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Barracuda SecureEdge vs Cisco Secure Access comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 19, 2026

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
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (5th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), ZTNA as a Service (8th)
Barracuda SecureEdge
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
17th
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
20th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
ZTNA as a Service (21st)
Cisco Secure Access
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
3rd
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
70
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Firewalls (12th), ZTNA (6th), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.3%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda SecureEdge is 1.4%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Access is 3.7%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Access3.7%
iboss3.3%
Barracuda SecureEdge1.4%
Other91.6%
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

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.
karan rathod - PeerSpot reviewer
network security engineer at a outsourcing company with 11-50 employees
Centralized security management has simplified remote access and improved network visibility
Overall, my experience with Barracuda SecureEdge has been positive, but there are always areas for improvement. One area where I believe the product could be enhanced is in reporting and analytics, with more customizable dashboards and deeper insight for security and performance monitoring. Additionally, having more advanced troubleshooting tools and diagnostic information directly within the platform would help administrators resolve issues even faster. While the interface is generally easy to use, some advanced configurations could be simplified further to reduce the learning curve for new administrators. The platform already provides strong security, centralized management, and reliable connection for our organization. One enhancement our team would appreciate regarding Barracuda SecureEdge is more advanced customization options for reporting and dashboards, allowing us to create role-specific views and more detailed analytics. We would also appreciate additional automation capability for routing administrative tasks and policy management, which could further reduce operational effort and streamline security operations. While the platform already provides strong visibility and management capability, having more built-in troubleshooting and diagnostic tools would help analyze issues when they occur. Nothing major comes to mind about improving Barracuda SecureEdge. If I had to suggest something, I would like to see more customizable reporting and a few additional troubleshooting tools. Overall, the platform meets our requirements well and has been easy to manage.
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

"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"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."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"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."
"Overall, it has strengthened our security posture and improved the business's operational efficiency significantly."
"I have seen specific outcomes since using Barracuda SecureEdge, such as tool consolidation that combines multiple tools like VPN, firewall, secure web gateway, and SD-WAN into one solution, resulting in around a twenty to thirty percent reduction in security tool costs, improved operational efficiency, and increased efficiency around twenty-five to forty percent."
"Overall, it has improved productivity for both our IT team and end-users while strengthening our organization's security and network management capabilities."
"I find the posture checking feature of Cisco Secure Access the most valuable."
"It has not only been a better solution overall, but also been cost saving, which is unusual—too good to be true at one point, but it has delivered."
"The biggest benefit of Cisco Secure Access, compared to Fortinet or other solutions from Palo Alto or Prisma, is its adaptability to different network environments."
"Our security posture has improved significantly with Cisco Secure Access."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access is the level of security it provides."
"I am happy with the performance and security levels it provides, as I feel it is a robust and high-performing product with both the clientless and the client aspects."
"Cisco Secure Access has definitely helped our organization, cutting incident response time at least in half and giving us analytics that let us quickly identify devices and users so everything from headquarters contacting the base to the on-site tech removing a rogue device from the classroom network is much quicker."
"After implementing Cisco Secure Access, I observed complete automation, a complete Zero Trust architecture, and complete automation of security."
 

Cons

"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."
"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."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"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."
"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."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Nothing major comes to mind about improving Barracuda SecureEdge. If I had to suggest something, I would like to see more customizable reporting and a few additional troubleshooting tools."
"Compared to leading SASE vendors, Barracuda SecureEdge is still evolving and lacks some advanced features and integration depth that may require evaluating for large and global enterprises."
"Cisco Secure Access may not seamlessly integrate into such settings, although it performs well in a Cisco-based environment."
"In general, what can be improved about this solution is to not change the name of everything every year, as Cisco marketing are experts at making changes to everything, and I don't understand what this is; that was the AnyConnect VPN, and now it's Cisco Secure Access, and what's tomorrow?"
"We don't have any good tools right now, which is a problem."
"It is expensive."
"We did run into an issue with URL filtering where it would not filter a site properly. It took months to resolve by Cisco, but that is the only hiccup I would say there has been."
"When you have planned works in your data center, I think you need to carry out some post-checks to ensure we are not affected as users."
"Cisco could add new features in the future, such as enhanced automation capabilities."
"In terms of negative aspects of Cisco Secure Access, it is not easy to manage everything in Cisco products."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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 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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
Information not available
"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."
"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."
"For what you get, it's a fair price in comparison to other products."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
16%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Large Enterprise2
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise34
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Barracuda SecureEdge?
My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing is acceptable. I do not see any complications compared to other...
What needs improvement with Barracuda SecureEdge?
Compared to leading SASE vendors, Barracuda SecureEdge is still evolving and lacks some advanced features and integra...
What is your primary use case for Barracuda SecureEdge?
My main use case for Barracuda SecureEdge is a particular consolidation approach where different branch locations hav...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Access?
Pricing for Cisco Secure Access has been very reasonable in the context of the entire world of SASE solutions. Setup ...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Access?
Our main use case for Cisco Secure Access is providing security for hybrid and mobile workforces. One of the big chal...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Secure Access?
One of the things about policy verification is with Cisco Secure Access and modern security products in general, poli...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Barracuda CloudGen Access
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.
Information Not Available
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 Barracuda SecureEdge vs. Cisco Secure Access and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.