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McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service vs Symantec Proxy comparison

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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 Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
26
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Se...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
31st
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Proxy
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.2%, up from 2.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service is 0.7%, down from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Proxy is 1.8%, down from 2.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.2%
Symantec Proxy1.8%
McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service0.7%
Other94.3%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

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.
MF
Security Engineer at Mavisco Resources Sdn Bhd
A scalable and user-friendly tool that provides an easy-to-configure user interface
The solution is used for granular filtering. For example, an organization can use the solution to allow users to access Facebook but stop them from playing games The user interface is easy to configure. We don't have to configure a database manually. It’s already present in the product. We just…
Ganesh Basappa - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Security Consultant at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Granular control for web traffic with enhanced content inspection, but support needs improvement
There are many use cases in terms of content inspection, such as having granular control for file type extensions when trying to download file types by default. It depends on the requirements, and based on that, we customize policies. We have deployed it in an Azure infrastructure, and we have…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."
"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."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"The user interface is easy to configure."
"It enables us to manage bandwidth for users based on their privilege levels. For example, if a user wants to use a certain application or resource, we can provide access based on their privileges."
"The content that we are getting is very good, and content caching is also supported."
"We are using Symantec Proxy for outbound traffic URL filtering, and antivirus scanning of whatever package is going through the proxy system."
"Symantec Proxy’s technical support is very good."
"We can address and rectify issues promptly, resulting in consistently positive outcomes."
"I would rate the overall solution a nine out of ten."
"The product is very good, and the URL filtering database is great."
"The developer's assistance is valuable, enabling seamless integration which allows for a comprehensive view of categories, even if not certified by the link."
 

Cons

"Its pricing could be better."
"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."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"The easiest device I have set up was the Barracuda line of products."
"I would like to see simpler dashboards, more detailed reporting, and faster performance in iboss."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"The product should provide more integrations."
"Support services are lagging and not very responsive. I rate their support as five out of ten."
"I would like to see more improvements in the cloud."
"Activating the SSL inspection is one of the challenges. We are currently moving to the O365 cloud, and one of the challenges is the performance when all of our users are connected to O365 by a proxy."
"The initial setup is actually quite complex to install because our users don't have admin rights on the boxes and there's no remote install option by an administrator."
"My experience was horrible using this solution. I would not advise anyone to use it, there are a lot of improvements needed."
"One area for improvement in Symantec is the lack of a reporting server or dashboard integration with SIM."
"The traffic filtering could improve. Our firewall traffic is limited. Additionally, it would be helpful if there was a dashboard and reporting feature."
"There are some challenges with reporting and accessing specific logs, particularly older logs or user activity over time."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
"The price of the solution is reasonable compared to others on the market."
"In terms of cost, it is expensive. Its pricing has been a challenge for us since its acquisition by Broadcom."
"It's expensive. Clients often go to other products."
"There is a license needed to use Symantec Proxy."
"The product is highly priced. There are no additional costs apart from the standard licenses."
"Symantec Proxy has different expiry dates and renewal dates, which is a problem, so Broadcom should improve the licensing renewal process for the solution."
"There is a different department that looks into the licensing part."
"Licensing is based on a subscription."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
22%
Insurance Company
12%
Government
8%
Retailer
8%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Outsourcing Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business14
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise15
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

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...
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...
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...
Ask a question
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Proxy?
Pricing is difficult to specify as Broadcom sells platforms that include multiple products, making it hard to determi...
What needs improvement with Symantec Proxy?
AI features could potentially improve the proxy by helping build rules more efficiently, suggesting unused rules, and...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Proxy?
I use Symantec Proxy for surfing the internet from internal to external networks. My endpoints do not have direct acc...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management, ProxySG Appliance
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
Information Not Available
Jefferies
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: October 2026.
920,769 professionals have used our research since 2012.