back onto your network when turning on your PC. With iboss, the connection is manual, which doesn't meet our needs. Additionally, sizing can be tricky because, although the initial recommendations may seem adequate, actual usage may require more gateways than anticipated.

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Kartik Amin

Network Operations Engineer at Redex IT Limited

Secure access has unified zero trust and web protection while AI assistance automates tasks

From a feature perspective, I have not experienced any issues, drawbacks, or shortcomings. However, the cost of Cisco's products and licensing is high. My clients usually prefer cheaper options if possible. Mid-size or smaller businesses typically cannot afford Cisco Secure Access. Additionally, there is a steep learning curve, as it is very intensive. Someone with significant knowledge can work on it, but a new professional would have to spend considerable time to get accustomed to it. It is hard to find engineers who can work on it. Overall, we get what we pay for, as it is a pretty good feature and service. The pricing of Cisco's products and licensing is higher than competitors. If they could be more reasonable, that would help. The support offered for two years also has higher costs. Overall, the client's IT budget gets affected. It was challenging to learn because, as mentioned, it has a significant learning curve and requires considerable training to become proficient.

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Vijayakumar Yohannan

Delivery Head - NOC Operations at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Seamlessly customize security features but need improved deployment speed

I find Fortinet FortiCASB easily customizable. It allows me to leverage features that cover almost eighty percent of use cases required by my clients. The compliance management feature supports GDPR and HIPAA compliance, effectively meeting those use cases. The hybrid model of Fortinet offers seamless deployment on cloud or hybrid best suited for customers, making it adaptable in various scenarios.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."

"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."

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."

"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."

"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."

More iboss pros

"From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using Cisco Secure Access is the significant reduction in security risks and improved operational efficiency."

"I consider the most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access to be that it merged everything into one dashboard, the Cisco Secure Access dashboard."

"Customers spend much less time troubleshooting VPNs because ZTNA works more stably, and therefore it has become a pretty good point of sales for us as a reseller to increase our revenue at the customer level, because it's an extra layer of security that you can add to an already existing networking solution."

"I find the zero trust approach helpful and beneficial in securing standard applications, which means you are accessing the applications directly instead of giving privilege to access the network itself."

"Cisco Secure Access has helped my organization significantly, especially when we went through a cyber event and lost all our previous remote access, and we were able to get Cisco Secure Access up within seven days and roll it out to all our people to get everybody back online."

"My experience is that Cisco has been in an area where there have been many different solutions for security, and now they are converging, but they are moving into more of a 360 view, and I have more or less everything in the same platform, so Cisco is moving in the right direction."

"I would say that over the last 15 years, Cisco Secure Access is the best solution for remote access because I work with other companies as well, but Cisco Secure Access is the best one."

"The overall success of Cisco Secure Access has significantly improved my organization's security posture in terms of security and usability compared to the previous solution, which was fairly convoluted with several different hops required to log in every day from home."

More Cisco Secure Access pros

"I find Fortinet FortiCASB easily customizable."

Cons

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."

"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."

"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 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."

"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."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."

More iboss cons

"Cisco Secure Access can be improved with more integration; the more integrations, the better. There are always third-party products that you might have, such as Carbon Black."

"The way that we're using Cisco Secure Access today, it doesn't scale with the growing needs of our organization, however, if we leveraged more of the cloud services, it would fit better."

"Having been associated with Cisco for more than fifteen to twenty years, I find it increasingly difficult to get tech support these days. Although Cisco is reliable, the process to raise a support ticket has become more complex, requiring specific user accounts and access to specialized platforms."

"The worst part was the migration from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access; we experienced some difficulties during that process."

"I would describe my experience deploying Cisco Secure Access as working well, though we are hitting bugs."

"TAC engineers just exit the call once their shift timing ends."

"Cisco Secure Access could be improved with fewer bugs; we need to address less software bugs, as there are technical issues and errors in the software, which we are trying to resolve to achieve a more stable version that companies can use without issues, but it is a working process, and we understand this."

"We don't have any good tools right now, which is a problem."

More Cisco Secure Access cons

"The turnaround time to deploy Fortinet FortiCASB could be improved."

"The turnaround time to deploy Fortinet FortiCASB could be improved. The learning curve for deploying, configuring use cases, and rules can be better."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."

"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."

"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."

"For what you get, it's a fair price in comparison to other products."

"It is confusing. When you look at the prices, you have different licensing and years of licensing that you have to purchase. Additionally, it's unclear what service you get from those licenses regarding end-user support. We have a representative who has to walk me through it every time."

"The pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco Secure Access have been very competitive compared to other platforms. I believe that if Cisco continues to improve costs or offers something similar to a Cisco credit, it would attract more customers."

Information not available

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	6

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	9
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	27

No data available

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...

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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...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Access?

My experience with the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for Cisco Secure Access is that it is part of our security ...

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What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Access?

Cisco Secure Access has many features, and I want to clarify whether the discussion pertains to Cisco ISE or the Cisc...

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What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Secure Access?

Cisco Secure Access always requires monitoring for updates and signatures, similar to a health check, but not intensi...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiCASB?

The price point could be better, and improvements are desired in staying on top of evolving threats while keeping cos...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiCASB?

The turnaround time to deploy Fortinet FortiCASB could be improved. The learning curve for deploying, configuring use...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Fortinet FortiCASB?

My primary use case for Fortinet FortiCASB is threat management and managing external threats. I predominantly use it...

See all answers

Comparisons

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 9% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Lightspeed Filter vs iboss

Compared 3% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Cisco Umbrella vs Cisco Secure Access

Compared 23% of the time

Netskope vs Cisco Secure Access

Compared 9% of the time

FortiSASE vs Cisco Secure Access

Compared 9% of the time

Cato SASE Cloud Platform vs Cisco Secure Access

Compared 7% of the time

Absolute Secure Access vs Cisco Secure Access

Compared 3% of the time

More Cisco Secure Access Competitors

FortiSASE vs Fortinet FortiCASB

Compared 44% of the time

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Fortinet FortiCASB

Compared 33% of the time

Netskope vs Fortinet FortiCASB

Compared 23% of the time

More Fortinet FortiCASB Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

March 2026

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Secure Access

March 2026

Download Cisco Secure Access product report

Buyer's Guide

Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

March 2026

Download Fortinet FortiCASB product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

No data available

FortiCASB

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

Cisco Secure Access is a comprehensive Security Service Edge (SSE) solution (a key component of a SASE solution) that addresses the complexities of securing a hybrid enterprise. Cloud-delivered and grounded in zero trust, it delivers a unique blend of user simplicity and IT efficiency for frictionless, secure access to all applications—SaaS (with gen AI), private apps, and the internet—regardless of user location or device. Secure Access protects users, data, and devices against relentless, sophisticated, and constantly evolving threats including AI-driven attacks and identity breaches.

Provides all core SSE components (ZTNA, SWG, CASB, and FWaaS) plus extended capabilities.

Includes VPN-as-a-Service (VPNaaS), data loss prevention (DLP), AI Assistant, visibility/control/guardrails for generative AI use, digital experience monitoring (DEM), reserved IP, remote browser isolation (RBI), DNS-layer security, flexible security enforcement (in cloud or on-premises), policy verification, and more.
Protects users as they seamlessly access resources and apps with no extra steps needed, regardless of protocol, port, or level of customization
Simplifies IT operations through a single client, single dashboard, single license, and unified policies.
Lowers risk with least privilege, granular controls backed with unmatched threat intelligence of Cisco Talos.
Eases interoperability with other products from Cisco and third-party vendors with common administrative controls, data structures, and policy management.

Robust integrations

Integrates with Cisco Identity Intelligence to protect against the startling increase in identity-based attacks.
Integrates with many SAML Identity Providers (IDPs) such as AD, Azure AD, Okta, Ping, etc.
Integrates with Cisco offerings including SD-WAN, Splunk, XDR, Thousand Eyes, third party technologies such as Menlo RBI, Chrome Enterprise Browser, and AppOmni for SSPM.

Cisco

Fortinet FortiCASB is a comprehensive cloud security solution offered by Fortinet, a leading cybersecurity company. FortiCASB is designed to provide organizations with visibility, control, and security for their cloud-based applications and services. It helps organizations secure their cloud environments, detect threats, enforce policies, and ensure compliance.

Fortinet FortiCASB Features:

Cloud Application Visibility

FortiCASB offers visibility into cloud applications and services being used within an organization's network. It helps identify shadow IT and provides insights into the cloud usage patterns, facilitating effective management and control.

Data Protection and Compliance

FortiCASB enables organizations to protect sensitive data in the cloud by enforcing data loss prevention (DLP) policies and encryption. It helps identify and control data sharing, detect anomalies, and ensure compliance with data privacy regulations.

Threat Detection and Response

FortiCASB incorporates advanced threat detection capabilities to identify and mitigate cloud-specific threats. It employs machine learning algorithms and behavioral analytics to detect anomalous activities, account compromises, malware, and other cloud-based threats.

Access Controls and Identity Management

FortiCASB enables organizations to enforce granular access controls for cloud applications, ensuring that users have appropriate permissions and follow secure authentication practices. It integrates with identity management systems and supports features such as single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).

Compliance Monitoring and Reporting

FortiCASB helps organizations monitor and maintain compliance with industry regulations and standards. It provides pre-defined compliance templates, automated policy enforcement, and detailed reporting capabilities to demonstrate adherence to data privacy and security requirements.

Shadow IT Discovery and Control

FortiCASB helps organizations discover and gain visibility into unauthorized or risky cloud applications used within their network. It enables IT teams to assess risks, enforce policies, and take appropriate actions to manage and control cloud usage effectively.

Cloud Security Assessments

FortiCASB conducts security assessments of cloud applications and services to evaluate their security posture and identify vulnerabilities. It provides insights into potential risks and assists organizations in making informed decisions about the adoption of specific cloud services.

Fortinet

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.

1. IBM 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. Google 5. Apple 6. Cisco Systems 7. Oracle 8. Intel 9. HP Inc. 10. Dell Technologies 11. Verizon Communications 12. AT&T 13. Comcast 14. T-Mobile 15. Sprint 16. Vodafone 17. Orange 18. BT Group 19. Deutsche Telekom 20. Telefonica 21. Nokia 22. Ericsson 23. Samsung Electronics 24. Sony 25. Panasonic 26. LG Electronics 27. Siemens 28. General Electric 29. Ford Motor Company 30. General Motors 31. Toyota Motor Corporation 32. Volkswagen Group

Rollins

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Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)

March 2026

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