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IIS vs Squid Proxy Cache Server comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
5.7
Network authentication improved, offering affordability and ROI, though user-friendly enhancements for IIS novices are needed.
Sentiment score
3.3
Squid Proxy Cache Server offers mixed ROI perceptions with potential cost savings and efficiency, but lacks uniform financial benefits.
It should be more user-friendly overall, because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.
Systems Engineer at Atos
I have seen a return on investment with Squid Proxy Cache Server because money is definitely saved.
Owner For Data Center Operations Dns Cache at Proximus S.A.
With Squid Proxy Cache Server, you can save money because you don't need to pay for more bandwidth as you concentrate the web access in Squid Proxy Cache Server.
Cybersecurity Tenure Specialist at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Technically, if I think about the implementation cost, the cost of use, of adjustments, over time, and maintenance, it has certainly already paid for itself.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.5
Users report mixed experiences with Microsoft support, often favoring community resources, but praise premium plan responsiveness.
Sentiment score
3.9
Squid Proxy Cache Server requires minimal support due to strong community resources, documentation, and Linux-based user familiarity.
There are typically no significant issues.
IT System Administrator at Bouri
Microsoft provides a lot of online documentation to consult before speaking to an expert.
Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
I would rate the support from Microsoft very high because I definitely got all the help during the testing time of the development kit while we were configuring features on our on-premises server.
Systems Engineer at Atos
It would be great to have support similar to Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
Security Infrastructure Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
We were managing it on our own, and it was totally open-source.
Microsoft System Administrator at National Bank of Pakistan
There is an open-source community available on the internet, or the manual pages themselves are very helpful.
Dev Ops Technical Lead at a computer software company with 201-500 employees
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.1
IIS scalability is mixed; effective with clustering and load balancing, but larger scales may need extra infrastructure or cloud migration.
Sentiment score
5.4
Squid Proxy Cache Server provides robust scalability, efficiently managing traffic, configurable IP ranges, and easy deployment on Linux.
Cloud solutions may have better scalability options compared to IIS.
Chief Technology Officer at EVtech
It depends on the server environment and the presence of a UPS for power backup.
IT System Administrator at Bouri
I would rate the scalability of IIS as a six, mainly due to integration issues since it cannot integrate with other environments.
Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Scalability-wise, it is stateless, so it could be scaled.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Scalability of Squid Proxy Cache Server is extremely high.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
We can increase the number of end users without the limitations found in other proxies, simply by configuring Squid Proxy Cache Server to allow specific users and IP ranges.
Linux System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.8
IIS is praised for enterprise stability, though occasionally challenged by application pool interactions and non-Microsoft technology compatibility.
Sentiment score
8.0
Squid Proxy Cache Server is stable and reliable, with exceptional logging, though users occasionally face crashes and connection issues.
I would give it a nine out of ten for stability.
Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
It was secured for us, as we launched the product, and people were accessing it from India and Virginia, and we had no problem.
Systems Engineer at Atos
You can check the memory consumption and the number of crashes.
Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team
Importantly, there has been no major outage in the 10 years I have used Squid Proxy Cache Server.
Linux System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
It sometimes crashes, and it cannot handle too many connections.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Squid Proxy Cache Server is stable; I have been using it for twenty years, and it has remained stable throughout that time.
Works at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
 

Room For Improvement

IIS struggles with compatibility, security, usability, and integration issues, inconsistent performance, costly licensing, and limited technical support.
Squid Proxy could enhance usability with a user interface, AI features, better security, and optimized caching for broader adoption.
It's influenced by the server's service performance.
IT System Administrator at Bouri
If I compare IIS to other web servers such as Apache, which can be deployed in other environments like Linux, I find IIS is mostly used for simple things.
Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
It should be more user-friendly because unless you know how IIS works as a Microsoft product, a system admin cannot just manage it.
Systems Engineer at Atos
Control of information is needed so that sensitive actions are not cached, which would violate local security laws, such as in Brazil with LGPD, and in other places around the world as well.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
With the rise of cloud systems and OpenShift, enabling such features in Squid Proxy Cache Server would be very beneficial for customers, allowing for better management.
Linux System Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
By default, Squid cannot see inside HTTPS traffic. It only sees the destination domain name, which poses a risk as users can bypass URL filters or download malware over encrypted connections.
System Auxiliary at Base Camp Data Solutions
 

Setup Cost

Enterprise users find IIS cost-effective within Windows but some see high licensing fees compared to Linux alternatives.
Squid Proxy Cache Server is open-source, offering cost savings with support through Red Hat or community resources.
If you have a Windows license, there is no additional cost for IIS.
IT System Administrator at Bouri
We never had any pricing issue, but I don't know if it is competitive or not.
Systems Engineer at Atos
The costs are low because it is open-source software.
Works at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
I have seen a cost saving since implementing Squid Proxy Cache Server because then I don't have to really go for something such as a Blue Coat proxy.
Owner For Data Center Operations Dns Cache at Proximus S.A.
For our environment, we are using the free open source Squid Proxy Cache Server, so there is no licensing cost.
Security Infrastructure Security Engineer at a comms service provider with 1,001-5,000 employees
 

Valuable Features

IIS offers seamless Microsoft integration, robust management, enhanced security, resource efficiency, user-friendly interface, and robust web hosting support.
Squid Proxy Cache Server is valued for its easy installation, open-source nature, compatibility, and comprehensive caching, security, and management features.
It is easy to publish websites with SSL, and it integrates well within the local environment and cloud.
IT System Administrator at Bouri
IIS is free.
Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team
The configurations are simple, making it very easy to use and to set up everything.
Relationship Manager at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Squid Proxy Cache Server is very good in hiding your IP address and exposing the IP address list that it has, which is very good for the scraping use case.
Senior Software Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Squid Proxy Cache Server has positively impacted my organization because I can filter internet access, which protects my company from users accessing malicious sites.
Data Engineer at Ericsson
Squid Proxy Cache Server has had a considerable positive impact on my organization, since a large part of internet traffic needs to be filtered to remain within the company's policies, as well as to reduce the amount of necessary traffic.
Analista de Segurança Senio at Optanet
 

Categories and Ranking

IIS
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
1st
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
61
Ranking in other categories
Application Server (4th)
Squid Proxy Cache Server
Ranking in Application Infrastructure
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.0
Number of Reviews
18
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Application Infrastructure category, the mindshare of IIS is 6.2%, down from 10.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Squid Proxy Cache Server is 0.2%. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Application Infrastructure Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
IIS6.2%
Squid Proxy Cache Server0.2%
Other93.6%
Application Infrastructure
 

Featured Reviews

Frederic Hautecoeur - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior System Integrations Architect at bs-team
Integrated web hosting has simplified secure services and has supported long-term growth
To be honest, I do not see any major areas for improvement. Perhaps something simple and minor. It should not go more complex than it is at the moment. The only disadvantage I see is that the documentation is a bit difficult to find. There is a lot of configuration that is very hard to get information about.
Mayashankar Mishra - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner For Data Center Operations Dns Cache at Proximus S.A.
Caching and reverse proxy have boosted performance and improved secure web and mail access
I think Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved by having a nice front-end, one similar to Blue Coat for access management, view management, and direct configuration instead of doing it all through the CLI. It's best to have everything done through the GUI, which is what I think can improve the product. I don't want to implement third-party GUIs on Squid Proxy Cache Server. So that's what would be on my wish list—that Squid Proxy Cache Server by itself provides a GUI, which will give more confidence to users. I haven't actually used AI with Squid Proxy Cache Server, but I think it might be very interesting to have the AI capability built-in. However, I do think we need some GPU or something to boost the performance on Squid Proxy Cache Server as natively running. I think we need to add some GPU cards so that it works more natively with AI. I don't have experience using AI features yet, but I think it would be great if it could do some live scanning of the websites that are getting blocked on a daily basis and perform some sampling analysis. Especially in the case of reverse proxy, if there are any attacks happening, it would be beneficial if it scrapes through its own log files and provides some nice dashboards showing where the attacks are coming from. That would be really great to have as a handy troubleshooting tool. One more feature I would ask for is if AI can provide the best possible configuration and do a review of Squid Proxy Cache Server just to make sure that no other ports or anything by default are missed in configuration. It would also be great if the proxy server acts as a load balancer in a cluster mode that shares the cache, and the configuration is best set.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Construction Company
9%
Construction Company
20%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business30
Midsize Enterprise12
Large Enterprise22
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - IIS or NGINX Plus?
IIS is a flexible, secure, and manageable web server to host anything on the web. IIS’s scalable and open architecture can handle the most demanding tasks. From media streaming to web applications,...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IIS?
For the pricing, setup cost, and licensing for IIS, as a Microsoft product, I didn't think much about separately purchasing an IIS product as it is part of Microsoft Windows. We bought a developmen...
What needs improvement with IIS?
I see that IIS has maintained the same interface for a long time, so they could potentially use more automation or integrate Copilot into it to make it easier to use. I have not accessed or checked...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Squid Proxy Cache Server?
My experience with Squid Proxy Cache Server regarding pricing, setup cost, and licensing is that it is an open-source product. There is no pricing, setup cost, or licensing cost. You use it and if ...
What needs improvement with Squid Proxy Cache Server?
I cannot think of how Squid Proxy Cache Server can be improved. It has everything built-in, from Active Directory integration to centralized logging. It has been a proxy cache server for so many ye...
What is your primary use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server?
My main use case for Squid Proxy Cache Server is that we have machines behind an internet firewall which do not have access to the internet. The only way these machines can access anything outside,...
 

Comparisons

 

Also Known As

Windows Server IIS
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Erste Bank Group, NJVC, Samsung Electronics, Sheraton Hotels and Resorts, Tata Steel Europe, Urban Software Institute
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about IIS vs. Squid Proxy Cache Server and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,341 professionals have used our research since 2012.