iboss Reviews

We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use it on Mac systems, it does not work as expected. On the Windows system, around 45,000 to 50,000 systems, we installed the iBoss agent, and we use that for internet purposes.

From an end-user perspective, they do not see any major difference or a major problem with iboss. The agent automatically connects to the cloud, and they do not see much difference. However, when you have any applications, sometimes what happens is that application does not follow iboss settings, and it will not go to the internet. That is where they need to manually set those proxy variables in their application. Otherwise, it is a silent application that works silently, sends you a pac file onto your browsers, and then routes to iboss related data centers, and from there you go to the internet. From an end-user perspective, it is very easy. However, when you implement it, you need to be careful because if you make any mistake and lose that connectivity, then it is a problem to revert on every end-user system.

For cloud, web, and private applications visibility, iboss has performed well regarding private applications, particularly with ZTNA related connectors. We have not used them extensively, but the testing we did was auspicious. They can provide connections and potentially replace Cisco AnyConnect in terms of VPN services. The single agent can provide private connectivity to on-premises networks or your data centers and offer internet access. However, we lack practical experience as we did not utilize these features while engaging with iboss.

One feature I like from iboss is if you have any issue from one location proxies to access any of the sites by any reason, you can route them via other location proxies.

This is a next-generation firewall feature that includes DLP and threat protection. You can do all this in a single pane. By migrating to this platform, we removed the Blue Coat proxy infrastructure and a few of the ICAP related infrastructure that our security team managed. They migrated and decommissioned those boxes.

It improved security because with respect to iboss platform, what you can do is enforce iboss once you turn on your laptop. With respect to VPN, we used earlier with Cisco VPN, and if you are not connected to VPN, there are no restrictions from your corporate network. You can access anything using your laptop and access anything on the internet. However, once we have iboss in place, even though you are not connected to Corporate VPN network, iboss is still connected because it works on the internet platform. As long as you just open your laptop and connect to the internet, the iboss agent triggers connectivity to iboss data center, then only allows you to access.

One more advantage is that you can route your traffic locally. If you do not have to travel to another country or location to access the internet, you can use that feature and route it.

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.

I use iboss from around the COVID time, starting around 2020 or so and continuing up to 2025, around five years. We used it around four to five years on our platform.

For the most part, iboss is stable, but when you have issues, receiving support and resolution is problematic. If you have a critical dependency organization, it may pose a challenge. If you can accept a three to four-hour downtime in a month or two months, and if your organization can support being offline for a short period, then iboss is viable. They can provide 99% availability, but the 1% downtime may still occur. If you are okay with this aspect, iboss works.

With respect to deployment, initially, we faced problems because of captive portal connectivities. If someone goes to any hotel or public places, we had a hard time connecting iboss to the iboss cloud. Then we worked with the TAMs or the iboss TAM and their engineering team, and somehow we were able to get those respective releases and agent installations started working again. We initially faced problems where sometimes the agent gets hung due to CPU or memory consumption, and we communicated that we need lighter versions. They worked with our engineering team and were able to get a customized version to meet our needs.

With respect to scalability, they are capable. They have a monitoring system and can increase resources if any utilization problem is detected, notifying the distribution list you provided. They can typically provide extra capacity without any issues until they have resource constraints. We required additional resources in Singapore and the Philippines, and they delivered within two to three days. They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.

As I mentioned, their customer service lacks transparency with real RCAs for problems. Even though their platform has strength, the front-end engineers lack clarity on back-end problems. They depend on other engineers, who typically do not join customer outage calls. This is a disadvantage, as communication issues result in losing important information regarding RCAs.

With regards to customer service, I rate them a four to five; for technical support, I would rate them maybe a six.

For the most part, iboss is stable, but when you have issues, receiving support and resolution is problematic. If you have a critical dependency organization, it may pose a challenge.

Before COVID, everybody was using on-premises solutions, and we were using Blue Coat as an on-premises proxy. When you work remotely, generally, even for internet traffic, you should go to your organization's data centers, and from there, you have to go to the internet. So there are two negatives there.

One more aspect is on the security front. Earlier, we did not use a consistently available VPN solution; if you were not connected to VPN, you could access any site with no proper restrictions. With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies.

Blue Coat proxies, DLP, and ICAP servers are the technologies we replaced with iboss. Our plan is to replace even Cisco AnyConnect with ZTNA connectors, but unfortunately, that did not happen before we migrated to Palo Alto.

Initially, we faced problems because of captive portal connectivities. If someone goes to any hotel or public places, we had a hard time connecting iboss to the iboss cloud. Then we worked with the TAMs or the iboss TAM and their engineering team, and somehow we were able to get those respective releases and agent installations started working again.

Initial agent installation was done using a GPO, the Group Policy, which was used to install the initial version. For future versions, you can use the connector policy or agent policy they refer to, and you can apply it to a limited number of people. We typically applied it to a group of people, and then the agent automatically talks to the iboss data center, updates itself to the newer version with the pack file setting. Only in the initial phases, it has to be via the Group Policy, while the upgrade process is done using the agent policy on the iboss console.

They provided support; the TAMs offered assistance. We showcased the policies on our platform and our expectations. They migrated those policies and gave suggestions on segregation, which took us some time to configure across the iboss platform as we slowly began migrating users. It was not a contract-specific thing; iboss itself provided some help as part of the contract, and we did not engage any mediator or technical support from another vendor. iboss provided support initially, and we were able to achieve the deployment.

As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant. It saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss. It will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks in our buildings. If there are issues with our building internet circuits, that will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center. That is one advantage.

One more aspect is on the security front. Earlier, we did not use a consistently available VPN solution; if you were not connected to VPN, you could access any site with no proper restrictions. With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures. We were satisfied with the solution, though we did not achieve everything they promised. They said within 1.5 to two years, they would have a successful Mac agent, as we had around 5,000 to 6,000 Mac agents to migrate. Since they did not deliver a successful agent on time, we were forced to look at other vendors.

I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were using were costly, as Blue Coat was acquired by Symantec, and then Symantec was acquired by Broadcom, which increased costs. So compared to Broadcom, iboss provides a good cloud-based solution and comes in a good Price. That is what I know; however, I do not have any numbers as I am not involved in these discussions.

The proof of concept was conducted with Zscaler, iboss, and another platform called Netskope. Out of those, iboss was considered a growing solution but not as stable or trusted as the market leaders during that time. However, in terms of options and pricing, we felt this as better choice. Corporate leaders chose iboss based on these factors. On paper, it does not seem lesser than any other market leaders in SaaS proxy solutions, but in practice, they do not provide as much competition to the market leaders.

If you compare iboss with market leaders, I would rate it slightly lower, yet it is still a good platform worth considering. I would give it a six to seven out of ten. When considering budget constraints, if you are not prepared to spend heavily on market leaders, iboss is a viable choice as it is more affordable. However, you should be ready for occasional outages, and resolving issues may take a while. If you can overlook these scenarios, iboss is a suitable choice. For companies limited to Windows use, I would recommend iboss; however, for those requiring Mac compatibility, I would rate it lower due to their inadequate support for Mac agents. My overall rating for this product is six out of ten.

We have not utilized the Chat GPT risk protection.

For SD-WAN, we have not used it from the iboss side; we used Cisco Viptela.

I am not sure about exact incidents, but I would say it enhanced security measures significantly. It helped in offering more security when your laptop was not connected to the corporate network; we had security agents active, and that provided a great deal of improvement. I would estimate it could lead to a 20-30% enhancement in security, so from about 80%, it could reach up to 90%.

Regarding Chat GPT, our organization initially blocked it for associates due to sensitive information concerns; it has both advantages for information access and potential for data leaks. Therefore, Chat GPT was restricted to just development personnel. iboss, I believe, equipped some intelligence about policy checks, offering suggestions on configurations. It would recommend adjustments for improved setups or rules.

iboss is not perfect, but I think it's pretty good; it solved a lot of issues and security issues that we had in the company by not allowing people to access websites that we don't want them to access or even malicious websites.

iboss has positively impacted my organization by keeping the company more secure because the users don't need to be connected to VPN to be secure; whenever they start their PC, iboss is already working, protecting the company and the users from malicious websites.

The best features iboss offers are that it is seamless and already working on your machine as soon as you turn it on, and the users don't need to be connected to the VPN to have the proxy enabled; it's already there.

The seamless integration of iboss benefits users and our IT team because the user doesn't need to do anything; whenever they start the PC, iboss is already there and working, providing a very secure way to prevent users from connecting to malicious websites or even websites that are not allowed by the company.

Since we started using iboss, we can see a decrease of access to malicious sites because before iboss, users could connect to any site, even a casino or pornography site, if they were not connected to VPN, and after iboss, they cannot do that because it's already running whenever they start their PC.

iboss can be improved because the integration could be better; you need to import all the sites that you access today, and there are a few problems whenever you import thousands of websites, making the integration process messy for the users.

I have used iboss for one year and a half.

iboss is very stable.

iboss's scalability is very good because it's a client, and you can deploy it to every PC in the company.

The customer support for iboss has always been fine; it was good, and I have nothing bad to talk about. I would rate the customer support of iboss a seven.

We previously used an on-premise proxy solution before switching to iboss's cloud solution.

We replaced the on-premise proxy that we had by consolidating into iboss's single pane of glass.

I cannot say how much costs were reduced with iboss, but I know that it was across the globe; we had a lot of on-premise proxies, so we don't need to buy them anymore or any licenses related to proxy because we only have iboss now.

I don't think there are any improvements needed with iboss that I haven't mentioned yet.

I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user; on the backend, you will have a ton of work before the implementation because you need to make sure that all the right websites are allowed, but other than that, I think it's a pretty good product.

My impressions of iboss's single pane of glass console are that it's pretty intuitive; I was able to understand everything on the console without any issues.

I would rate this review an overall 8.

I use iboss for corporate VPN and all the corporate VRF, with basically all user traffic proxying to the internet.

I appreciate the connectivity that iboss provides, as it has multiple POPs, Points of Presence, which I value, and it functions as a cloud environment. There is no other cloud environment that provides proxying services in this manner, and its availability is impressive.

iboss can increase security in cyberspace. I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly. These kinds of features would definitely help their network enhance functionality, not just the proxying capability, but with DDoS, malware inspection, file inspection, and everything combined. If they want to add these features, that would be excellent.

Regarding the iboss console, they provided a good user interface that I liked. I am unsure about the cost, but security is a positive aspect.

iboss has a classification of data, and I appreciate how that visually represents, including what applications and my machine types. It also has user connection with Active Directory, so usernames are visible, and I can filter based on users, which is beneficial.

Because of the points of presence, there is no downtime for us. I can move users to different points of presence, so I experience minimal to zero downtime.

iboss can increase security in cyberspace. I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly. These kinds of features would definitely help their network enhance functionality, not just the proxying capability, but with DDoS, malware inspection, file inspection, and everything combined. If they want to add these features, that would be excellent.

I worked somewhat less on iboss because I was involved with it, but I know there was a legacy proxy called Forcepoint, which was in-house and on-premises, not very lightweight like iboss is. It was a complex environment with network policies and everything. Of course, it was a legacy solution, so iboss is doing a very good job in adapting to the latest technologies. The legacy solution did not have UTM features, Unified Threat Management system.

There was no downtime.

I had very good feedback for iboss. They respond well and join when I call them, probably because I had premium support with them. Because of that, I have very good interactions with them.

The previous solution was Forcepoint.

The setup is not very complex like the legacy systems. It is definitely smooth, and I was involved in upgrades as well, so the process is smooth.

iboss is definitely very good in terms of service. I heard Forcepoint was not performing well when I worked with iboss, and iboss is doing a much better job than Forcepoint with ease of work. It definitely reduced the energy cost I used to spend on Forcepoint compared to iboss.

iboss is better. I have not worked with Zscaler or other competitors, but I feel iboss is doing a very good job, and I would rate it as an eight out of ten compared to competitors with new features being added.

I have not been involved much with SD-WAN for iboss, but as SD-WAN is the fastest way to connect to networks, it reduces latency and jitters, and it is the smartest way to get to the destination, so I am sure iboss does the same for connectivity, although I have not worked on it yet.

I am not aware of the class pricing because I am focused on the technical side of it.

Customers are important to operations.

I would rate this review a nine out of ten.

We use iboss primarily for web filtering and web protection. We have a two-stage approach. In the first stage, we rolled it out to get web filtering, and we'll implement complete zero trust in the second stage so that we can remove our legacy proxy. Many of our staff began working remotely during COVID, so we set up a VPN for them to connect to the office system securely. We hope to move from the legacy method of connecting. 

The web proxy we used before iboss was a nightmare. It always stopped working, and we spent hours with support troubleshooting the issue. The company we used was sold, and it was hard to get support from the company that bought them. Once we implemented iboss, we stopped having internal internet issues, which were a constant headache for our IT department. They were eliminated overnight. 

Using iboss helped us consolidate solutions. We removed three legacy applications. That's one reason we implemented iboss. The company underinvests in the IT department, so when they get money, they buy a new product that doesn't necessarily work with the others. We plan to get rid of our legacy proxy and VPN. While it's hard to say whether consolidating has reduced our costs, it has definitely reduced the associated admin work.

The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online. We manage critical national infrastructure, and the likelihood that we'll be attacked grows with our digital footprint. Having an extra layer of protection gives us peace of mind. 

It can help us stop security incidents because we can monitor our employees through the dashboard and prevent them from accessing malicious websites. Looking at the dashboard now, I can see the high number of phishing links it's blocking. I'm currently building a dashboard

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

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.

The first time I came across iboss was about a year and a half ago, and we've actually had the product itself for just over a year, live in production.

In the entire year and a bit that we've had it up and running, we've experienced zero downtime. It runs silently in the background and doesn't cause any issues.

We're a small organization, so we haven't needed to scale up or down. However, we have flexibility with our primary and backup nodes if there's a large amount of web traffic. The ability to scale is there if needed.

I rate iboss support nine out of 10. Their customer service and support are fantastic. They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable. We don't have 24/7 support, but they still assisted us during out-of-hours emergencies because they knew we operate critical infrastructure. We raised a ticket at 10 am this morning about an issue with API integration, and they jumped on it immediately. 

Positive

The initial setup was super easy. We did it all in-house with minimal assistance needed from iboss support. The rollout was one of the smoothest I've ever experienced. The transition was seamless from the perspective of the end user. None of the employees noticed anything had changed. It took us two weeks to roll the solution out department by department. 

We did the implementation ourselves in-house, with iboss support available by phone if needed. The setup was so simple that one person could handle it, although I had help with the admin tasks.

iboss offers very competitive pricing. It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price. As a small organization, their pricing was significantly cheaper than market leaders, making it more attainable. The cost was a big factor in choosing iboss.

I rate iboss nine out of 10. Many people go on the same journey as we did. You realize that you need to implement zero trust and start researching the heavy hitters, but you should realize that iboss does just as well for a more affordable price.

The main use cases for iboss are predominantly for web filtering for about 22,000 users across about six sites with Windows and iOS client devices.

We only use iboss for web filtering and nothing more.

Using iboss is not particularly difficult; you have to make it work to your specific ways, but generally, it's a very intuitive product, and there always seems to be an answer for what you need. In general, it is quite straightforward if you are technically minded.

I have seen positive impacts from iboss because, beforehand, we had three different web filtering environments across the sites, which proved to be quite a large problem. They were quite expensive, out of date and unstable. We have four domains, so basically, we are trying to bring three Active Directory domains into one. That's basically our goal, with a lot of users to consider. We assessed exactly what the old system did with all of the settings and things we couldn't take across. iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted. The rollout was concerning because we had tens, hundreds of thousands of exclusions across the sites, and we couldn't export them or anything. iboss allowed us to be flexible in the pilot phase, seeing exactly how it would impact things, which could have a significant on our customers in a high risk 365x24x7 environment, and it allowed us to do a successful rollout with little impact. With regards to the other products, when they say you can't do something, iboss offers more flexibility to help people in a more sensible way.

I have seen significant improvement in the security aspect with this single pane of glass console; it's far more visible. The reporting gives a lot of information, and our security department utilises that to track how many threats and potential threats have been negated.

The most valuable features in iboss are numerous, but we only use the mid-tier system. Features such as DLP are on the next tier, which is quite a considerable cost difference. We primarily need web filtering, which is very straightforward. You can either allow or block content or set categories to soft block, giving users temporary access to certain sites for 24 hours. Additionally, if a website is flagged as malicious but has legitimate content, you can report that to ensure the information they receive is accurate, showing that they do a lot of work in the background.

A real positive factor with iboss as the that processing\gateways are completely segregated from other customers. i.e. you do not share any processing with other customers that could impact your web performance. This was one of the key factors which we liked. 

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.

I have been working with iboss for over 3 years.

My experience with deploying iboss has been very good. I give them full marks for presales and support during the pilot phase, as well as support when we actually went live. They have been absolutely brilliant.

iboss is scalable, but you have to pay for it to accommodate growth.

I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt.

From a maintenance perspective, iboss is literally hands-off; it seems to look after itself with only support from cyber when requests come in for blocked sites. They provide a calendar of past outages, which allows me to see exactly where there have been issues and their durations - this was a real positive during the options appraisal. Their resilience is commendable as they host everything in the cloud.

Positive

We used Sophos across across all sites which was outdated and unstable. We needed a single pane of glass solution which was easier to managed as well as giving a more flexible and user friendly method of web filtering.

It was relatively straightforward. The assistance from pre-sales technical support was first class and there was always a solution to any issues we came across in our complex infrastructure.

I worked with both consultants and salespeople at iboss directly.

I have seen some cost effectiveness from iboss; it has reduced certain support requirements (specifically when Sophos blocked so much and caused many support calls), making it a more hands-off solution. I believe it saves us money in staff hours, but I can't quantify how much.

Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alternatives available, but they do not perform as well. Since iboss is cloud-based, there are still gains and losses compared to others that are on-site. For example, I have worked with ZScaler, which does not offer the functionality we need in a multi-domain environment (and it was considerably more expensive than iboss).  Additionally, I know from previous companies that ZScaler caused issues with O365 (which we utilise extensively).

ZScaler, Palo Alto Prisma, Fortinet, Forcepoint, Sophos XG.

When assessing visibility into cloud, web, and private applications, it's difficult to quantify. It's a straightforward frontend; we do not do any hands-on work, and visibility is limited to what we need to see, plus some diagnostics on the gateways.

I haven't noticed significant improvements in latency with zero trust SD-WAN; it's hard to quantify since it's difficult to know the baseline. We use iboss for Teams\O365, and our experience has been very good; we've never had speed issues, but I advise caution on what we deploy through iboss as O365\Teams causes a lot of processing on the iboss gateways which will ramp up the utilisation.

We definitely use zero trust; the whole purpose of that is zero trust, and we use it absolutely as a standard practice.

Zero trust SD-WAN routing and connectivity are very good; it allows me to do exactly what I want to do. It functions exactly as stated, enabling setup for all groups I need.

I would recommend iboss to others if they are transitioning from one product to another, such as Sophos, which has limitations in exporting settings (in that you cannot, and we had approximately 100,000 exceptions over the years). The flexibility of iboss significantly reduces the risk associated with the transition compared to starting over from scratch.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate iboss a 9.

We initially used iboss for our work-from-home workers, and eventually, we installed the client for office users as well. Now, almost all of our users have the iboss agent. We have installed this agent for almost 1,700 users.

Our services route is already configured in iboss, so we have different types of nodes through which our traffic goes through.

It has a graphical user interface, and it is very easy for any user. We have administrative access and non-administrative access to iboss. It is very easy to understand the process and the configuration. We can easily understand security policies, node management, and other things such as metadata. Everything is easy to use and understand because of this graphical user interface. CLI can be complicated for someone with no knowledge of Linux; GUI makes it easy for everyone.

We have several Internet Service Providers in our organization. For cost reduction, we transfer our main traffic to the US and other locations through the iboss node. Its impact is positive if I can get one IP line from my local area and distribute more nodes through iboss. It has been very beneficial for my organization so far.

It enhances our security. It is our primary solution for web filtering.

First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users. I have granted manager-level access individually and user-level access individually, which I can manage through iboss. It is also quicker to update policies through iboss instead of Active Directory. It is very reliable and useful when we need to do things fast.

Node connection management is valuable. I am in Bangladesh, but my main traffic goes through the US. It can be quite difficult for me to send the traffic from Bangladesh to the US. However, in iboss, I have different nodes that can go through Singapore, which is very beneficial for me. The node connection management and connectors are great features in my opinion. 

If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great. 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.

Their support could also be better.

Additionally, having their own solution for deployment on user machines would be beneficial.

I have used the solution for almost five years.

It is stable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for stability.

It is scalable. I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.

We have offices in Bangladesh, India, and the US. Most of the users have been using iboss. We have about 1,700 users.

We are planning to implement it at more locations and are very serious about it.

Their support team is quite good. They do not always reply promptly, but they do try and genuinely want to help us. 

We also have time-zone challenges. If some level of support was available 24/7, it would be great.

Positive

We have been using iboss from the very beginning. It is quite a good tool for us, so we are not thinking of replacing it.

It is an area for improvement. We have 1,700 users. If I get any issue with the iboss agent, it is quite difficult for me to go to every workstation and install the event. For that reason, we have another solution in our organization, which is called the Endpoint Central. They can provide their own solution because it is not easy to go to every workstation and install it. It will not optimize my work. 

We deploy the agents over the weekend so users would not be affected. We use another solution for deploying the agents. It takes some time. It can take an hour to a day. It is not iboss's fault.

I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals. iboss is a great web filtering solution for small organizations with around 500 to 1,000 employees, as well as large organizations. 

Overall, I would rate iboss an eight out of ten.

We purchased iboss for its SASE and ZTNA features. We're currently utilizing the SASE capabilities and have plans to deploy the ZTNA functionality in the future. We're also using the web browser sandboxing feature for some limited use cases. We currently have approximately 80,000 users on the platform.

iboss is primarily a cloud-based solution, but I tend to think of it more as a platform-as-a-service due to its deployment flexibility. In its most basic form, it utilizes distributed points of presence globally, and agents on our devices connect to the nearest one for seamless backend routing. However, for data center needs, they offer physical hardware for on-premises installation, bridging those environments into their network. They have similar solutions for cloud integration as well. So, while fundamentally a cloud service, iboss's adaptability has allowed us to address all our advanced deployment requirements.

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. This is mainly because iboss handles the back-end infrastructure, leaving us to focus on agent deployments and scheduling upgrades. The user interface is intuitive enough for junior engineers to grasp quickly, unlike some other tools we use. Overall, I'd give it a B+ or A- for ease of use. There are a few clunky areas, but they're not unique to iboss, so I don't hold them against it too much.

During the RFP process, their single console was a significant factor that inclined us toward iboss. At least two of their main competitors have multiple consoles, which creates unnecessary administrative overhead. As a result, we awarded iboss additional points for their streamlined approach.

So far, iboss has allowed us to remove the traditional web proxy and eliminate the endpoint DLP. If the roadmap continues as intended, we will use it to replace legacy VPN. The only reason we haven't done that yet is not a product issue; it's simply that we have a lot of internal network-level complexity to resolve first. However, we intend that it will also replace the traditional VPNs we use, including Checkpoint, Palo Alto, and others.

iboss has reached a breakeven point, but ultimately it will lead to cost reductions. While the previous design needed more staff to operate, it has enabled a leaner engineering team than would have been possible if the legacy systems were retained. Though an exact dollar amount cannot be given, it's either at a breakeven point or already saving money, and ultimately, it's expected to generate savings.

Having one console improves security, as it reduces the number of tools we need to monitor, which is crucial for managing overhead when dealing with large amounts of data that need to reach the SIM. More tools mean more data connectors to operate, which increases the engineering team's workload and impacts the operations team, which needs data quickly. Therefore, limiting the number of sources simplifies transferring data and minimizes potential issues. The setup process, from proof of concept to initial deployment, took only a few weeks, demonstrating its efficiency and enabling faster security implementation, as it served both as a replacement for legacy technology and a new addition.

The visibility iboss provides into our environment is comprehensive. As a large retailer with a complex environment, we have it deployed at 2,200 physical stores, 100 distribution center supply chain facilities, and all corporate employees. We are now starting to connect it to the cloud, which will give us transparent visibility across our entire infrastructure.

We use ChatGPT risk protection, which is crucial as we navigate our journey into AI, like most companies. We have approved use cases and sites that aren't, with ChatGPT being one of the latter. It was among the first sites we blocked. iboss's granularity allows us to specify which users can access ChatGPT if, for example, a development team gets approval, ensuring minimum access without opening it to everyone. This level of control wasn't possible with our previous legacy platform.

We are beginning to implement zero trust and have a few use cases deployed currently. My goal is to have it fully deployed within the next 12 to 18 months. Realistically, any delays are not due to the product itself but rather the politics of large organizations. Convincing other VPs takes time, and as a Fortune 50 company, we tend to move slower. However, we will ultimately deploy zero trust broadly across the organization.

We experienced benefits from iboss immediately. While it's a complex platform with extensive capabilities, the time it takes to fully realize its benefits depends on the organization's willingness to embrace change, as it significantly alters the user experience. We saw immediate benefits upon deployment and have continued to see incremental improvements since then. However, it's crucial to note that it's not a solution where you deploy it and wait months or years for results. The speed at which you gain benefits is largely up to you. As a slower-moving organization, we opted for a gradual rollout to avoid disrupting everyone. I advise anyone deploying this type of platform to be mindful of the user experience changes and communicate proactively. We were careful to inform the business about potential block pages and provide guidance on how to request access to necessary sites. iboss, the vendor, was extremely helpful in supporting our rollout and providing resources, leading to a surprisingly fast implementation compared to other projects I've managed.

iboss has generated cost savings by enabling us to consolidate some capabilities and eliminate the need to purchase additional tools that would have otherwise been necessary.

Regarding features, we've primarily utilized the SASE feature, which has served as an excellent replacement for our traditional web proxies. Additionally, data center operations are inherently complex and involve hardware management. Consequently, the PaaS nature of this solution, eliminating the need to manage our hardware, was appealing. We extensively use its web proxy capabilities, particularly the category-based controls, enabling us to block generative AI sites that are not approved by policy. Although we've employed ZTNA in limited cases, we plan to expand its use. Notably, a desirable aspect was the uptime guarantee, with a seven-nine contract commitment exceeding any other network provider's guarantee I've encountered.

iboss excels on the networking side but lags slightly behind competitors like Zscaler and Netskope in terms of security feature parity. I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention. Using iboss for DLP instead of traditional endpoint solutions is preferable, but its current feature set requires some clunky workarounds. I'd also like to see better integration of DLP into the platform. Additionally, while it's improving, reporting can be slow at times. This is problematic when generating reports for executives who expect them immediately. I'd like to see further improvements in reporting speed and efficiency.

I have been using iboss for two years.

The stability has been exceptional, possibly the best I've experienced. In the time I've owned iboss, we've had only one outage, which we caused ourselves through an error in the console. Even then, they promptly addressed and fixed the issue for us. We haven't encountered any widespread agent crashes, and while there have been a few isolated issues here and there, none could be attributed to platform instability. I would rate the stability of iboss as nine out of ten.

Iboss scales well. We currently have around 80,000 agents deployed, roughly corresponding to our user base. We started with 200 access points globally, and even as we've added users and experienced unusual traffic spikes, we haven't encountered any performance issues. While IT teams typically receive complaints about slowness, we haven't had any valid complaints.

We opted for premium support, which includes a dedicated technical account manager and 24/7 support from iboss. They've been very responsive; for urgent issues, we use the main support line, and they'll even join our incident calls. For less urgent matters like bug fixes or feature requests, we work with our dedicated TAM, which is available full-time. He handles getting bug fixes in and informs us about feature updates. My team tells me the support is excellent, and we have regular stand-ups with our account team to ensure constant engagement. I also appreciate that their support staff is very knowledgeable about the product, which speeds up issue resolution.

Positive

I have used several competitors to iboss. Zscaler is likely more feature-rich currently, but iboss's pricing is significantly better in constrained spending environments like ours. This was a major factor in choosing iboss; Zscaler's pricing was roughly five or six times higher. In terms of value for our spend, we've definitely gotten our money's worth. If I were to run the RFP again, I would still choose iboss. I'm actually about to renew it, so it's clearly still meeting our needs since I'm not looking to switch.

The initial deployment of iboss was straightforward. The only vendor I can think of that was any easier was our antivirus vendor because they were just agents. This involved agents and some network configuration, but we had a straightforward time deploying it. When we ran into problems, they were responsive in fixing them or providing us with the needed resources.

Achieving full iboss deployment and reaching a stable state took approximately a year. However, without our organizational challenges, we could have likely completed it in four to six months. The extensive overhead from our change management process, architecture councils, and natural bureaucracy significantly slowed progress. In an environment without these concerns, particularly for smaller companies, deployment could be achieved in less than six months. While large companies might experience similar timelines, our deployment was relatively quick.

Deployment necessitates cross-team collaboration. Typically, security teams can't directly deploy to endpoints, requiring us to package agents for our deployment team's installation. Post-deployment, we manage endpoints independently. Our complex network involved the network team, needing connector deployment in cloud and data center environments. The deployment likely took two to three full-time equivalents over a year to estimate total resources, including partial contributions.

The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent. Unlike vendors who add numerous line items, iboss's pricing model is simple and easy to understand. It's essentially per user and access point. By multiplying the number of access points and users, I can quickly determine the cost, simplifying forecasting. I need to estimate the number of new employees we're hiring next year to anticipate the additional cost. This level of predictability is rare among my vendors, as many surprise me with their bills.

I would rate iboss seven out of ten.

iboss does require maintenance for software updates and similar tasks, so it's not entirely maintenance-free. However, currently, we manage it with approximately one to one and a half full-time employees, with an additional cross-trained person for vacation coverage and other absences.

We use it primarily for simpler filtering because we're a K12 entity.

The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate. When I first had it, it was a cloud-based console, but we had on-prem appliances, so when we went to the cloud, the management of the cloud nodes that handle the users' traffic and everything was significantly easier.

The console definitely helps us save costs. It protects us from situations where a parent or anyone may say, 'Hey, the student is doing this; your filter isn't working properly.' The reporting feature we have inside iboss is fantastic, especially with the new features in reporting and analytics, allowing us to give a high-level report to a parent or a school administrator. It absolutely saves us money because if we have the data to back it up, no one can really come after us with a lawsuit or anything like that.

The reporting and analytics are pretty awesome, and we recently got the Zero Trust platform. We've just been starting to dive into that because it's something new for us, as they just started offering it to K12 as part of their new package. It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler. It's pretty awesome.

I have a couple of thoughts for improvement, but usually when I address them with my rep, they put it into the feature roadmaps because I've been with them for a while, and I typically see that feature get implemented. 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. I would like to see the AI tuned a little more. They communicated that the AI is still learning, which I appreciate, but it probably could have been given more time before being released.

I have been using it for around six to seven years.

I don't think I've ever had any downtime with iboss, and they are really good about sending alerts if they do any maintenance on the cloud nodes. Most of my nodes are based all over the United States, primarily on the East Coast, but I do have some in the Midwest and some in the West, like California. It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.

The scalability is fantastic; if I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.

It's very easy to use, and for those times that it's not as easy, their support is phenomenal.

I have a support person that I usually reach out to, but if he's not available and I put in a support case, he usually gets answered within an hour.

The quality of the support is fantastic. I don't think I've had any issues with him nor has anyone on my team.

I would give them a score of ten for the support.

Positive

My organization was able to remove legacy tech by consolidating into a single solution. Originally, we were on a light speed, and while upgrading our Internet circuit, the hardware we had could not support the speeds we were going up to. We made a change over to iboss because they had better hardware and better speed for filtering for students and staff. Then, about a year or two later into our contract, we went straight to the cloud, which has been fast. 

Anytime we have any sluggishness, we usually reach out to support or my rep, and their dev team gets on it the same day. We recently had an Internet speed increase, going from sixteen nodes to now having around thirty-something nodes, which saves us money in hardware.

The deployment was done by our team and an integrator from iboss.

It took us a couple of days to set it up, but with the growing pains from going from light speed to iboss, it took us anywhere from thirty to forty-five days to fully adjust to the new interface, changes, and the way that things were being blocked or not blocked.

About two or three people were involved overall in the deployment, definitely one from iboss and two from my team.

The Charge GPT risk protection was part of the Zero Trust platform, which they just introduced me to about three weeks ago, and I don't have enough information to provide anything substantial. However, I appreciate that some features allow monitoring of ChatGPT and other AI sites, and you can also input a message in the console when they are on ChatGPT, stating that these chats are being monitored by Aiken County Public Schools or any message you want, giving users a heads-up that they shouldn't put anything inappropriate in there. We just started with that.

iboss is a fully one hundred percent cloud solution today.

I still think iboss is way ahead of light speed. Since they've implemented Zero Trust and some integrations, the ClassLink integration gives us further analytics into our rostering solution, which is really nice. I don't think light speed can compete with them in this aspect.

I rate iboss a nine out of ten.

Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our old proxies to cloud proxies, and we did POCs with different giants at that time. What we were looking for was proper categorization and nodes that would have global reach. We were also looking for latency specifics to determine how the latency could be better with the on-prem devices compared to cloud devices. We also implemented VPN zero trust, which was another requirement, and that structure is what we decided to go with.

The feature I appreciated most about iboss was categorization. They had different categories for blocking applications, and we had the option of customizing ourselves. The categories they provided were really helpful, and the configurations we previously did manually came pre-built.

The iboss SG secured web gateway provided control over social media, gaming, shopping lists, file sharing permissions, and high-risk categories. All the bifurcations and specifics we were looking for came pre-built. These were also being used as firewalls. We had integrations with FireEye on all nodes, which helped make our applications more secure.

Another great feature was inline CASB functionality for security brokers capabilities with granular policies preventing data filtration. The data loss prevention technique they had was important, and they started integrating ML for this feature. When comparing iboss versus Zscaler, we focused on containerized infrastructure and ease of transition from on-premises to cloud. While Zscaler might have more global reach and excel in zero trust, we were primarily looking for secured web gateway, where Iboss's containerized architecture proved superior.

For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil. While iboss performed well, some competitors offered simpler implementation through a one-click agent download process. With data loss protection, iboss performed well in blocking unauthorized data exfiltrations, but there could be room for improvement in the zero trust implementation process.

I used iboss in my previous company for approximately two to three years.

I contacted support frequently, mainly due to connectivity issues we observed. When dealing with SSL offloading and bypassing, connections would get disconnected, requiring support team assistance since the control was on their side.

The Technical Account Manager, Gyat, did an excellent job helping us. Whenever we needed support, they brought in people who were enthusiastic about helping us resolve our issues as quickly as possible. There were times when they needed to conduct research, which took four to five days, but they always returned with solutions.

Positive

When selecting iboss, we considered four products: Netskope, Zscaler, Palo Alto's GlobalProtect, and iboss. We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior. In latency tests and categorization tests, iboss won. The implementation was extremely simple and easy. The global reach was good, and customer support was reliable.

We were moving from Forcepoint on-premises proxy to cloud proxy. iboss had all the basic features and functionalities we needed from our previous Forcepoint setup, without requiring manual interventions. This made our POC extremely simple, and we decided within a month that iboss would be the perfect fit.

The initial deployment was easy.

The implementation was handled by one team consisting of four people. I managed the implementations, POCs, and MVP. For expanding to different regions or sections, we created a deployment booklet and distributed it to different teams for implementation at their specific nodes or locations. The centralized management approach was under my control, allowing me to fully view, implement, and create everything quickly. The entire infrastructure implementation took around six months, proceeding section by section to learn from any issues, while the MVP only took one week.

We used it for student and faculty filtering on campus.

We were a hybrid environment where we were not fully cloud or on-prem. That caused a lot of difficulty for us where we had to go into one system for some of the things we needed to do and then we had to go into another system for other things we needed to do. Because we needed to do inline filtering, we could not move their cloud-based service. That caused a lot of operability issues for us. For us, it was not a single pane of glass. If you are fully cloud-based, that portion is nice, but if you want on-prem inline filtering, it is not a single pane of glass.

Their visibility in cloud, web, and private applications is dependent on whether you have their client and their certificate on your device. For us, that did not work because we did not have that on there, so we had almost zero visibility into SSL traffic.

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. Our school is a BYOD environment, so we cannot install software on those devices. Allowing us to filter those devices while on campus was the real reason why we had iboss for so long.

We were able to see its benefits immediately after we started using it. We went from a non-pay model to a pay model to stay with them because they were providing us with the inline filtering service that we could not get from any other provider.

Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly.

We switched to another solution because of increased pricing for licensing and because of customer service. We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data. We had to manually update the new appliance. We had multiple problems with getting the filtering to filter correctly which we escalated to their senior management of customer service. There was no real action in spite of them promising to look into the issues.

Our current vendor offers an Aware product, a self-harm bullying module included with their service. Such a feature did not accompany the iboss service. This is something we would definitely love to see from them if we ever go back to them.

I used iboss until about six months ago. We used it for probably six or seven years.

We experienced issues during migration. Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box. We had AD authentication set up. It randomly assigned a user to the default filter group, restricting access and requiring users to sign in to be correctly filtered.

You can put a couple of boxes in tandem. So, they are definitely very scalable.

We had multiple problems with filtering, which we escalated to senior customer service management. We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.

Neutral

iboss was initially provided by our Internet Service Provider as part of their service. We then purchased it on our own. We have now switched to Securly for our school-owned devices, while for BYOD, filtering is done through our firewall vendor.

Our Internet Service Provider recently changed to Securly. It is a part of the member services package that drastically cuts down our cost of ownership.

The initial setup was easy. The full setup took probably a couple of days.

The transition to a new appliance from their aged-out appliance was absolutely horrible and caused us a couple of days of downtime.

Its maintenance involved updating the actual hardware on-prem and doing firmware updates. We also had to do updates to the software portion on our devices.

Initially, our ISP did the integration with us. Later, when we continued with iboss, we took the build from ISP's setup and transferred it onto an appliance of our own, which made for an easy transition.

It was just me taking care of its setup and maintenance.

When we initially used it, it was a part of our Internet Service Provider Ocean's service. They provided it as a member service, so it was at no additional cost to us.

We stayed with iboss even after Ocean left. We decided to pay for the iboss service. 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.

I would rate it a five out of ten.