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Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs NordLayer comparison

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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 ZTNA as a Service
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
79
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (4th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (6th), Cisco Security Portfolio (5th)
NordLayer
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
24th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (33rd), Network Access Control (NAC) (22nd), Internet Security (15th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (21st), ZTNA (20th), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (32nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (23rd)
 

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.
AS
Manager - Projects at airtel
Offers work-from-anywhere flexibility but navigates occasional proxy confusion
The analytics I downloaded from your site as a free download did not carry the information that was actually required. I was looking at the market segmentation and market share, along with some USPs which differentiated them from each other. The free download had two issues: many things were repetitive, and it was designed to not release any relevant information. Only headers were present, so I was not able to determine whether the final report would be worthwhile. I have not worked with enterprise tools that I could share feedback on for website publication. I see benefits from using Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect). However, I would not recommend it because future adoptions will be towards Zscaler, as SSC is a better model than VPN. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 7.
Christophe Derdeyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner delaware Singapore at delaware Singapore
A convenient and easy tool with an incredibly high number of dialing points
The solution is convenient and easy. It has an incredibly high number of dialing points for pretty much every single country in the world. It has a few additional security features. It has a function that prevents unsecured access if my connection were to drop for any reason. It’s something I like. It has threat protection features. It can protect my web connection and files against malicious downloads and trackers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"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."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"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."
"My advice to those considering the product is to just do it because the solution is very good, very scalable, and very easy to maintain."
"This solution gives you double security because it uses both hard and soft tokens."
"The solution is stable and reliable; there are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze."
"This is absolutely a product that I can recommend."
"The most valuable feature is AnyConnect's reliability."
"Support does solve our issues."
"If you're looking for an easily configurable and accessible kind of solution, then I suggest that Cisco is the product to go to, hands down."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is the one-click VPN connection, and additionally, the performance is good."
"The solution is convenient and easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"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."
"iboss could improve by making alert noises lower, adding clearer setup steps, and speeding up support response times."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"The dashboard management feels complex in our organization, so simplifying the management dashboard would be beneficial."
"Complicated scenarios are difficult to deploy. On a scale from one to ten, with one being the most difficult, I'd give a rating of between two and three for the initial setup."
"Behavior analytics and other newer technologies should be integrated into the solution."
"At times, the login process takes a lot of time."
"The solution should not rely on tokens from the mobile application for logins."
"Sometimes when you disconnect or switch from one wireless network to another, it's necessary to re-login."
"Usability could be improved, as the look and feel of it is somewhat dated. More generally, Cisco's security portfolio, including Secure Client and the firewalls, is falling behind."
"Often, there are new versions to install and that can be annoying for our users."
"As with most Cisco products, standing by itself, this solution is not perfect."
"The tool is not perfectly stable."
 

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."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"The solution is reasonably priced and costs $600 for a five-year license in our scenario."
"One thing I've noticed is the price in comparison to other VPNs."
"I am using a paid version of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client."
"It is not a free solution and the user needs to buy license."
"The initial cost is the ASA and other items, but after that, it is relatively inexpensive."
"It costs around 80,000 Indian rupees for a hundred licenses, so approximately $1,020 USD."
"I would rate the pricing for the license of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client around four to five out of ten. It's not the cheapest option, but it's also not overly expensive."
"The price is okay."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Comms Service Provider
16%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Construction Company
9%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise16
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business28
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise49
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is somewhat expensive compared to others such as Fortinet or Palo Alto, wh...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
There are no features that I wish Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) had that it does not currently provide. ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
I primarily use Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) for VPN connections and network-related activities. We hav...
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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
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Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
Hostinger, Shutterstock, USMobile, Soundcloud, Calendly, whatagraph.
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