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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
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)
19th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Netskope Next Gen Secure We...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Web Security Appliance is 1.8%, down from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway is 2.2%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.4%
Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway2.2%
Cisco Web Security Appliance1.8%
Other92.6%
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.
Vusa Ndlovu - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Solution Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
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.
BT
Experto de Seguridad Informática at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Granular web controls have improved user-specific access and reduced security incidents
For the moment, the solution is going quite well, and I cannot think of anything specific we could improve at the moment.Perhaps in file control, the maximum size of the files that can be analyzed is a negative aspect or an improvement that I consider necessary in Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"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."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"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."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."
"It also has high availability."
"It integrates well with Cisco Email Security Appliance."
"It operates well, however, the on-premises version is limited in terms of scaling."
"The most valuable features is of the solution is that it is user-friendly and we get good web security from it."
"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."
"The solution offers content filtering and micro-content controls, such as regulating the types of images and their resolution."
"The setup was very easy and straightforward."
"As Netskope is a cloud-based application, it is possible to analyze and distinguish personal and enterprise instances."
"One of the valuable features of the solution is that everything is on the cloud. It has no on-premise hardware to deal with."
"All our customers use multiple data and want to protect that by preventing data leakage and that's what it does."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its three modules, which are SWG, ZTNA, and CASB."
"My advice for others looking into implementing the solution it is easy to use, and it is one of the best solutions on the market."
"The solution is reliable and has high availability."
"There are a lot of features, but the groups that are created for the policy groups available with Netskope are already relevant to any industry. So grouping the policies is the easiest part and a valuable feature."
"Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway has positively impacted my organization by allowing us to have total control and visibility over which users access and which websites they visit."
 

Cons

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"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. 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."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"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 dashboards for local use could be better."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"There are occasional delays in customer support but it's a minor thing."
"The pricing is too high, so that could be improved."
"The solution needs to be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"The GUI is not user-friendly, so it needs to improve or be simplified."
"The transparent proxy is quite difficult to enforce on smartphones and tablets because it is on a sticker implementation rather than a line mode."
"If a user wants to use it for other devices like mobile or smartphones, this product isn't so reliable."
"The FTD 21 model's Firepower Threat Defense does not have the multi-instance feature for the virtualization with the physical equipment."
"It's so expensive. It's $10,000 per year."
"Perhaps in file control, the maximum size of the files that can be analyzed is a negative aspect or an improvement that I consider necessary in Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway."
"The initial setup is a bit complex in that it takes a lot of time. In order to get the product to work as you need it to, there is a lot of configuration required."
"Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway needs to integrate IoT, which can help to control devices."
"Netskope can only provide the high level related to threats."
"The stability of the solution to be very good. It is not the best and could improve but it is better than other solutions, such as Forcepoint."
"The initial setup and implementation are not straightforward."
"I think the accuracy could be improved."
"Cost competitiveness is its area of improvement. They will have to figure out how can they strategically price it because there are a few players in the game who have been doing it for a long time. They will have to figure out how to go to market on the pricing."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
"Licensing fees are based on the number of users."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is not the cheapest solution on the market, but it's well worth it."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"I know from the manager that the price is too high and that other solutions offer the same features for less."
"There is a subscription-based license needed to use this solution."
"This is an expensive solution."
"Regarding Cisco price-wise, it is always on a bit on the higher side."
"The licensing options begin with 100 users and this is a high threshold for smaller networks."
"The license model is based on the number of users. You have the possibility to have 10,000 users if you wish."
"We pay a licensing fee of $10,000 on a yearly basis."
"The solution's overall cost is cheaper than regular web security solutions."
"The product is cheap."
"The price is average. Because the license is user-based, you can increase it as per the user quantity."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
28%
Construction Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
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 is your primary use case for Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The user interface that I usually provide for the web app includes malware protection, URL filtering, data loss preve...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Those firewalls that allow extend the perimeter. Nowadays, there is a issue with the static perimeter and all is goin...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
No data 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
Arrow, Cloudrise, Sainsbury, Evalueserve, Stroock, Apria, Ather Energy, CSA, AVX Corporation Nuna, City of San Diego Case, Genomic Health Case Study, Oak Hill Advisors, MaRS Discovery District.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.