We performed a comparison between Cisco Web Security Appliance and Symantec Proxy based on real PeerSpot user reviews in five categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Cisco Web Security Appliance is the better choice when compared to Symantec Proxy. It has a user-friendly interface, strong features such as SSL decryption and Umbrella DNS security, and is reasonably priced. While Symantec Proxy has a strong URL database and granular policy creation, it is criticized for its difficult deployment, expensive pricing, and mixed reviews on customer support.
"The solution is stable."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"It also has high availability."
"The tool has good Umbrella DNS security."
"It's a scalable product."
"The initial setup is straightforward."
"The solution provides good web reputation and anti-malware protection."
"Cisco Web Security Appliance has very good security benefits for any company and is easy to integrate."
"I would recommend this solution to others."
"It also allows you to decrypt SSL traffic, and that's a really important feature as well, which is something I also configured."
"The tool's most valuable features are content-to-content filtration and SCCM protection."
"The most valuable features of this solution are the URL database, malicious URLs, policies, and policy creation."
"Global Intelligence Network is the best feature of the product."
"The CPL code is the best feature of the solution."
"The solution is scalable."
"What I found most valuable in Symantec Proxy is that it doesn't have any limitations. It also has a simple configuration, with only one window pane, unlike Zscaler, which has multiple window panes. Deploying the agent is also more straightforward in Symantec Proxy."
"The most valuable feature is the caching."
"The most valuable feature of Symantec Proxy is the support and autoscaling."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The licensing model needs to be more flexible."
"This solution could be more secure."
"If a user wants to use it for other devices like mobile or smartphones, this product isn't so reliable."
"Customer support is good but could be improved."
"The reporting needs improvement."
"The one thing I don't like about Cisco is that they are very much fragmented in terms of providing the complete solution. They keep on breaking their different feature sets into different boxes."
"The tool needs to provide logs. They need to improve firewall threat defense."
"WSA is lacking firewall features."
"Technical support is an area that requires some improvement."
"Support response time and case resolution could be improved."
"Marketing needs improvement in Symantec Proxy, as it needs to catch up in sales here in the Asia Pacific region. Symantec Proxy licensing renewal also needs improvement."
"The platform's pricing needs improvement."
"One area for improvement in Symantec is the lack of a reporting server or dashboard integration with SIM."
"The solution could improve by having better documentation."
"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."
"The traffic filtering could improve. Our firewall traffic is limited. Additionally, it would be helpful if there was a dashboard and reporting feature."
Cisco Web Security Appliance is ranked 9th in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 29 reviews while Symantec Proxy is ranked 14th in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 18 reviews. Cisco Web Security Appliance is rated 7.8, while Symantec Proxy is rated 7.2. The top reviewer of Cisco Web Security Appliance writes "Ensures security for remote workers". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Symantec Proxy writes "A scalable enterprise-level tool with advanced features that provide accurate database categorization". Cisco Web Security Appliance is most compared with Cisco Umbrella, Zscaler Internet Access, Fortinet FortiProxy, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Skyhigh Security, whereas Symantec Proxy is most compared with Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, Skyhigh Security, Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway, McAfee Web Gateway Cloud Service and Fortinet FortiProxy. See our Cisco Web Security Appliance vs. Symantec Proxy report.
See our list of best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors.
We monitor all Secure Web Gateways (SWG) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.