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Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs Cisco Secure Access 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:
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Akamai Secure Internet Acc...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
21st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
5.3
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
Domain Name System (DNS) Security (11th)
Cisco Secure Access
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
72
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (9th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (3rd), ZTNA (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is 1.1%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Access is 3.1%, up from 2.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Access3.1%
iboss3.5%
Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise1.1%
Other92.3%
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.
MS
Senior Analyst at Deloitte
Have successfully routed high-volume application traffic through secure channels and maintain compliance across client environments
CDN capability is what I appreciate about Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise. It protects applications that are internet-facing or public-facing. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a product which has very good features and capabilities. I have worked on Radware also, but Radware has some limited capabilities. Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise has positively impacted my organization. We have around 62 applications within our firm which are now routing traffic through Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise. It has fewer false positives, which is something we haven't encountered yet. I assess the impact of Akamai's real-time threat filtering as 10 out of 10, and I am satisfied with this feature.
reviewer2788500 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Secure access has unified zero trust and web protection while AI assistance automates tasks
From a feature perspective, I have not experienced any issues, drawbacks, or shortcomings. However, the cost of Cisco's products and licensing is high. My clients usually prefer cheaper options if possible. Mid-size or smaller businesses typically cannot afford Cisco Secure Access. Additionally, there is a steep learning curve, as it is very intensive. Someone with significant knowledge can work on it, but a new professional would have to spend considerable time to get accustomed to it. It is hard to find engineers who can work on it. Overall, we get what we pay for, as it is a pretty good feature and service. The pricing of Cisco's products and licensing is higher than competitors. If they could be more reasonable, that would help. The support offered for two years also has higher costs. Overall, the client's IT budget gets affected. It was challenging to learn because, as mentioned, it has a significant learning curve and requires considerable training to become proficient.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"The best feature of Akamai SPS Threat Avert is that it's very user-friendly compared to other technologies."
"Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is a product which has very good features and capabilities."
"The threat intelligence feature is particularly valuable when used with another product of Akamai, as their researchers continuously update this threat feed database, making it an effective tool for defending against and blocking bad actors, public malicious IPs, harmful hashes, and malicious URLs."
"What I like the most about Cisco Secure Access is that it is really easy to use and it is secure."
"Cisco Secure Client is really efficient for all the users and mostly for the enterprise, so I would say Cisco Secure Client would be the primary one."
"Based on ROI, Cisco Secure Access is worth the investment, as it is a core security product that allows customers to measure their ROI effectively."
"Using the VPN SaaS in Cisco has influenced us greatly because it gives you a seamless transition from your legacy systems to this new system that is available, so the transition has been seamless."
"Since I started using Cisco Secure Access, I have noticed positive impacts on my organization."
"My boss loves Cisco Secure Access, as it finally gave him the ability to look at what people were doing and stop them from doing unwise things."
"Our security posture has improved significantly with Cisco Secure Access."
"Cisco Secure Access does help me protect my company from threats like phishing and ransomware."
 

Cons

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"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."
"Its pricing could be better."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"From a financial standpoint, I do not believe Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is cost-effective when compared to other solutions available in the industry."
"Their support response time needs improvement. They take on average one week to respond, which is not satisfactory given how critical applications are to the organization."
"Akamai SPS Threat Avert's pricing could be improved because it's a very expensive enterprise solution."
"For pricing, I consider this one of the few drawbacks of Cisco; Cisco is known for its high pricing, so I would give them a six."
"The main issue with pricing is that it is higher compared to other competitors, making it challenging to work with customers unless they specifically request Cisco."
"In general, I think features can be improved."
"To improve Cisco Secure Access, I would suggest simplifying the need for different components that Cisco has tried to implement; for example, to have Cisco Secure Access, it is necessary to have AnyConnect, ISE, and Duo, meaning there are various products that need to integrate to achieve the same result, unlike the all-in-one compact products from other vendors."
"The Talos database is insufficient because Cisco Secure Access web gateway database is not big enough to hold every URL, leading to numerous problems with URLs not being categorized correctly and a slow turnaround for recategorization requests."
"Having been associated with Cisco for more than fifteen to twenty years, I find it increasingly difficult to get tech support these days. Although Cisco is reliable, the process to raise a support ticket has become more complex, requiring specific user accounts and access to specialized platforms."
"From a licensing perspective, Cisco can improve."
"There is indeed room for improvement regarding first-level support; they need to ensure that knowledgeable people are available."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"Provided the features Akamai SPS Threat Avert provides, it is bound to be expensive."
"The pricing, setup costs, and licensing for Cisco Secure Access have been very competitive compared to other platforms. I believe that if Cisco continues to improve costs or offers something similar to a Cisco credit, it would attract more customers."
"For what you get, it's a fair price in comparison to other products."
"It is confusing. When you look at the prices, you have different licensing and years of licensing that you have to purchase. Additionally, it's unclear what service you get from those licenses regarding end-user support. We have a representative who has to walk me through it every time."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
9%
Outsourcing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Outsourcing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business29
Midsize Enterprise13
Large Enterprise36
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
What needs improvement with Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Since Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is not being used in our campus environment, as our users do not route...
What is your primary use case for Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise is designed to protect users' access to the internet.
What advice do you have for others considering Akamai SPS Threat Avert?
Our organization does not utilize the internet access feature of Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise because our...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Access?
Before adopting Cisco Secure Access, we primarily relied on traditional VPN-based remote access solutions combined wi...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Access?
Cisco Secure Access serves as our primary solution for providing secure remote access to corporate applications and r...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Secure Access?
My biggest piece of advice is to approach Cisco Secure Access as a strategic, zero trust initiative rather than simpl...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Akamai Enterprise Threat Protector, Akamai ETP, Akamai SPS Threat Avert
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
MCNC, Educational Testing Service
1. IBM 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. Google 5. Apple 6. Cisco Systems 7. Oracle 8. Intel 9. HP Inc. 10. Dell Technologies 11. Verizon Communications 12. AT&T 13. Comcast 14. T-Mobile 15. Sprint 16. Vodafone 17. Orange 18. BT Group 19. Deutsche Telekom 20. Telefonica 21. Nokia 22. Ericsson 23. Samsung Electronics 24. Sony 25. Panasonic 26. LG Electronics 27. Siemens 28. General Electric 29. Ford Motor Company 30. General Motors 31. Toyota Motor Corporation 32. Volkswagen Group
Find out what your peers are saying about Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs. Cisco Secure Access and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,800 professionals have used our research since 2012.