Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs. F5 Secure Web Gateway Services

We have both scenarios where we can describe that. For example, in the HQ, where we have about 3,000 users, Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance is the ideal solution, because we can consolidate all the Internet access, policies, rules, etc. in the same box. However, if you have small offices with a few users, it's hard to justify one big and expensive box that could cost more than the whole office infrastructure.

Incentivized

You're looking for something very comprehensive. F5 gets you covered and a very standard approach. A nice, a very simple workload. That would be if you are in the bleeding edge of delivering something very new, there will probably have problems using F5. I wouldn't become an F5 there For the main cases, F5 is a good solution.

Incentivized

• SMA gave us central control over multiple servers, simplifying management.
• Performance of the Appliance VM exceeded that of our old physical appliance-based solution.
• Convenient licensing for virtualized environments that allows easy scaling.

Incentivized

• it keeps my web sites secure
• it has a great future roadmap
• it looks good in the rack

Incentivized

• I think that the interface could need updates to adapt it to a much more current system, achieve quick access to necessary tools and adapt the platform to a much more customizable and comfortable system to work with.
• It is undoubtedly a platform that is worth having, however, the license costs could be better adjusted to small businesses so that it can be accessed more easily.
• It could be a bit complex to use, the use of codes is quite extensive, it could be adjusted to something much more practical but just as efficient.

Incentivized

• it can allow for more note space on configs

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Because I'm a cybersecurity expert. I'm always lacking the cybersecurity part, but it's more of my ADM than others. If it wasn't for that, I would probably rate in a 10.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

At home I have a McAfee service that does similar tasks and helps manage the users of my internet. McAfee seems more user friendly and easier to set exceptions.

Incentivized

managing other products (NS) are a pain in the neck and make me want to pull my hair out. Im sure there are things that the F5 can improve on and their road map and ideas are at the cutting edge. I cant wait to see how their plans work out and make the product better in the future.

Incentivized

• Security! Security! Security! We are financial company that work with very sensitive information. A lot of unsafe traffic was blocked on the Cisco IronPort WSA over years of using it. We did not earn on it but absolutely sure that we did not lose 'gazillion' of dollars being infected or scammed.
• Easy to configure and use, no need to teach new personnel how work with this product (hopefully saving time = saving money).
• Unfortunately the price of license subscription made financial managers push IT dept. to look for something cheaper.

Incentivized

• power consumption
• the device is heavy

Incentivized