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Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs Symantec CloudSOC CASB comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 2024

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 Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
7th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
42
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (14th), Microsoft Security Suite (12th)
Symantec CloudSOC CASB
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
19th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.5%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 6.9%, down from 10.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec CloudSOC CASB is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps6.9%
iboss2.5%
Symantec CloudSOC CASB0.8%
Other89.8%
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701851 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director
Enhances web security with a single pane of glass and flexible deployment
I don't see any need for improvement; one of the really good things about iboss as a company is that they listen to customer feedback. I have suggested enhancements, and they are responsive, making changes for the better, and they do a lot of testing. To improve iboss, although we haven't used it, we considered the VPN solution that comes with the highest tier licensing, which includes DLP and various other add-ons. We prefer using another product which automatically logs you back onto your network when turning on your PC. With iboss, the connection is manual, which doesn't meet our needs. Additionally, sizing can be tricky because, although the initial recommendations may seem adequate, actual usage may require more gateways than anticipated.
FV
Security and Continuity Manager at Rolinco NV
Deployment has been seamless with insightful data categorization and enhanced control
The features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that I have found most valuable include the overall portal view, with bubble graphs which give us insight into what goes where in the categorization, nowadays with Generative AI but all kinds of categorization, collaboration, etc. That central view of the portal is very useful for us. The impact of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps on our organization's ability to assess and manage app related risks has been significant because we have more visibility. Therefore, we can add more control, and we have already done so. This was not possible in the old solution, in the old CASB solution with Netskope. We now can see on the spot, and we do that almost weekly, what the end users are utilizing, which cloud providers or cloud apps they're using. The visibility into OAuth apps provided by Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is very good. The visibility into risk and risk management of our organization's Generative AI apps is very nice, as you can choose the category Generative AI and then see exactly what traffic has been going to and from Generative AI in the cloud. This makes us very insightful on what is used within the company. We have some policies on blocking specific Generative AI, and we use within our company one particular AI part, which is CoPilot of Microsoft. In this way, we can see what the end users are using other than CoPilot, and that makes us more in control. The effectiveness of the integration of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender XDR and defending against SaaS attacks is very intuitive. It works immediately if we create a new policy or in Purview or in Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, or when we make an app unsanctioned by blocking it, then it is almost immediately, or at least within a couple of hours, effective on all the endpoints where the EDR is running. This gives us much better control over things than before.
cto543714 - PeerSpot reviewer
CTO at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Works very well in a hybrid environment in terms of DLP policies, but trying to do your own troubleshooting can be a little bit difficult
It does scale. They have different data centers spread out for you to do things. It scales just fine, but it is the setup and configuration that you have to do in order for it to scale the way you want it to. I know that some of the newer technologies, such as Zscaler, are doing SD-LAN type connections and things of that sort to improve performance and scalability. So, things are still evolving in terms of scalability. Depending on how you deployed it, you can run into some performance gotchas. If you take a VPN connection and try to overtax it, you can run into problems. You can't say that it didn't scale. You have to use a different method to get the traffic, or you may have to set up two VPN tunnels or things of that sort. So, if you want it to scale, you have to think it through and make sure you are deploying it in a manner to scale. It can scale, but you have to plan it and make sure you think everything through.

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."
"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."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"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."
"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."
"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."
"The most valuable feature is the seamless integration across different clouds."
"It's very easy to install and it includes the Intune portal from Microsoft where I can control all the devices from one place."
"Defender for Cloud Apps has given us good visibility regarding what we've allowed into our environment until now."
"There are a lot of features with benefits, including discovery, investigation, and putting controls around things. You can't say that you like the investigation part but not the discovery. Everything is correlated; that's how the tool works."
"The integration within the entire Defender suite is highly valuable because it allows for communication between different components and offers pretty decent correlations."
"On-demand scanning is the most valuable feature. In addition, it's a fairly fluid product. It syncs back to the cloud and provides metrics. It's pretty intelligent."
"The ability to sanction unsanctioned apps using Secure Score benchmarking, included in Cloud, is also beneficial."
"The active directory integration is very valuable as we can connect to the list of users that we have and the cloud control, the blocking, the access control of the cloud, can be handled by this product."
"One of the most valuable features of Symantec CloudSOC CASB is its detection functionality. It uses the same base as Data Loss Prevention, allowing for close integration between on-premises DLP and the Symantec CloudSOC CASB. This integration lets you manage policies and incidents across both platforms."
"The ability to monitor for threats is the solution's most valuable aspect."
"The monitoring and threat protection were the solution's most valuable features."
"This solution has improved my organization because it allows us to have visibility and monitoring over our global workforce connectivity to Office 365 and for Service Now."
"The value in some of these solutions is just the integration of technologies with their on-prem DLP solution. So, you can tie on-prem and cloud DLP policies together. You can apply on-prem policies to the cloud to have consistent policies in a hybrid environment. So, it works very well in that hybrid environment of on-prem and cloud."
 

Cons

"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"An area of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps that needs to be improved or enhanced is the reporting function. In the beginning, there was a good reporting function which gave us a sort of monthly overview report. But that has gone away."
"Generally, the pricing can always be improved along with the management system."
"We sometimes get errors when we create policies, which is somewhat annoying because some policies stop working due to misconfigurations. We find this challenging because it limits our options for troubleshooting an issue."
"We would like to get more information from the endpoint. I don't get enough detailed information right now on why something failed. There is not enough visibility."
"Sometimes, we'll get false positive alarms. For example, when a SharePoint path has no file sharing, but there is an external user, it will trigger an alarm that the file has been shared with an external user... the alerting mechanism should be more precise when giving you an alert about what activity has been done with the file..."
"The technical support team has room for improvement."
"The graph displayed in the Defender portal mostly doesn't capture the full picture as we see in endpoint-related or identity-related alerts; we can see a complete graph of what is happening there, but Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps still falls short in capturing that whole aspect in the graph."
"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."
"I would like to see them develop the ability to integrate it with a central management system."
"The data security needs improvement. We should be able to leverage it a bit better for situations where someone may be trying to upload documents onto the cloud application."
"The solution should work to incorporate some machine learning policies like IDM and VML."
"They have some room for improvement in terms of being able to do troubleshooting. If you're trying to troubleshoot it, you have to work a lot with their backend people in order to get to a solution. So, trying to do your own troubleshooting can be a little bit difficult."
"It's a niche product. Not many people use it, and therefore there isn't as much of a knowledge base surrounding it."
 

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."
"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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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 product's pricing seems fair."
"The pricing is fair."
"The pricing is a little bit high but right now, we are okay with it because of the compatibility with Office 365, Teams, and Azure AD."
"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
"The pricing is in the middle. It isn't too cheap or expensive compared to other antivirus or security products. It is priced according to industry standards."
"The E5 license offers everything bundled. People are moving to Microsoft because you buy one license and it gives you everything."
"Our clients normally use the Microsoft E1 licensing, which is renewed yearly."
"Its pricing is on the higher side. Its price is definitely very high for a small-scale company. As an enterprise client, we do get benefits from Microsoft. We get a discounted price because of the number of users we have in our company. We have a premier package, and with that, we do get a lot of discounts. There are no additional costs. It only comes in the top-tier packages. Generally, the top-tier license is the best license that you can get for your organization. If you want, you can buy it separately, but that's not a good idea."
"It compares well with the competition because they're all priced on a per-user basis. I've seen the rest of them. There is definitely a huge price difference between them."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
20%
Healthcare Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Real Estate/Law Firm
7%
 

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 Business15
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise19
No data available
 

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...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?
It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
At the time of implementation, when the size of our organization was small, it was a more affordable product. Since a...
What needs improvement with Symantec CloudSOC CASB?
After integrating the Gatelet with a live environment, users experienced connectivity issues because they were not im...
What is your primary use case for Symantec CloudSOC CASB?
The solution helps detect and control data in the cloud, focusing on Shadow IT and Shadow Data. The audit module help...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App Security
CloudSOC, Symantec CloudSOC
 

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.
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Globe Telecom
Find out what your peers are saying about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps vs. Symantec CloudSOC CASB and other solutions. Updated: December 2025.
879,425 professionals have used our research since 2012.