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McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service vs Symantec Proxy comparison

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Executive Summary

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
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)
McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Se...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
34th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Proxy
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
16th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service is 0.7%, up from 0.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Proxy is 1.7%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.3%
Symantec Proxy1.7%
McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service0.7%
Other94.3%
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.
MF
Security Engineer at Mavisco Resources Sdn Bhd
A scalable and user-friendly tool that provides an easy-to-configure user interface
The solution is used for granular filtering. For example, an organization can use the solution to allow users to access Facebook but stop them from playing games The user interface is easy to configure. We don't have to configure a database manually. It’s already present in the product. We just…
Ganesh Basappa - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Granular control for web traffic with enhanced content inspection, but support needs improvement
There are many use cases in terms of content inspection, such as having granular control for file type extensions when trying to download file types by default. It depends on the requirements, and based on that, we customize policies. We have deployed it in an Azure infrastructure, and we have…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"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."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"The user interface is easy to configure."
"The CPL code is the best feature of the solution."
"This is a stable and robust solution with many features."
"It enables us to manage bandwidth for users based on their privilege levels. For example, if a user wants to use a certain application or resource, we can provide access based on their privileges."
"We are using Symantec Proxy for outbound traffic URL filtering, and antivirus scanning of whatever package is going through the proxy system."
"The tool's most valuable features are content-to-content filtration and SCCM protection."
"We can address and rectify issues promptly, resulting in consistently positive outcomes."
"The security features provided by Symantec Proxy, such as granular controls for web traffic and caching, set it apart from other secure web gateways."
"The content that we are getting is very good, and content caching is also supported."
 

Cons

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The product should provide more integrations."
"Prior to the Broadcom purchase, every appliance was application based, but now they have one ISG device and on top of it multiple applications are running. It has a single point of failure. If your device goes down, all of the applications would be down."
"Activating the SSL inspection is one of the challenges."
"Activating the SSL inspection is one of the challenges. We are currently moving to the O365 cloud, and one of the challenges is the performance when all of our users are connected to O365 by a proxy."
"Support services are lagging and not very responsive. I rate their support as five out of ten."
"One area for improvement in Symantec is the lack of a reporting server or dashboard integration with SIM."
"Pricing is difficult to specify as Broadcom sells platforms that include multiple products, making it hard to determine the exact cost for the proxy component. Forcepoint sold only proxies, which was easier to measure."
"I would like to see more improvements in the cloud."
"Symantec was purchased by Broadcom and since this has happened the support has not been good. They do not find the solutions to our issues quickly."
 

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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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."
Information not available
"The tool is pretty expensive."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The price is too expensive compared with that of another solution."
"In terms of cost, it is expensive. Its pricing has been a challenge for us since its acquisition by Broadcom."
"Licensing is based on a subscription."
"There is a license needed to use Symantec Proxy."
"It's expensive. Clients often go to other products."
"Our cost was based on a three-year upfront CapEx contract."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
31%
Insurance Company
10%
Government
8%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
30%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Healthcare Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

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...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Proxy?
Pricing is difficult to specify as Broadcom sells platforms that include multiple products, making it hard to determi...
What needs improvement with Symantec Proxy?
AI features could potentially improve the proxy by helping build rules more efficiently, suggesting unused rules, and...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Proxy?
I use Symantec Proxy for surfing the internet from internal to external networks. My endpoints do not have direct acc...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management, ProxySG Appliance
 

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.
Information Not Available
Jefferies
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: May 2026.
893,311 professionals have used our research since 2012.