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Check Point Web Gateway vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 2025

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)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Check Point Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
15th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
113
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.0%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Web Gateway is 1.1%, up from 0.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 18.4%, down from 21.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
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
Ajinkya Mohod - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers cost-effectiveness and is user-friendly
In terms of the effectiveness of the threat prevention technology in Check Point Web Gateway, the tool helps secure our company's environment, as threat detection and blocking work well. Others can definitely go ahead with the tool, especially if they want to secure their networks and manage firewalls or network traffic. In terms of the benefits offered by the product, I can say that it helps in securing network parameters, environments from network attacks, lateral movements within an environment, blocking of traffic, and managing the traffic. The tool improves our company's cybersecurity posture. I rate the tool a nine out of ten.
Alessandro Braga - PeerSpot reviewer
Has comprehensive reporting and scales easily
The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on. The integration between Cisco Secure solutions is pretty good. We have been able to deliver the solution in a few days. The integration of Umbrella and Meraki is literally one click away from the customer. One of the reasons why we chose Umbrella was its capability to perform end-to-end detection of malware and web traffic. In the last two years, we have been covered, detection has been faster, and we have been able to contain some potential threats along the way. We use the Umbrella stack from DNS protection to web and content protection. Our workforce is made up of 150 Macs; thus, we use Mac as a client. We have some PCs and integration with the network in our co-working spaces. Utilizing Cisco Secure has helped us save time. Being a nimble organization, we don't have IT staff who are fully dedicated to security. The maintenance is also not very time-consuming. In terms of the amount of time saved, it would be half an FTE a year, given the fact that we are informed and notified when threats arise. In terms of operating expenditures, we have been able to negotiate a better cyber insurance rate with our insurance company due to the fact that we are covered by Umbrella. Another benefit of using Cisco Umbrella is application scanning. We have been able to understand how many other applications we were consuming in the cloud, address them, and save money. Without Cisco Umbrella, we would not have realized that we had so many cloud applications in the company. We have been able to close at least four or five applications that were duplicates of others that we were already using in the company. We have realized approximately 10,000 to 12,000 euros a year of immediate savings in an organization of 150 people, which is quite significant.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"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."
"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 easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"It's easy to deploy this tool."
"You don't have to wander around the tool since it is very simple. You can grab and get a hold of the tool very quickly."
"The product's best feature is observing how the traffic flows from one gateway to another. It's convenient for checking specific details, and you can manage everything centrally."
"The implementation of this tool was straightforward."
"Application control gives IT teams an opportunity to set suitable policies that can be used by all teams when coding."
"The most valuable features of the solution are the HTTPS inspection mechanism, application control, and URL filtering."
"The stability of the tool is very good."
"The product covers all the security needs of roaming users."
"My overall rating for Cisco Umbrella is ten out of ten."
"Web proxy adds an effective layer for security."
"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."
"Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs."
"It makes it really easy to accomplish content filtering. We don't have to do a lot of customization. You just click the box for the content category and it's up to date."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to detect if a URL has malware or is vulnerable."
"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."
"The core business of Cisco Umbrella is non-malware. That's all it does: block the malware on the gateway."
 

Cons

"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"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."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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."
"Its pricing could be better."
"We understand that if we want to see greater connections, greater services, and a greater capacity established for primary equipment, this solution needs to evolve to make an application installed directly on equipment."
"It is expensive. Its price should be better."
"Perhaps the latency in the administrative part of the portal would be a point of improvement."
"The support team’s response is not fast."
"The documentation must be improved."
"I would like to see improvement in the tool's availability."
"I would like to be able to see an integration with centralized management services."
"The solution should improve integration."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"There should be a way to monitor traffic at the user level."
"There are a couple of interface issues. I know that they say that there are feature enhancements that are noted. For example, we've got the Cisco Meraki security appliances, and there, we geofence our company to where we're allowed to send and receive traffic. So, in our case, by default, we only allow traffic to six different countries, which allows us to effectively prevent traffic for the majority of bad players in the world, but they don't give you an easy way to do that in Cisco Umbrella. With Cisco Meraki, I can specify or pick the countries. I can say that I want to only allow traffic from these six countries, and I'm done. With Cisco Umbrella, I have to rely on the fact that they're going to prevent traffic to other countries. They're going to decide if it's good or bad."
"Cisco Umbrella should introduce an on-premises device."
"I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms. There's some integration between Umbrella and Meraki, but an overall Cisco problem is that there are so many different tools, and finding easy, seamless ways of connecting everything together is always a challenge."
"In my experience with Umbrella support, sometimes the response times take a bit more time than we would like... sometimes, if you go through email, it can take quite a while to get a response."
 

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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"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."
"Our customers pay a licensing fee annually or once in three or five years, per their requirements."
"There is a need to make yearly payments towards the licensing charges attached to the product. The product is neither too expensive nor too cheap, so it comes at a good price point for my company."
"This program is very, very expensive."
"If one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the tool's price as a seven out of ten."
"It is expensive. Licensing is on a yearly basis. You need to do the support subscription."
"The price is on the higher side, even when compared to Azure Firewall Premium."
"The product is not cheap. It is expensive."
"The price is very high."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"In my opinion, Cisco Umbrella now has a good price in the basic packages. When it comes to Cisco Umbrella SIG Essentials package and Cisco Umbrella Secure Internet Gateway (SIG) Advantage package, it depends on whether the project has a good price or not"
"There is a subscription cost."
"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."
"You get what you pay for."
"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Government
22%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Healthcare Company
6%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
What do you like most about Check Point Web Gateway?
You don't have to wander around the tool since it is very simple. You can grab and get a hold of the tool very quickly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Check Point Web Gateway?
I don't have a comparison with other products. I know that Check Point is relatively expensive compared to its compet...
What needs improvement with Check Point Web Gateway?
Authentication is only possible through Check Point Identity Awareness technology, limiting some customers' deploymen...
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...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
OpenDNS
 

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.
Morton Salt, Medical Advocacy and Outreach, BH Telecom, Lightbeam Health Solutions, X by Orange, Cadence, Nihondentsu, Datastream Connexion, Good Sam, Omnyway, FIASA, Pacific Life, Banco del Pacifico, Control Southern, Xero, Centrify, Tradair, Laterlite, Phoenix International, Unisinos, Wilkin Chapman, Connexus Energy, Mutua Universal, Smart & Final, Central New Mexico Community Colleg, Grupo Financiero Multiva
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Check Point Web Gateway vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
845,040 professionals have used our research since 2012.