Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs. Symantec Web Security Service

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Cisco Secure Web Appliance
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Cisco Secure Web Appliance (formerly Cisco Web Security Appliance [WSA]), powered by Cisco Talos, protects by automatically blocking risky sites and testing unknown sites before allowing users to link to them, helping with compliance. It is available models S690, S390, and S190.N/A
Symantec Web Security Service
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Symantec Web Security Service (WSS) is a line of defense against modern day cyber threats. It provides secure web services, enables enterprises to control access, protects users from threats, and secures their sensitive data.N/A
Pricing
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceSymantec Web Security Service
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceSymantec Web Security Service
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceSymantec Web Security Service
User Ratings
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceSymantec Web Security Service
Likelihood to Recommend
6.8
(0 ratings)
8.5
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.4
(0 ratings)
5.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Cisco Secure Web ApplianceSymantec Web Security Service
Likelihood to Recommend
Based on the platforms I have evaluated, I think the WSA is a great fit for any organization that needs a proxy server that provides control over what web sites are accessed or when they can be accessed. I think it is probably overkill if you simply need a proxy server for bandwidth savings or because you need to proxy general Internet access without extensive filtering needs.
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It is a cloud-based online security service that offers a variety of tools to guard against risks that may be found on the internet, such as malware, phishing, and advanced persistent threats (APTs). We rely extensively on web-based applications and services, and this software's strong protection against web-based attacks has been one of the main purchase reasons.
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Pros
  • It does a great job of filtering emails based on IP reputation. This feature works particularly very well. Cisco has a vast database of IP reputation scores and therefore offers very few false positives and negatives.
  • It checks each email thoroughly without any compromise of privacy. Any malicious link present in the body of the email makes its way to the quarantine. The IP reputation scores also help in this case.
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  • Symantec's security is excellent.
  • Automatic web security from threats.
  • Data loss policies and EDR are good.
  • Easy product configuration and performance GUI.
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Cons
  • The categories provided are not as granular as some competitors, like Websense.
  • Cisco does not have as many resources devoted to categorizing websites as some competitors, like Websense.
  • New features require administrators to pay attention to updates. New features are disabled by default.
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  • Slows down the system.
  • On the costlier side.
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Usability
Because it's one of those products you almost don't realize it exists from the end user. From the administrator perspective, you can do everything on its web interface and it's very intuitive to manage, once you know the concepts behind identities, acls, etc. Also, once you build the control structure, I mean, you link 'local' groups with your own Active Directory groups, as we did here, you don't need to be managing those things on the appliance itself.
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Our experience with Cisco's support was terrible. Other than the fact that they don't respond to service-related emails with urgency, they also keep on changing the policies that affected us. Recently, they came up with a new look for the same software, which was insanely slow. Renewal of keys for the old interface took months. Overall, the support was not very friendly from the users' point of view.
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The support has become average ever since broadcom acquisition and they moving to GCP. There is no focus of existing customers as the presale do not exist
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Alternatives Considered
Considering we're with Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliances for the last 9 years, as I stated, we don't have too much experience with other producs. What I can say is that in the past, we evaluated Websense before it became Forcepoint and we also used MS ISA Server for webfilter. As you may imagine, IronPort is a very very superior product.
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Symantec Web Security Service is a powerful tool for moderating website traffic and protecting user data. Easy DLP integration makes it a market leader, and it works with Symantec DLP and EDR to protect remote users' browsing activity. Threat categorization and stateful SSL description of web traffic to identify dynamic threat vectors. Unified threat dashboard with seamless alerting. So compared to other solutions, it is standout.
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Return on Investment
  • Having a much safer work system has given us the guarantee and security of always staying out of danger.
  • The prevention system is important for us and always keeping our devices, web and emails free of any malicious agent has allowed us an excellent workflow, without distractions or inconvenience in the development of projects.
  • Thanks to the fact that we have kept our work system safe, we have saved ourselves a lot of inconvenience, time spent, avoiding equipment damage, payments to solve problems, among many other problems that thanks to Cisco Secure Web Appliance we have been able to solve.
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  • Almost half the cost compared to legacy on prem infra
  • No Management means we can reduce on the IT personal
  • Better data protection
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ScreenShots