No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs NordLayer comparison

Sponsored
 

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 ZTNA as a Service
8th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
12th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
78
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (3rd), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (8th), Cisco Security Portfolio (5th)
NordLayer
Ranking in ZTNA as a Service
26th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (37th), Network Access Control (NAC) (21st), Internet Security (16th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (26th), ZTNA (23rd), Customer Identity and Access Management (CIAM) (32nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (25th)
 

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.
AS
Manager - Projects at airtel
Offers work-from-anywhere flexibility but navigates occasional proxy confusion
The analytics I downloaded from your site as a free download did not carry the information that was actually required. I was looking at the market segmentation and market share, along with some USPs which differentiated them from each other. The free download had two issues: many things were repetitive, and it was designed to not release any relevant information. Only headers were present, so I was not able to determine whether the final report would be worthwhile. I have not worked with enterprise tools that I could share feedback on for website publication. I see benefits from using Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect). However, I would not recommend it because future adoptions will be towards Zscaler, as SSC is a better model than VPN. On a scale of 1-10, I rate this solution a 7.
Christophe Derdeyn - PeerSpot reviewer
Partner delaware Singapore at delaware Singapore
A convenient and easy tool with an incredibly high number of dialing points
The solution is convenient and easy. It has an incredibly high number of dialing points for pretty much every single country in the world. It has a few additional security features. It has a function that prevents unsecured access if my connection were to drop for any reason. It’s something I like. It has threat protection features. It can protect my web connection and files against malicious downloads and trackers.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"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."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"It's a very good solution. My teams are currently distributed all over the globe and leading the software engineering work and for business purposes."
"The primary use case of this solution as an access point; we have on-premises servers and if anyone needs to access those servers remotely, they access them through Cisco AnyConnect, which we use as a VPN between outside networks and our internal office network."
"Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is good for securing our connection; it is very easy to use, I click to use it and it works."
"This product is highly secure and easy to use."
"What I like most about Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is that it's easy to use, and that is its main advantage, as you can use it without the need for any setup because it's centrally pre-installed, so you just need to log in with your username and password, and I didn't experience any problems with the solution in terms of losing connectivity, as it works very well every time."
"Some of the main features of the solution are it has the ability to integrate with our Active Directory to allow each user to have one less password to have to remember and it has great functionality."
"Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is great for connecting to the company's network when working from home."
"The solution is convenient and easy."
 

Cons

"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."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"I think that the addition of single sign-on functionality would be helpful."
"Frequency of updates could be reduced."
"Sometimes when you disconnect or switch from one wireless network to another, it's necessary to re-login."
"I'm not noticing any missing features."
"It should autodetect or monitor it, when I am in the office it goes to the network in the office, or when I'm not at the office, it automatically activates my VPN connection."
"The security of the product has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required."
"There is a speed limit for VPNs because of the encryption."
"All I care about is being connected and I know that we've run into versioning issues in the past."
"The tool is not perfectly stable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"I would rate the pricing for the license of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client around four to five out of ten. It's not the cheapest option, but it's also not overly expensive."
"The solution is reasonably priced and costs $600 for a five-year license in our scenario."
"We pay for an annual subscription. Additionally to the subscription, we thought in order to connect this solution to the Active Directory we had to purchase a Cisco ACS, Access Control System. It turns out we did not actually need it."
"My company has a three-year or a four-year license. In scenarios attached to a solution where the product may be reaching an end-of-support or end-of-life phase, Cisco provides OS support in such environments."
"The price is okay."
"The pricing depends on the requirement, so proper planning and an RF analysis help to properly size the solution and get the best pricing."
"It costs around 80,000 Indian rupees for a hundred licenses, so approximately $1,020 USD."
"We are in the North African region, and Cisco products are expensive for us. On a scale from one to ten with one being very affordable and ten being expensive, I'd rate the price at eight."
Information not available
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Enterprise Infrastructure VPN solutions are best for your needs.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
8%
Computer Software Company
6%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Construction Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Healthcare Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business27
Midsize Enterprise10
Large Enterprise46
No data available
 

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 Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is somewhat expensive compared to others such as Fortinet or Palo Alto, wh...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) can be made better, as the product for me has not changed in the last year...
What is your primary use case for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) is used to make a VPN connection to work, specifically for a VPN and inter...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
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.
MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
Hostinger, Shutterstock, USMobile, Soundcloud, Calendly, whatagraph.
Find out what your peers are saying about OpenVPN, Fortinet, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Enterprise Infrastructure VPN. Updated: May 2026.
893,221 professionals have used our research since 2012.