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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Trend Micro Web Security [EOL] comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 26, 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
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), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
31
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (19th)
Trend Micro Web Security [EOL]
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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.
Vusa Ndlovu - PeerSpot reviewer
Security Solution Architect at a tech services company with 501-1,000 employees
Advanced protection features offer robust security while integration process presents challenges
With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAND and wireless policies. The challenge arises when traffic is blocked from either wireless or wired connections. Although implementing it as a standalone is quicker, integrating BYOD with Cisco I and FTB can be tiring. Once it is done correctly, the functionality and reports become valuable, although the implementation part can still be challenging.
Vladimir Alexandrov - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Chorus
Consistent web protection has prevented incidents and supports flexible hybrid security models
I would rate Trend Micro Web Security a nine, but not because I have some issues in mind. I have only seen a bit better product. I was also a McAfee partner some time ago, when there was still McAfee. Some features definitely in McAfee were better than what I see in Trend Micro. I cannot tell what Trend Micro could learn from web security products of their competitors because this product has not existed for at least eight years now for McAfee, and I have no experience with other competitors. But relative to my experience and expertise, I should rate it a ten, but still I am a bit cautious because other products also have great features and these features are not covered 100% by Trend Micro. I cannot tell what additional features I would like to see in the next release, but when I see such a feature, it is very compelling. When you get into a new car and this car has something new and great, adaptive suspension, whatever, you just feel a nice feeling and you want this car. That is how I feel. I have not complained that something is missing from Trend Micro product, but I have seen in specific examples some great ideas in competition.

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."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"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."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"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."
"The tool has good Umbrella DNS security."
"The solution provides good web reputation and anti-malware protection."
"It also allows you to decrypt SSL traffic, and that's a really important feature as well, which is something I also configured."
"It's very scalable; if you buy one bundle with 100 users, you can install unlimited appliances to scale horizontally and have ten appliances that can log share communications."
"The product is stable."
"The most valuable features is of the solution is that it is user-friendly and we get good web security from it."
"The technical support is good. It is reactive and the documentation is very specific and very useful."
"It's a scalable product."
"The most valuable feature is machine learning, which automatically monitors the activity on the machine."
"The solution is stable."
"The security of Trend Micro Web Security is good."
"Threat protection solution with good stability and scalability. Installation is straightforward. Support for this product is good."
"We find the advanced license for the DLP to be particularly useful with this product."
"The product's installation phase was easy."
"The real-time threat detection capability of Trend Micro Web Security has had a positive impact on our security."
"Trend Micro has a good portfolio for security solutions."
 

Cons

"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"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."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."
"Technical support needs to be improved because they take a very long time and there is no communication or notification."
"WSA is lacking firewall features."
"The transparent proxy is quite difficult to enforce on smartphones and tablets because it is on a sticker implementation rather than a line mode."
"The solution needs to be more user-friendly and easier to navigate."
"If you're a customer with a lot of sites, then an on-prem solution like WSA is not a good option."
"The support is good but slow. Generally, the response time for resolving issues is getting slower."
"It should have a user-based quota, per-user quota, that can be defined on the appliance."
"The one thing I don't like about Cisco is that they are very much fragmented in terms of providing the complete solution."
"The installation is a little bit complex."
"The solution's scalability could be better."
"I would rate the technical support by Trend Micro a three. The response time is poor."
"Trend Micro products are quite expensive compared to Kaspersky, Sophos, and McAfee."
"The interface could be improved; we need it to be more user-friendly."
"The product should be more secure and stable. It is also not flexible."
"There is room for improvement in the anti-malware capabilities."
"The product's scalability is an area of concern where improvements are required."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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 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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The tool's licensing is yearly."
"The pricing is too high."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance is not the cheapest solution on the market, but it's well worth it."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"The solution's cost depends on how many users you purchase. It was maybe $3 or $5 per user, which is a bit expensive."
"This is an expensive solution."
"I rate Cisco WSA a seven out of ten since it is costly."
"I know from the manager that the price is too high and that other solutions offer the same features for less."
"We have found this product to be very cost effective. The endpoint product costs roughly $20, and when purchasing the endpoint product, there are multiple other features included."
"We pay for the license on an annual basis."
"There's annual and monthly options for the license. When you're on the managed services option, it's monthly. They're also setting up an option via AWS where there will be a monthly option via the AWS shopfront."
"The solution is expensive in terms of deployment."
"I don't remember the exact pricing, but I think that it is approximately $10.00 per user."
"The license is yearly and user based."
"I rate the product's price a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
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893,164 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
26%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
7%
Performing Arts
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

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 Business11
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
 

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 Web Security Appliance?
Comparing with other products, Cisco has more functionality, but pricing is a challenge. Cisco is not a product for s...
What needs improvement with Cisco Web Security Appliance?
With the WebAssign integration, it is not easy when I am integrating policies within the company, especially with NAN...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The user interface that I usually provide for the web app includes malware protection, URL filtering, data loss preve...
Do you recommend Trend Micro Web Security?
I would recommend Trend Micro Web Security to organizations looking for an end-to-end security solution. Trend Micro ...
What do you like most about Trend Micro Web Security?
Trend Micro has a centralized mechanism where we can control and monitor all system protections. It includes detectin...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Trend Micro Web Security?
It is pricey. Trend Micro has been in the field for 30 years, so you have to pay a premium amount for that. SentinelO...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
Virus Wall, VirusWall, Trend Micro VirusWall
 

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.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Caixa Seguradora
Landwirtschaftskammer Nordrhein-Westfalen, Mosaic Medical, Okinawa Prefectural Education Center, RAK Investment Authority
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: April 2026.
893,164 professionals have used our research since 2012.