Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Broadcom and Cisco are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Additionally, 83% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 97% of Cisco users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 3, 2026

Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] and Cisco Umbrella compete in the cybersecurity space focusing on web filtering and secure internet access. Cisco Umbrella holds the advantage due to its alignment with modern cloud-based needs, offering comprehensive, scalable coverage.

Features: Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] offers strengths in on-premises deployment with features such as robust web filtering, SSL decryption, and data loss prevention. Cisco Umbrella, adopting a cloud-based architecture, provides DNS-layer protection, secure web gateway capabilities, and advanced threat intelligence integration, making it well-suited for remote and hybrid workforce environments.

Room for Improvement: Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] needs advancements in cloud integration, scalability, and automated policy management. Cisco Umbrella could enhance its support for non-DNS threats, increase integration capabilities with third-party solutions, and enrich its reporting features for more granular insights.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Cisco Umbrella is cloud-native, facilitating quick deployment with minimal on-premises requirements, supported by a highly responsive support infrastructure. Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] involves complex on-premises deployments, requiring significant resources, with solid but less efficient support due to its end-of-life status.

Pricing and ROI: Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] offers a lower initial cost but may incur higher long-term expenses due to maintenance challenges and scalability issues. Cisco Umbrella, despite a potentially higher upfront investment, promises better ROI through enhanced operational efficiency and cost-effective scalability, which aligns well with its extensive feature set.

To learn more, read our detailed Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Report (Updated: October 2026).

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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

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula

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.

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Suhas Suryavanshi

Information Security Engineer at M.Tech

Granular control over website access has lead to decreased bandwidth and increased performance

If you have previously worked on the product then it is quite simple. However, if you are new to it then the implementation is a little bit tricky. On the Cloud Proxy, the deployment takes less than one day. If you are using the ProxySG or the on-premises solution, it will take one to two weeks depending on the policy configuration, the size of the organization, and what kinds of policies are needed. The number of staff you need to maintain the solution depends on the size of the organization, and how many changes occur on a daily basis. If you have one thousand employees then you need at least one employee to look after it.

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KamranJameel

Head Of IT at a financial services firm with 51-200 employees

Secure browsing has protected users from DNS threats and improves malware defense

The major issue is that sometimes when you install the client, it shows you protected and displays that it is live with the backend servers and everything. However, in reality, it was not getting any feed from the main client and is just sending your traffic to open DNS, which sometimes causes an issue because the protection you have implemented can be breached by users. The primary thing that Cisco Umbrella lacked most of the time is their client. Previously, they had a separate Cisco client. Now they have merged everything into the Cisco Secure Endpoint client—one client for everything, for Cisco Endpoint, for Cisco AnyConnect, and for Cisco Umbrella, which they did probably in 2025.

Read full review

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."

"The students were always protected, and the content filtering worked very well, seeming to work better than other products we had tried previously."

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."

"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."

"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."

"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."

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

More iboss pros

"Customer Service: Blue Touch support is top notch and very responsive when I opened service requests."

"Proxy Solution and ADN, specifically its integration capability with Blue Coat Director to apply seamless policy across all of Blue Coat, along with intuitive proxy policy deployment using VPN and the ability to forward-chain your proxy, make it overall a good solution though growth requires automation support."

"Since the implementation of this solution, the bandwidth has decreased and the performance in terms of Internet access has increased."

"Proxy Solution and ADN and their integration capability with Blue Coat director are positive features."

"The functionality of this solution is one of the best, and it is leading the market."

"It's a great solution for high load enterprise infrastructure to protect company networks from web threats."

"We were able to monitor users' social media behavior and control certain activities to be allowed on the social media, which helped to prevent data loss and other activities that could result in a negative impact to the organization."

"It features intuitive proxy policy deployment using a VPN."

"I haven't found any issues related to latency or any other issue."

"It is a good cloud-based solution for DNS security."

"It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."

"Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do."

"Umbrella has helped my IT staff in two ways. First, our security team was able to get more insights into the users, their devices, and the sites they browse. Second, our system administration team was able to manage DNS resolutions in a way that is more accessible and less intrusive to our domain system."

"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."

"We use the entire Cisco solution and we are happy with the product integration."

"This is a good solution, and there are many advantages to this solution."

More Cisco Umbrella pros

Cons

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."

"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."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"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."

"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."

More iboss cons

"There were benefits but the evolution is slow, hence wanting to move on with the product."

"Blue Coat advertises the ProxySG as a WAF, but it really isn’t."

"They need to improve the intellectual analysis for APT vectors from web."

"It lacks deployment over multiple platforms and integration with SDN architecture."

"It would be great if the product had inbuilt queuing for Quality of Service."

"The GUI works, but could be better."

"We cannot automate the product since the IP address can only be assigned after acquisition of the serial number."

"It's easier for us to have support features with companies who are Cisco representatives, but sometimes, it's hard for us to get the help we need without having to use our contacts within Cisco."

"Cisco Umbrella's support is not really efficient. When we have a problem, it is difficult to have good support."

"Pricing needs to be reduced for SMB based on the blocking capabilities and the lack of other features that you just cannot do in DNS, such as authentication-based filtering."

"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."

"We faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now. You can't see much because it is a Linux machine, and they have customized it. You don't have any route access to the machine, only seeing limited things in it. When we opened a ticket, they didn't know much about VAs themselves. So, that is where it is lacking right now. I know this will improve in the long run."

"I would like to have more applications being recorded."

"It could be improved by having a local data center and caching, which can provide protection support."

"This solution is difficult to configure."

More Cisco Umbrella cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"Additional features, such as Flash Proxies, have their own licensing fees that depend on what the requirements are."

"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."

"When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."

"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."

"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."

"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."

"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."

"The pricing is fair."

"Its value exceeds its pricing."

More Cisco Umbrella pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

No data available

Computer Software Company

14%

Manufacturing Company

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	51
Midsize Enterprise	31
Large Enterprise	51

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...

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Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?

Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zs...

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Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?

Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?

My experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing reveals that the pricing is acceptable, but it is marginally a ...

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Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

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Compared 5% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 5% of the time

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Zscaler Internet Access vs Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Compared 27% of the time

Steelhead vs Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Compared 22% of the time

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Compared 20% of the time

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Zscaler Internet Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 23% of the time

Palo Alto Networks DNS Security vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 4% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 3% of the time

Check Point Web Gateway vs Cisco Umbrella

Compared 2% of the time

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Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

October 2026

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Buyer's Guide

WAN Optimization

October 2026

Download Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Cisco Umbrella

October 2026

Download Cisco Umbrella product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

No data available

OpenDNS

Overview

iboss is the Zero Trust SASE platform that gives organizations complete visibility and governance over their AI, data, and applications through one unified platform, one console, one policy engine, and one data lake.

Your endpoints may already stop malware. Your data and application activity can still be invisible. iboss decrypts and understands every connection, then turns that signal into answers security leaders can act on.

The platform leads with three capabilities in this order: AI Security and Visibility, Data Security and Visibility, and App Visibility and Control. Zero Trust Network Access, VPN replacement, and SD-WAN sit underneath as the access fabric that carries those three. Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

- AI Security and Visibility: conversation capture, shadow-AI discovery, AI DLP, and agent governance across Claude, Co-Work, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok, and emerging services.

- Data Security and Visibility: full SSL/TLS decryption, deep content inspection, MIP label compliance, and one-click compliance reporting.

- App Visibility and Control: signatureless CASB, dual risk scoring, in-app controls, and SSPM for major SaaS.

- Containerized Zero Trust SASE: dedicated containers, isolated SSL keys, one console, one policy engine, one data lake.

- Access fabric: ZTNA, VPN replacement, and SD-WAN under the same platform.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

- Complete visibility over AI, data, and applications from one platform instead of separate point tools.

- Encrypted traffic is inspected by default so data decisions use content and context together.

- Shadow SaaS and new web tools appear as they are used, with enforceable controls in one console.

- Native data sovereignty through dedicated containers, in-region inspection, and per-customer SSL key custody.

- Scale proven in published materials: 10M+ users, 100+ countries, 150B+ transactions, 2.5B+ threats blocked.

Economic buyers are CISOs, CIOs, and VPs of Security. Champions include security architects, network and infrastructure leaders, SecOps, and GRC. Primary segments: enterprise and business, financial services, government (including FedRAMP Gov Cloud), healthcare, manufacturing, legal and professional services, retail and hospitality, and MSP/MSSP partners. Education, including K-12, is one vertical among these.

iboss

ProxySG appliances provide complete control over all your web traffic, delivering world-class threat protection. Robust features include user authentication, web filtering, data loss prevention, inspection, and visibility of SSL-encrypted traffic, content caching, bandwidth management, stream-splitting and more.

Broadcom

Cisco Umbrella provides fast-deploying DNS-layer security with powerful threat protection capabilities. Trusted by over 30,000 entities, it ranks highly in DNS security and effectively supports secure remote work environments.

Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, and ease of use, enhancing network security through robust threat protection and malware prevention. It processes over 600 billion requests daily, making it a leader in its field. The seamless integration with existing infrastructures and cloud-based nature makes it suitable for remote and distributed work environments, ensuring consistent security throughout. Management is streamlined with a single-pane interface that simplifies administration, while in-depth reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for continuous monitoring.

What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?

DNS Security: Provides leading protection by managing DNS queries and blocking malicious sites.
Web Filtering: Offers granular control over web content to safeguard internet usage.
Ease of Integration: Fits well into existing infrastructures, simplifying deployment and use.
Intuitive Management: Single-pane management streamlines administration and enhances usability.
Cloud-Based Flexibility: Supports secure remote work environments.

What benefits can users expect from using Cisco Umbrella?

Superior Threat Protection: Reduces risk by effectively detecting and preventing cyber threats.
Consistent Security: Provides uniform protection across network environments.
Efficiency and Visibility: Leverages comprehensive reporting for better security insights.
Easy Deployment: Quick and straightforward setup with minimal disruption.

Cisco Umbrella is widely adopted in industries requiring advanced DNS-level security to counteract malware, phishing, and cyber threats. Its ability to monitor and protect remote and roaming employees makes it an attractive option for sectors highly dependent on cloud services. By managing DNS queries and blocking harmful sites, Cisco Umbrella enhances cybersecurity across networks, providing an added layer of protection for businesses worldwide.

Cisco

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

Global Technology and Material Manufacturer

Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim

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