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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Skyhigh Security comparison

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 27, 2025

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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
13th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Skyhigh Security
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (33rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), ZTNA as a Service (17th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (19th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Web Security Appliance is 2.2%, down from 2.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skyhigh Security is 2.9%, down from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
iboss2.2%
Cisco Web Security Appliance2.2%
Skyhigh Security2.9%
Other92.7%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

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
Vusa Ndlovu - PeerSpot reviewer
Advanced protection features offer robust security while integration process presents challenges
With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAND and wireless policies. The challenge arises when traffic is blocked from either wireless or wired connections. Although implementing it as a standalone is quicker, integrating BYOD with Cisco I and FTB can be tiring. Once it is done correctly, the functionality and reports become valuable, although the implementation part can still be challenging.
Chinthu James - PeerSpot reviewer
Good scalability, but the technical support service needs improvement
We use the solution to monitor and secure our customers' internet access The solution's best feature is the flexibility of use. The stability of the solution's cloud portal needs improvement. Sometimes, it gets timed out.   We have been using the solution since 2017. We need help accessing a…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"It's a scalable product."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is user-friendly and easy to manage. It protects your environment while accessing the internet."
"The tool has good Umbrella DNS security."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The features I like most are the DLP functionality for web security and malware protection."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance has very good security benefits for any company and is easy to integrate."
"What we liked best about it was the ability to apply policy to either a user ID or an IP-based network."
"The features I like most are the DLP functionality for web security and malware protection."
"The feature I like best about Skyhigh Security is its wide range of product support. For example, my company had NetApp storage running, and Skyhigh Security has on-premises NetApp storage support, which isn't available in other solutions. Skyhigh Security also has a better filtering feature versus the filtering feature in other solutions."
"Shadow IT reporting capabilities."
"In terms of their compatibility with major cloud providers, in terms of their abilities, capabilities, and features, they exceed everyone's capabilities in the CASB market."
"What's most valuable in Skyhigh Security is its level of security. Another valuable feature of the solution is threat analysis."
"It is easy to configure rules."
"There is [a feature] called cloud registry where we can see a risk assessment for the cloud services being used. If we want to add a new cloud service or a new cloud application, we can check into it and do an assessment through the cloud registry."
"The most valuable features of MVISION Cloud are the automatic reports and modification incidents."
"It also prevents you from writing data to your Gmail and does not allow you to move your data outside of the corporate system. That is the most important feature for me."
 

Cons

"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"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."
"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."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The solution could improve the graphical user interface. It is not up to the regular standard of what we would expect from Cisco. Additionally, they need to improve the categorization when blocking in the settings. The CLI could have a better view than the graphical user interface but I did not investigate further."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"Cisco lacks a GUI-based troubleshooting feature compared to products by other vendors."
"There are certain shortcomings related to the product's management capabilities, where improvements are required. The solution needs to provide better management of the category of web pages."
"With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAND and wireless policies."
"As Cisco Web Security Appliance is eight years old, though it's simple to access its UI, the UI needs a little bit of updating. If it could be more interactive similar to the latest gen solutions, that would improve the product. Adding a few more integrations would also make Cisco Web Security Appliance better."
"Technical support needs to be improved because they take a very long time and there is no communication or notification."
"If a user wants to use it for other devices like mobile or smartphones, this product isn't so reliable."
"McAfee Web Gateway could improve the reporting. We have the reporting on a separate server and sometimes the database becomes full. These aspects could improve."
"I think that the User Interface could be improved."
"One thing that can be improved is their ability to integrate with other web proxies to discover unsanctioned IP apps."
"The virtual solution requires improvement."
"There are no training videos available for the product."
"The feature that we would like to have is a hybrid environment, including both cloud and on-premises."
"SkyHigh has the ability to place users or groups on a ‘Watchlist’; which allows you to see certain views with these Watchlists users/groups in them. This is great when you are looking at live data but if I wanted to generate a report on "only" the watchlists."
"It would be nice to be able to get more advanced search functions to filter out data and quickly obtain the data that we need."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"Licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"When you compare the price of this solution to the price of FortiGate, it's high."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is not the cheapest solution on the market, but it's well worth it."
"This is an expensive solution."
"At the time, licensing fees were paid on an annual basis."
"The solution's cost depends on how many users you purchase. It was maybe $3 or $5 per user, which is a bit expensive."
"I know from the manager that the price is too high and that other solutions offer the same features for less."
"It's an expensive solution."
"Commercially, I find Skyhigh Security a little costlier, compared to other products such as SentinelOne or Cybereason which are really novelty products. I'm not comparing Skyhigh Security with Trend Micro, but with other products, in particular the new, next-generation products. The price for Skyhigh Security is high in terms of value and ROI. I would rate the product price combined with product efficacy a six out of ten."
"The solution is quite expensive. As we take add-ons continuously as per our customer's requirements, there are additional charges."
"Pricing is not out of reach."
"The tool is not expensive."
"There is an annual licensing cost to use McAfee Web Gateway. The purchasing of licensing can be difficult for the government sector."
"The biggest thing to watch for is the difference in price per monitored user for the different API integrations."
"The solution's hardware is expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
15%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Non Profit
9%
Financial Services Firm
16%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Government
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise38
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
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...
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...
What do you like most about Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The most valuable features of the solution are the functions of proxy for the users who use the internet and the secu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Web Security Appliance?
Comparing with other products, Cisco has more functionality, but pricing is a challenge. Cisco is not a product for s...
What needs improvement with Cisco Web Security Appliance?
With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAN...
What needs improvement with McAfee Web Gateway?
The solution has room for improvement in its DDoS protection. Additionally, the documentation needs enhancement to pr...
What is your primary use case for McAfee Web Gateway?
The typical use case for our clients is cloud security.
What advice do you have for others considering McAfee Web Gateway?
I would recommend Skyhigh Security to others. I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
McAfee MVISION Cloud, McAfee MVISION Unified Cloud Edge, McAfee Web Gateway, McAfee MVISION CNAPP, and Skyhigh Networks, McAfee Web Gateway
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
Demo not available
 

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.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Caixa Seguradora
Western Union.Aetna.DirecTV.Adventist.Equinix.Perrigo.Goodyear.HP.Cargill.Sony.Bank of the West.Prudential.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. Skyhigh Security and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
866,956 professionals have used our research since 2012.