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Symantec Secure Web Gateway vs Trend Micro Web Security [EOL] comparison

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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
24
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
Symantec Secure Web Gateway
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (27th)
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.
KK
Principal Consultant at CSaaS
Monitors traffic effectively but struggles with integration challenges
I find that the technical support is mediocre, at least for the Middle East. I frequently face challenges when contacting OpenStack through the distribution channel. It should be more straightforward. I notice that customers work with partners, not directly with Symantec, relying on local company integrators for support. Symantec becomes the level two or level three support, which requires navigating through a supply chain that is quite extensive.
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

"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."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"As a proxy, there are many features available that benefit the customers, including caching, the security appliance, the cloud of service, and many other features."
"The most valuable features are the website blocking capability and SSL interception."
"Overall, this product is okay and it does the job that it is supposed to do."
"It is a stable solution."
"I find the product to be very straightforward."
"We've tried other endpoint security solutions but this tool seems to be the best when specifically comparing the endpoint security features."
"Scalability is not really any major issue, it is quite scalable and if we need to do more deployments, we just add them."
"Typically, Symantec is more or less like any other platform that performs proxy functions."
"The most valuable feature of Trend Micro Web Security stems from the fact that it is neither a cheap nor an expensive tool."
"It's secure and useful from an administrative point of view, with controllable login monitoring and so on."
"The solution's scalability is good and we have more than 90 users for it."
"Trend Micro Web Security is used to protect the organizations from shoulder surfing and it also does certain classifications to provide protection not only from a security point of view, but also from a GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) point of view."
"The real-time threat detection capability of Trend Micro Web Security has had a positive impact on our security."
"The EDR feature is very good; it's one of the better features of security and can protect a large percentage of the company."
"It's a very stable solution."
"Trend Micro has a good portfolio for security solutions."
 

Cons

"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."
"Its pricing could be better."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"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."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"But that it causes catastrophic issues is unacceptable."
"The major challenge is their support. The support from Broadcom is quite poor. It takes forever for them to get back to you, and when they get back to you, they ask you for so much information, which makes it more difficult. That's the only problem I have with Broadcom. This is one of the reasons why we are switching to another solution. Another reason for switching is that we have a plan to adopt solutions in the cloud so that we can offload the administration efforts to the vendor. In future releases, they can improve its reporting and the process for rules creation. They can also improve Broadcom on things such as security information and event management so that from my same platform, I can carry out functions and probably block websites. Such a feature would be nice. Currently, Broadcom is integrated with McAfee to block access to certain sites automatically. It would be nice if they can expand their integration to IBM Resilient Security Orchestration and Automation Response."
"The problem with Complete Website Security is with the dot com transition and dealing with Symantec is becoming a problem right now."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"One of the problems with using Symantec is that it's widely known and the people who are making malware have designed to circumvent it."
"I find that the technical support is mediocre, at least for the Middle East. I frequently face challenges when contacting OpenStack through the distribution channel."
"It needs to be easier to set up rules for what sites it should allow or not allow us in certain areas of our computer for programs. It would also be nice really nice to have it give you better information about what it's finding. A lot of the alerts we get are very difficult to understand what it's actually telling you. It's too generic."
"I think the worst thing that we're experiencing is very poor and inadequate technical support."
"The ease of use depends on the blacklisting of the sites. Some of the authorized sites have been blacklisted, which requires a request to unblock the site."
"The price of Trend Micro Web Security is the only area of concern where improvements are required. From an improvement perspective, the product should be made available to users at a cheaper rate."
"This solution has a lot of restrictions on what non-administrator users can do, including generating comparative code. We would like to see this changed as the product is developed."
"I would rate the technical support by Trend Micro a three. The response time is poor."
"There is room for improvement in the anti-malware capabilities."
"There are multiple ways Web Security could improve, such as usability and web access to several programming modes."
"Setup isn't very straightforward. You must have a certified technical engineer."
"What could help Trend Micro Web Security in terms of improvement is the addition of a DDoS protection feature. It also needs to be more comprehensive to meet the needs of large-sized companies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"There is an additional charge for advanced security features."
"Pricing and licensing is stunted and licensing is expensive. We have many customers who are now thinking about other solutions due to the cost."
"Symantec Secure Web Gateway is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"I rate the product price a three on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap, and ten is expensive."
"The solution is expensive in terms of deployment."
"We pay for the license on an annual basis."
"I don't remember the exact pricing, but I think that it is approximately $10.00 per user."
"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."
"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."
"It is pricey. Trend Micro has been in the field for 30 years, so you have to pay a premium amount for that."
"The license is yearly and user based."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Construction Company
21%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Transportation Company
7%
Performing Arts
12%
Outsourcing Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise5
Large Enterprise4
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
I believe that pricing is on par with peers. Symantec and other vendors offer discounts when cutting a deal with a cu...
What needs improvement with Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
AI-driven security could be helpful, yet how effective it will be remains unclear. I plan to evaluate whatever new fe...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
I find the product to be very straightforward. I just install it and forget it as it continuously monitors traffic. I...
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 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...
What needs improvement with Trend Micro Web Security?
I would rate Trend Micro Web Security a nine, but not because I have some issues in mind. I have only seen a bit bett...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Symantec Complete Website 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.
Information Not Available
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: August 2026.
913,683 professionals have used our research since 2012.