Barracuda Web Security and Filtering vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway comparison

Barracuda Networks and Forcepoint are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Barracuda Networks is ranked #27 with an average rating of 6.5, while Forcepoint is ranked #6 with an average rating of 7.7. Barracuda Networks holds a 0.8% mindshare in WSG, compared to Forcepoint’s 3.9% mindshare. Additionally, 90% of Barracuda Networks users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Forcepoint users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Barracuda Web Security and Filtering are two competing products in the web security solutions category. Data suggests that Barracuda is favored for its robust feature set and comprehensive capabilities, although Forcepoint's competitive pricing and strong support are significant advantages.

Features: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway includes advanced threat protection, dynamic content categorization, and customizable URL filtering. Barracuda offers comprehensive URL filtering, high-performance scalability, and superior threat visibility. Barracuda's features are viewed as more robust, providing a broader protective scope.

Room for Improvement: Forcepoint could improve in areas such as initial configuration complexity, deeper integration with other security ecosystems, and enhanced analytics capabilities. Barracuda could benefit from addressing high setup costs, reducing the complexity of initial deployment, and expanding preset security templates to cater to diverse user needs.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Forcepoint offers a flexible deployment model with cloud-based management, making integration relatively easy for organizations. Barracuda is praised for its streamlined deployment and responsive customer service, though it requires more initial setup considerations.

Pricing and ROI: Forcepoint's lower setup costs provide a solid ROI with its budget-friendly approach. Barracuda, despite higher setup costs, justifies this through feature richness and superior security outcomes, contributing to the perception of a higher long-term ROI.

To learn more, read our detailed Barracuda Web Security and Filtering vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Report (Updated: September 2025).

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Web Security and Filtering vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

September 2025

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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

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Barracuda Web Security and Filtering is 0.8%, up from 0.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 3.9%, down from 4.8% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
iboss	2.2%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway	3.9%
Barracuda Web Security and Filtering	0.8%
Other	93.1%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford

Head of Cybersecurity at SES Water

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

Read full review

Wealie Antar

Manager, Systems, Information Technology at Icddr, b

It comes with useful policy creation features but needs to improve its outdated tech and poor support

Apart from that, considering other tier-one applications, like Next-Generation Firewall, they also have web security in-built within their appliances or applications. Barracuda is still lagging behind in features like that, so they need to update if they want to be in the top spot. Other features I'd like to see in Barracuda Features are ease-of-use for remote users. If you are a roaming user using an organization laptop, the organization has the right to apply the policy. When you are on-premises, you are opening the policy, not out-of-premises. The application that Barracuda Web Security Gateway provides is pretty clumsy and not very easy to work with, and they need to develop that. Either they provide a test platform that redirects the traffic or vice versa. Moreover, the database is pretty average. Barracuda needs to enhance the database to stop unsolicited traffic. Reporting also needs to be quicker than it is. Barracuda doesn't give you any flexibility to provide reports to higher management. Organizations like us need to do a lot of reporting. When we submit our quarterly report, other appliances allow us to customize or get the reports in a way Barracuda can't because it is rigid with its reporting. Barracuda needs to give users the flexibility to create their reports. The reports offered by the solution are just fine. Finally, acceleration. Right at this moment, most websites are dynamic. For example, organizational websites get updated once a month. If Barracuda can help reduce bandwidth usage and accelerate browsing performance by analyzing these sorts of sites and doing their catching technology work accordingly. Barracuda should also include DNSSEC, which offers strong protection for web security and is offered by competitors. Barracuda should also up their game for scanning and sandboxing. Likewise, their signatures need augmented intelligence or machine learning because you won't always be able to appraise things, and sometimes you have to go beyond that. You need to block it through its behavior.

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AhmedHawana

Network and Security Engineer at a government with 201-500 employees

Efficient user access control enhances productivity and browsing experience

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is mainly used to prevent employees from accessing certain sites and allow others to access specific websites. Based on Forcepoint's insights, we block some sites for classification purposes. It efficiently categorizes which sites should not be accessed during work hours. Additionally, Forcepoint does not affect traffic flow, ensuring a smooth browsing experience.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."

"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."

"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."

"Its initial setup was straightforward."

"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."

"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."

"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."

"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."

More iboss pros

"It is straightforward to deploy and manage."

"The most valuable features are Barracuda's policies for filtering various websites according to the organization's policies and blocking traffic for any P2P application like torrents."

"The ease of use. It's pretty easy to use and navigate the UI... to either block or whitelist a web address."

"I have found the most valuable the ability to have insight into our web traffic and control its flow."

"Barracuda Web Security and Filtering efficiently blocks phishing emails and provides flexible policy settings."

"The solution is very simple to use and implement."

"I like that it does a lot of malicious content and is easy to manage. There are a lot of checkboxes, and you can add your own URLs or get it preconfigured."

"The support is fantastic."

"The tool categorizes the user profiles which is very comfortable."

"Everything is handled on the backend side. Users don't need to have any proxy on-premises. The solution handles all the dirty or initial traffic from their network, managing it on the backend itself."

"I like the product's scalability and stability."

"One of the main features I have found the solution to be efficient."

"The solution’s administration is easy."

"Ability to send decrypted traffic to other security solutions for inspection."

"Giving visibility to people's actions in the network, while keeping attackers out: across data centers, offices, branches, and the cloud."

"The platform is fairly stable."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pros

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"The dashboards for local use could be better."

"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."

"The reporting feature needs improvement."

"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."

"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."

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

More iboss cons

"Considering other tier-one applications, like Next-Generation Firewall, they also have web security in-built within their appliances or applications. Barracuda is still lagging behind in features like that, so they need to update if they want to be in the top spot."

"Barracuda products are cheap."

"This solution is substantially more expensive than the competitors out there, including Titan HQ or Limecast."

"The price could be better."

"Our problem is that it's a virtual appliance and we're moving to a new platform and, for whatever reason, we can't move it as it is... When we were migrating our virtual machines from the old to the new system, we determined rather quickly that it wouldn't migrate over."

"The solution’s customer support should be improved."

"They need to provide a Sandbox to safely examine phishing links within emails without infecting our network. Also, I would like more end-to-end email tracing for a clearer understanding of why an email was blocked or not blocked."

"It doesn't allow adding DNS filtering for off-site clients."

More Barracuda Web Security and Filtering cons

"The technical support needs to be improved."

"It has a problem with tablets and the iPhone. It's not filtering on these platforms. It filters on Windows but not iOS or Android."

"Overall the software is occupying too much memory space. If they could remedy that, it would be a better experience, because today Windows is occupying too much memory space as well (in terms of the RAM), and this software has also started occupying all the memory. Due to this, I have less space for my other office products and data. I can't, for example, operate a huge Excel sheet or other datasets."

"Forcepoint can improve the Secure Web Gateway for enterprise-level services. If some internet service providers want to offer Web Proxy as a service, these appliances cannot handle that."

"The documentation is almost too much, it could be laid out in an easier to understand."

"The initial setup can be complex."

"A room for improvement in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the support it offers. It's very bad. What I'd like to see in the next release of the product is for it to be less complicated because at the moment Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is more complicated than other products. Sometimes issues come up that you can't solve without the support team. For example, you should write the root password to fix the issue. In the next release of the product, it would be good if it had an easy-to-use interface. Troubleshooting issues in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway should be less complicated as well."

"To access the root of the product for troubleshooting you must have a data engineer. This is the big issue with Forcepoint. The support community is not good."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."

"The pricing and licensing are comparatively reasonable."

"The price could be better. Barracuda started adding more features at the end of 2022. There was no price increase if you bought the maintenance package before the end of 2022. If you signed a three-year contract, you are lucky because there won't be a price increase on those features. Their pricing has increased if you wanted to install all of their features. But they are segmenting. You can buy the whole group, or you can get pieces. But it's tedious. The cost is getting higher than it should."

"Barracuda products are cheap."

"The solution's pricing is neither cheap nor expensive."

"It is a cost-effective solution."

"The solution's price is good."

"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."

"Licensing is flexible. License pricing information is based on the customer, their environment, and on the future approach."

"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."

"It is a well-priced option."

"The pricing for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is expensive. You pay per user and functionality. I'd rate it a four on a scale of one to ten."

"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."

"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Computer Software Company

11%

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

13%

Government

10%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Computer Software Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Manufacturing Company

Insurance Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	6
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	5

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	10
Midsize Enterprise	1
Large Enterprise	1

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	29

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...

See all answers

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 ol...

See all answers

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 alte...

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What do you like most about Barracuda Web Security Gateway?

The solution is very simple to use and implement.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Barracuda Web Security Gateway?

They need to provide a Sandbox to safely examine phishing links within emails without infecting our network. Also, I ...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Barracuda Web Security Gateway?

Mainly, I use it for blocking suspicious emails, such as malware or phishing emails, so they don't pass through our e...

See all answers

What do you like most about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?

The product's user management is an area where my company does not face any challenges.

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?

I would rate pricing for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway a two out of ten. It's really expensive.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is not endpoint security. If we have a chance to change, we would change it because it ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 14% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 13% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

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Symantec WebFilter vs Barracuda Web Security and Filtering

Compared 32% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Barracuda Web Security and Filtering

Compared 19% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Barracuda Web Security and Filtering

Compared 15% of the time

Check Point Web Gateway vs Barracuda Web Security and Filtering

Compared 15% of the time

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Zscaler Internet Access vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 25% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 17% of the time

Fortinet FortiProxy vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

Symantec Proxy vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 3% of the time

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

October 2025

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Web Security and Filtering

October 2025

Barracuda Web Security and Filtering report

Download Barracuda Web Security and Filtering product report

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

October 2025

Download Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Barracuda Web Security Gateway, Barracuda Web Filter

Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

Barracuda Web Security Gateway lets organizations benefit from online applications and tools without exposure to web-borne malware and viruses, lost user productivity, and misused bandwidth. As a comprehensive solution for web security and management, it unites award-winning spyware, malware, and virus protection with a powerful policy and reporting engine. Advanced features ensure that organizations adapt to emerging requirements like social-network regulation, remote filtering, and visibility into SSL-encrypted traffic.

Unlimited remote user licenses are included to enforce content and access policies for mobile and desktop devices outside of the corporate network. Barracuda Web Security Gateway is also available as a virtual appliance.

Barracuda Networks

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a secure web gateway (SWG) tool that provides multiple forms of protection against malware, including blocking categories of websites, inline scanning of downloaded files, and zero trust-based advanced threat protection. The solution monitors and controls any interaction with any website, including blocking access to websites based on category and risk score, blocking download of malware, blocking upload of sensitive data to personal file sharing accounts, and detecting shadow IT.

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Features

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

Real-time traffic inspection
Protection for off-grid workers
Time and content-based access
Data leak prevention
SCIM provisioning
Data-in-motion scanning
Connection policies
Content policies
RBI profiles
Discovery dashboard
Bypass prevention
Unified on-device agent
Field Programmable SASE Logic (FPSL)

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

Fast: The solution is high speed with on-device enforcement. Traffic is routed directly to its destination. In addition, you will experience fewer bottlenecks and choke points.

Flexible: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is designed to automatically scale up or down with traffic needs. It is also flexible because it is hosted on AWS in more than 300 data centers.

Advanced DLP capabilities: The solution’s advanced DLP capabilities keep sensitive information from leaking out onto websites to provide consistent protection and simplify management.

Streamlined security: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is part of Forcepoint ONE, a Security Service Edge (SSE) cloud-native platform that provides secure access to web, cloud, and private apps while connecting users directly to websites so you can skip the data center.

Unified administrator console: You can use the solution’s unified administrator console to reduce repetitive and redundant configuration management.

Reviews from Real Users

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it has strong reporting capabilities, good URL filtering, and can retrieve and analyze lost data when necessary.

Shipra G., Service Delivery Manager at Paramount Computer Systems, says, “The reporting part of it is pretty awesome. With the reporting, you can drill down effectively. It gives us a lot of power to really look into what we are looking for. That is one very crucial feature. In the remote filtering part, the agent that they have on Forcepoint is pretty light. That also is a very, very good feature that we look into and sell.”

Mohammed S., Security Engineer at Futuretec, writes, "The most valuable feature for me in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is URL filtering, though all other features of the product are okay as well."

Arvind K., Director at Foresight Software Solutions Pvt Ltd., says, “They have well-integrated web security. They have the enterprise DLP included in the cloud as well.”

An Ict Help Desk Administrator Individual Contributor at a transportation company states, “The most valuable feature of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the ability to retrieve and analyze lost data. It also allows us to detect and prevent the release of all messages and to take appropriate actions in consequence.”

Forcepoint

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.

Citizen Farmers Finance, Osoyoos Credit Union, Supreme Services, Camden County Technical Schools, Frederick County Schools, Pine Belt Mental Healthcare, Paulsboro Public Schools, Dysart Unified School District, St. Michael's Grammar School, Southfield Schools District, Total Threat Protection - Wade Ford, Alain Pinel Realtors, Southfield Public Schools, Major League Baseball (MLB)

Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota

Buyer's Guide

Barracuda Web Security and Filtering vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

September 2025

Free Report: Barracuda Web Security and Filtering vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

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