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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Skyhigh Security comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Apr 20, 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)
6th
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 (10th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
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)
20th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (28th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), ZTNA as a Service (16th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (17th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Web Security Appliance is 2.4%, down from 2.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Skyhigh Security is 3.1%, down from 3.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
Santiago Gomez - PeerSpot reviewer
Has improved the organization's PCI compliance with data loss prevention
I use the solution on a Macintosh computer and it has issues and does not work when I try to log in from the Safari Browser, but it works fine when I log in from the Google Chrome browser. The console has issues when the login is done through a Safari Browser. The console has to be more competitive and the compatibility of the browser needs to be better. I want to know about Skyhigh's competitiveness with other brands and about the vulnerability assessment and micro segmentations. I know Skyhigh has other products, but right now, I am studying what this new product is about. They only have English support, so I would like for them to add some Spanish support.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"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."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"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."
"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 operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"Since working with the tool, we have not found any threats in our organization."
"The most valuable feature is security."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the functions of proxy for the users who use the internet and the security it offers against the not-so-secure web pages."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance can integrate with Active Directory, enabling us to manage all the end-users within AD. It's helpful for setting rules based on individual users and groups. For example, you can configure policies for inbound and outbound traffic."
"The solution offers content filtering and micro-content controls, such as regulating the types of images and their resolution."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Web Security Appliance is the provided anti-malware functionality and URL categorization. I can block access to malicious websites. 99 percent of the cases are related to a malicious website. If I cannot browse those malicious websites, then we are 99 percent protected."
"The features I like most are the DLP functionality for web security and malware protection."
"The deployment process is very simple."
"Overall, the performance is good."
"The cloud security features are the most valuable."
"They were very, very aggressive in the market to get a new market share or to take over market share while other companies were being broken up."
"It's a great product with solid features."
"The threat protection capabilities are very strong."
"What's most valuable in Skyhigh Security is its level of security. Another valuable feature of the solution is threat analysis."
"The product has a very high rating from reviewers. It's a well-respected product."
"It gives us visibility into how the data is being used within our cloud environment."
 

Cons

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"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."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"They need a better graphical interface, and they need a better ISE mechanism."
"We would like to see a security service head, where we can combine all the security into one solution."
"The tool needs to provide logs. They need to improve firewall threat defense."
"It should have a user-based quota, per-user quota, that can be defined on the appliance."
"The GUI is not user-friendly, so it needs to improve or be simplified."
"Cisco lacks a GUI-based troubleshooting feature compared to products by other vendors."
"Technical support needs to be improved because they take a very long time and there is no communication or notification."
"I would like more automation."
"The virtual solution requires improvement."
"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."
"Updates sometimes introduce bugs, and Skyhigh Security needs to revalidate its versions before rolling out updates."
"The cloud needs improvement with respect to DLP."
"The Skyhigh for Google Drive interface and policy engine is a bit confusing and limited when compared against other Google Drive CASB capabilities."
"Iron out the few bugs that I've seen."
"The biggest challenge we have with McAfee is their cross-cloud support."
"De-tokenization."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
"The pricing is too high."
"When you compare the price of this solution to the price of FortiGate, it's high."
"The solution has a standard license."
"At the time, licensing fees were paid on an annual basis."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"The licensing options begin with 100 users and this is a high threshold for smaller networks."
"The solution's cost depends on how many users you purchase. It was maybe $3 or $5 per user, which is a bit expensive."
"Skyhigh provided a FedRAMP solution, tokenization, a better shadow IT capability, and lower cost."
"This is an expensive product, but you have to compare that with other solutions that are on the market."
"The price of the solution is good and we pay an annual license."
"The solution is quite expensive. As we take add-ons continuously as per our customer's requirements, there are additional charges."
"Some of our clients have a perpetual license and pay additional support yearly."
"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."
"They definitely charge a huge amount. All the security service providers charge a huge amount."
"The biggest thing to watch for is the difference in price per monitored user for the different API integrations."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Computer Software Company
18%
Non Profit
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Educational Organization
26%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
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 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 do you like most about McAfee Web Gateway?
Data loss prevention and user behavior analysis are two valuable features.
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.
 

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: July 2025.
860,711 professionals have used our research since 2012.