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Cisco Umbrella vs Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 29, 2026

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
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
124
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (3rd)
Symantec Cloud Secure Web G...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
29th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
4
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 9.3%, down from 17.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway is 0.9%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella9.3%
iboss3.4%
Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway0.9%
Other86.4%
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.
SS
Sr. Technical Executive at a computer software company with 11-50 employees
Has required extensive customization for non-technical users and still needs better simplification
Customization for basic users can be complex, as it is targeted toward only technical users. It would be beneficial if Cisco simplifies the customization process while still ensuring strong security to prevent unauthorized access. Simplifying the customization part could enhance Cisco Umbrella, but overall, it is a good solution for me.
reviewer2296710 - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Specialist at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Efficiently blocks unwanted web content and malicious websites and very stable solution
Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway can be improved by giving customers more ability to provide feedback on the categorization of websites and the site review portal. Customers should be able to submit more feedback on the reports from malicious web content and malicious websites. The solution could be more effective at identifying and classifying malicious websites.

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."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"The students were always protected, and the content filtering worked very well, seeming to work better than other products we had tried previously."
"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"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."
"We use it to provide cloud-based security services for our customers."
"Threats never come close to your network with security at the DNS level​."
"Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers."
"I was able to implement it myself. It was really easy to install. You could install it on a server locally if you want to. If you have the biggest site, you would do that, but for my site, it was just directing all the traffic out through the Cisco Umbrella DNS. It was really handy. When the owners of the company went overseas, I knew that they would be secure because even if they were not on the company network, they would still go through the Cisco Umbrella servers. It was a complete solution for protecting the company with outgoing data."
"The solution is extremely stable. It has excellent performance."
"What we like most is security and how easy it is to integrate with other appliances."
"Cisco Umbrella's integration with other solutions has been a great feature in terms of ease of administration. Administration and troubleshooting are faster. The single pane of glass is great as well. Another great feature of Cisco Umbrella is remote browser isolation. With this feature, you open a virtual browser, and it's seamless to the user. If the user ends up going to a bad website that's passed a policy and something bad tries to download, it will not download into the machine because it is a virtual window somewhere in the cloud. You are protected by this feature."
"The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup an eight out of ten, where one is difficult, and ten is easy to set up. It was pretty straightforward."
"This solution does not require much administration."
"The product is easy to install and deploy on the cloud."
 

Cons

"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"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."
"The easiest device I have set up was the Barracuda line of products."
"The biggest frustration I have encountered with Cisco Umbrella is that people can exit the Cisco Umbrella roaming client to bypass security, and some technically savvy individuals might know how to bypass it by modifying the hosts file to exclude Cisco Umbrella."
"We would like to see the enhancements made to the EDR, as we see features that are running endpoint management."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"Cisco Umbrella could be improved by making the policies more granular, as in some cases, it's difficult to find the correct link to open a specific site securely."
"The solution's technical support is not very good."
"I don't have an answer for how Cisco Umbrella can be improved, as it has been some time since I've worked with it."
"I'm hoping for the conversion of Cisco ZTNA's features from Duo to Umbrella."
"Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."
"Symantec support is not very good. It is now outsourcing a significant portion of its support desk functions to distributors, who are taking over some of the help desk responsibilities."
"Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway can be improved by giving customers more ability to provide feedback on the categorization of websites and the site review portal."
"WSS runs slowly sometimes, I would like for this to be looked into."
"The product is cost-effective, considering its features, technology, and support services."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"In terms of licensing, we're not able to be extremely clear with the customer because it's based on their reporting. It's not based on the actual traffic. If they say they have 50 users but they have 80, we'll just buy for 50 users. That's something where we'd like to have more flexibility."
"There are three models for licensing with different feature sets."
"​The pricing is fair."
"It was a little bit expensive on a per seat basis, but the company I was running was only a midsize Australian company, and it was a reasonable budget per computer for that system. It started off being a free product, and then Cisco bought it, and it went to a reasonable price. I was using Cisco AMP as well. So, my per computer cost was reasonably high, but for a small company, it was within an acceptable level."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"The price is fixed and affordable."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
10%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise31
Large Enterprise51
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zs...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bu...
What needs improvement with Symantec Web Security Service?
Most products in this space are still maturing. Organizations rushing toward implementing zero-trust models often enc...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway?
Symantec is now part of Broadcom, and their pricing is comparable to others in the market. It's reasonably priced rel...
What advice do you have for others considering Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway?
Customers are increasingly adopting web isolation to enhance their network security. While this technology is costly,...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
Symantec Web Security Service
 

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.
Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Symantec Cloud Secure Web Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,351 professionals have used our research since 2012.