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

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Symantec Proxy comparison

Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 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
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Netskope Next Gen Secure We...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Symantec Proxy
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
15th
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 August 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway is 2.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Symantec Proxy is 1.7%, down from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.5%
Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway2.2%
Symantec Proxy1.7%
Other92.6%
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.
BT
Experto de Seguridad Informática at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Granular web controls have improved user-specific access and reduced security incidents
For the moment, the solution is going quite well, and I cannot think of anything specific we could improve at the moment.Perhaps in file control, the maximum size of the files that can be analyzed is a negative aspect or an improvement that I consider necessary in Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway.
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

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"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."
"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 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."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"The solution is reliable and has high availability."
"The solution has some useful features, such as microservices. They have sandboxing that allows the prevention, encryption, and remote browser isolation."
"We can connect cloud apps and monitor them."
"The solution's CASB, DLP, and threat protection features are very good."
"The solution offers good security functionality."
"All our customers use multiple data and want to protect that by preventing data leakage and that's what it does."
"There are a lot of features, but the groups that are created for the policy groups available with Netskope are already relevant to any industry. So grouping the policies is the easiest part and a valuable feature."
"As Netskope is a cloud-based application, it is possible to analyze and distinguish personal and enterprise instances."
"It's a stable solution, it's better than the others."
"Symantec Proxy’s technical support is very good."
"The initial setup of Symantec Proxy is easy."
"The product is very good, and the URL filtering database is great."
"The solution is scalable."
"The Symantec antivirus suite and the proxy component are the most valuable feature, and that's probably why management decided to purchase the solution."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the URL database, malicious URLs, policies, and policy creation."
"The security features provided by Symantec Proxy, such as granular controls for web traffic and caching, set it apart from other secure web gateways."
 

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."
"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, and that is where in 2025 we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform."
"iboss can be improved because the integration could be better; you need to import all the sites that you access today, and there are a few problems whenever you import thousands of websites, making the integration process messy for the users."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubleshooting policy issues."
"Improvement in the solution is required in certain areas where the product does not provide access to its direct end users, who use the portal as an administrator."
"They should work on marketing material to put out their work with a little more effort."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining policies. So what happens is that when you apply a specific Netskope policy, you never know the kind of content it will automatically block, or it will allow."
"Perhaps in file control, the maximum size of the files that can be analyzed is a negative aspect or an improvement that I consider necessary in Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway."
"The stability of the solution to be very good. It is not the best and could improve but it is better than other solutions, such as Forcepoint."
"The solution could improve the features for Zero Trust Network Access. They should add more security components to that module."
"The solution needs to improve its on-premise detection technique."
"Netskope provides vigorous policy enforcement for SaaS platforms based on how we configure it, but its vulnerability management and threat intelligence capabilities could be stronger."
"Technical support is an area that requires some improvement."
"One area for improvement in Symantec is the lack of a reporting server or dashboard integration with SIM."
"Prior to the Broadcom purchase, every appliance was application based, but now they have one ISG device and on top of it multiple applications are running. It has a single point of failure. If your device goes down, all of the applications would be down."
"There are some challenges with reporting and accessing specific logs, particularly older logs or user activity over time."
"The user interface could be improved, and the price could be lower as well."
"The tool’s reporting features must be improved."
"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."
"Activating the SSL inspection is one of the challenges."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The product is cheap."
"We pay a licensing fee of $10,000 on a yearly basis."
"The price is average. Because the license is user-based, you can increase it as per the user quantity."
"The license model is based on the number of users. You have the possibility to have 10,000 users if you wish."
"The solution's overall cost is cheaper than regular web security solutions."
"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 price is too expensive compared with that of another solution."
"In terms of cost, it is expensive. Its pricing has been a challenge for us since its acquisition by Broadcom."
"The product is highly priced. There are no additional costs apart from the standard licenses."
"There are no licensing fees required."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The price of the solution is reasonable compared to others on the market."
"Licensing is based on a subscription."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Construction Company
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
27%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise12
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Those firewalls that allow extend the perimeter. Nowadays, there is a issue with the static perimeter and all is goin...
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

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Arrow, Cloudrise, Sainsbury, Evalueserve, Stroock, Apria, Ather Energy, CSA, AVX Corporation Nuna, City of San Diego Case, Genomic Health Case Study, Oak Hill Advisors, MaRS Discovery District.
Jefferies
Find out what your peers are saying about Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs. Symantec Proxy and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,858 professionals have used our research since 2012.