Menlo Secure vs Symantec Proxy comparison

Why PeerSpot?

Menlo Security and Broadcom are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Menlo Security is ranked #26, while Broadcom is ranked #14 with an average rating of 8.0. Menlo Security holds a 2.3% mindshare in WSG, compared to Broadcom’s 1.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Menlo Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 80% of Broadcom users who would recommend it.

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Menlo Secure and Symantec Proxy are competing products in the cybersecurity solutions category, each with distinct advantages. Menlo Secure seems to have the upper hand in cost-effectiveness and customer support, while Symantec Proxy stands out with a more comprehensive feature set.

Features: Menlo Secure features a cloud-native isolation platform that blocks malware before it reaches endpoints, lightweight protection for flexible architectures, and the ability to rewrite email links to ensure all connections pass through its security. Symantec Proxy offers extensive filtering options, a reliable URL database for malicious URL detection and policy creation, and robust threat detection and prevention capabilities.

Room for Improvement: Menlo Secure could enhance its logging capabilities and address bypassing challenges for certain sites. Improvements in SSL decryption are needed, as well as providing complete access logs for current users. Symantec Proxy could simplify its complex configurations, improve its single-window interface, and refine its caching effectiveness in light of increased HTTPS traffic encryption.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Menlo Secure provides an intuitive deployment process supported by agile customer service, ensuring a streamlined setup. Symantec Proxy, while powerful, involves more intricate setup steps and demands more time and resources. Its customer service is reliable but lacks Menlo's quick response times.

Pricing and ROI: Menlo Secure offers an attractive pricing model with a swift ROI, aligning well with budget-conscious strategies. Symantec Proxy requires a higher initial investment but promises a rewarding long-term ROI for enterprises prioritizing a comprehensive security infrastructure.

To learn more, read our detailed Menlo Secure vs. Symantec Proxy Report (Updated: November 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Symantec Proxy

November 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

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 Menlo Secure is 2.3%, up from 1.5% 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
Product	Mindshare (%)
iboss	3.2%
Symantec Proxy	1.8%
Menlo Secure	2.3%
Other	92.7%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

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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reviewer2701794

Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.

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Ganesh Basappa

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…

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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 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."

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

"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 main advantage of iboss is its cloud-based security centralized policy management, which helps organizations protect users working from different locations, secure access to cloud applications, and reduce security risks."

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

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."

"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."

More iboss pros

"We have definitely seen ROI, as we save a ton of money and time because the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools prior to implementing them had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"For us, the primary goal is protection on the web, and that's extremely important. We're not using any of the other services at this time. The web part is key to the success of the organization. It gives us the ability to protect. It can isolate. It opens the session in an isolated format so that the code isn't running locally. It is running over in the Menlo environment, not in ours. It is not running on the local computer, whereas if you were to go to a normal website, it would run Java or something else on the local machine and potentially execute the malicious code locally. So, it does give us that level of protection."

"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."

"We are not aware of a single compromise from the web since implementing the solution."

"Either you have access to something or don't have access to it, and if you do, we can ensure, 100 percent of the time, that there is nothing malicious that is going to impact our system in any way."

"The solution is invisible to our end users, so it doesn't have any impact on their work or performance."

More Menlo Secure pros

"It is easy to use, and it is stable and scalable. You don't need a large team for deployment and maintenance."

"The most valuable feature is the caching."

"The GUI has been effective."

"It is easy to use, and it is stable and scalable."

"We can address and rectify issues promptly, resulting in consistently positive outcomes."

"The tool's most valuable features are content-to-content filtration and SCCM protection."

"The most valuable feature of Symantec Proxy is the support and autoscaling."

"We are resellers and we provide solutions to our customers, and we use Symantec Proxy for a forward proxy."

More Symantec Proxy pros

Cons

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

"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."

"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."

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

"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."

"The easiest device I have set up was the Barracuda line of products."

"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."

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."

More iboss cons

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists."

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"Symantec was purchased by Broadcom and since this has happened the support has not been good. They do not find the solutions to our issues quickly."

"The tool’s reporting features must be improved."

"There are some challenges with reporting and accessing specific logs, particularly older logs or user activity over time."

"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 product needs improvement in support services, as they are lagging and not very responsive when we raise concerns or queries, especially in terms of significant impact."

"Improvements in log availability would greatly enhance its overall effectiveness."

"The platform's pricing needs improvement."

"Support response time and case resolution could be improved."

More Symantec Proxy cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

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

"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."

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

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"It's expensive. Clients often go to other products."

"There is a different department that looks into the licensing part."

"Our cost was based on a three-year upfront CapEx contract."

"Symantec Proxy has different expiry dates and renewal dates, which is a problem, so Broadcom should improve the licensing renewal process for the solution."

"The product is highly priced. There are no additional costs apart from the standard licenses."

"The price of the solution is reasonable compared to others on the market."

"There is a license needed to use Symantec Proxy."

"The price is too expensive compared with that of another solution."

More Symantec Proxy 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

Manufacturing Company

15%

Construction Company

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

Outsourcing Company

Financial Services Firm

17%

Outsourcing Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Healthcare Company

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	6
Midsize Enterprise	4
Large Enterprise	12

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...

See all answers

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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What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some ...

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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...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Symantec Proxy?

AI features could potentially improve the proxy by helping build rules more efficiently, suggesting unused rules, and...

See all answers

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...

See all answers

Comparisons

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Compared 10% of the time

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Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

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Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Menlo Secure

Compared 11% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Menlo Secure

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Menlo Secure

Compared 3% of the time

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Cisco Web Security Appliance vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 16% of the time

Akamai Secure Internet Access Enterprise vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 12% of the time

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 10% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 8% of the time

McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service vs Symantec Proxy

Compared 6% of the time

More Symantec Proxy Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

October 2026

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

October 2026

Download Menlo Secure product report

Buyer's Guide

Symantec Proxy

October 2026

Download Symantec Proxy product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Blue Coat Encrypted Traffic Management, ProxySG Appliance

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

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

Symantec Proxy offers robust web security by providing features like content caching and URL filtering. It enhances security, optimizes performance, and simplifies policy management for enterprises, serving as a dynamic tool across cloud environments.

Symantec Proxy integrates with Broadcom's FireGlass, providing enhanced compatibility and seamless functionality. Known for a stable deployment and a precise URL database, it offers comprehensive threat detection and policy creation, utilizing the Global Intelligence Network. Users deploy it for web security, malware blocking, and traffic filtering. Symantec Proxy's reputation and site categorization bolster defense against malicious sites, although SSL inspection, dashboard integration, and technical support could benefit from improvements. The platform has shifted post-Broadcom acquisition, needing streamlined solutions. Current challenges include performance with O365 and complexities around pricing and licensing.

What features define Symantec Proxy?

Content Caching: Improves performance by storing frequently accessed web content.
URL Database: Provides accurate categorization for security policies.
Policy Creation: Allows for detailed web and URL filtering rules.
Global Intelligence Network: Offers a robust threat detection system.
Autoscaling: Adjusts resource allocation to meet demand efficiently.
Threat Detection: Identifies and mitigates potential security risks.

What benefits and ROI considerations are evident?

Enhanced Performance: Boosts speed through efficient caching mechanisms.
Security: Protects against malicious attacks with intelligent filtering.
Simple Configuration: Allows for quick setup and policy management.
Integration: Seamlessly works with other Broadcom tools for broader functionality.

Enterprises leverage Symantec Proxy to secure web access and manage Internet usage across industries. Deployed across cloud providers like AWS, GCP, and Azure, it supports URL filtering, remote access, and bandwidth control by user privileges. Organizations also find value in its role within antivirus scanning, policy customization, and reporting.

Broadcom

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

Information Not Available

Jefferies

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure vs. Symantec Proxy

November 2026

Free Report: Menlo Secure vs. Symantec Proxy

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