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Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs iboss comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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

Fortinet FortiGate SWG
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
iboss
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is 5.4%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate SWG5.4%
iboss2.2%
Other92.4%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Ayman Said - PeerSpot reviewer
Enables seamless traffic handling and effective network protection
We are using Fortinet FortiGate SWG for web filtering, application control, and IDPS. Additionally, we utilize it for VPN and the main features of a firewall Web filtering is very good, as well as IDPS. SD-WAN is a perfect feature. Additionally, the VPN is stable and very good. These features…
Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is simpler to configure. It is not like Cisco Firepower, where you go crazy trying to follow the Cisco documentation to figure out how to configure one little thing. Unlike Cisco Firepower, where you can't do everything through the web interface and you have got to do some command line stuff, Fortinet FortiGate SWG is simpler. There are four different things in Cisco to get in, which is not the case with Fortinet FortiGate SWG. It is one of my favorite solutions to work with. I would much rather work with it than Cisco Firepower, for example. Even though I've got 20 years of Cisco experience with different firewalls, I would much prefer this solution."
"The pricing on offer is excellent."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is its stability."
"The product is highly stable."
"FortiGate is easy to use, and I also like its VPN."
"The security for endpoints is the most valuable. It is very secure for our workers. It allows us to secure a transaction and enable security for a specific segment in the workflow."
"The overall features of Fortinet FortiGate SWG are good."
"It has a valuable SD-WAN feature and provides good performance."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"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."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device."
"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."
 

Cons

"It is complicated to manage different kinds of on-premise boxes."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"There's room for improvement in the interface, especially following their upgrade to version nineteen."
"The solution could improve by having some additional features, such as IBS and better cloud administration."
"The price could be improved."
"They should make the product user-friendly and enhance the security features."
"The software is a bit expensive to renew."
"We have experienced a number of failures when trying to upgrade firmware and the process takes a long time. We only experienced this when doing major upgrades between versions."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It could be more competitive and cost-effective."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. Its one-year license cost is competitive with three and five-year licenses offered by other products."
"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."
"The product is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is a cost-effective solution that meets the user's needs."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"It is around $50,000 per month."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. The additional cost depends on the extra feature requirements."
"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."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business19
Midsize Enterprise9
Large Enterprise14
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate SWG?
The interface and other reports are all user-friendly.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiGate SWG?
Fortinet products are very expensive compared to competitors like Sophos and SonicWall. From a pricing perspective, I would rate them a six.
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiGate SWG?
More improvement in AI would be a good edge. We would like the VPN to act as a web filtering solution because users outside the company don't have web filtering. It supports web filtering with an a...
What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil. While iboss performed well, some competitors offered simpler implementati...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our old proxies to cloud proxies, and we did POCs with different giants at that time. ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alternatives available, but they do not perform as well. Since iboss is cloud-based,...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate SWG, FortiGate Secure Web Gateway
iBoss Cloud Platform
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Salt Lake County, Catholic College Bendigo, Azienda Unita Sanitaria
More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs. iboss and other solutions. Updated: September 2025.
867,370 professionals have used our research since 2012.