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Cisco Secure Email vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cloudflare One
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (15th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (21st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (11th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (7th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), ZTNA (3rd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (3rd)
Cisco Secure Email
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
63
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (5th), Cisco Security Portfolio (6th)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (9th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Email Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Secure Email5.2%
Microsoft Defender for Office 3658.8%
Proofpoint Email Protection8.1%
Other77.9%
Email Security
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway3.1%
Cisco Umbrella12.8%
Zscaler Internet Access12.1%
Other72.0%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
KS
Technical Associate Network Security at Valuepoint Systems
Email security has protected financial data and provides clear tracking for every branch message
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it was a database error or something, but we feel some slowness in configuring DLP and other content filters compared to other consoles. It may have been due to on-premises, but it was much noisy at some times while configuring DLP. When we tried to configure a DLP policy, the console became much slower. In that case, we cannot see what had happened in the mail which was blocked at that time. It may take nearly an hour to get back to normal while configuring policies. That is the major issue in the product.
reviewer1047669 - PeerSpot reviewer
PS & Technical Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has faced usability challenges while managing integrated components
We are working with web gateway and full endpoint security. URL filter is a notable feature. While it is not specifically related to Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway alone, if you have the complete Forcepoint solution, it can integrate with other Forcepoint products, such as DLP solution and email gateway. The URL filter of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is good for web gateway. Clients and consumers do not prefer it because the interface is not good. When using FSM with DLP, web gateway, and email gateway, upgrades cannot be performed simultaneously since Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway might need an upgrade while email gateway does not, despite having the same manager controlling them. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway works well with banking and small companies. Email gateway is less needed as everything is moving to the cloud.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It will take the blow rather than our applications should an attack occur."
"This solution is easy to understand and easy to configure."
"I'm very satisfied with the environment and the dashboard."
"Cloudflare is simple to use."
"The tool also offers good scalability, and the dashboard, along with real-time analytics, is very good."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"The capabilities of the software are strong enough for me to do what it's supposed to do. For me, we don't need to do a lot of configuration on our site. We just enable it and monitor it."
"Using Cloudflare One makes my work quite easy because for DDoS protection, all I need to do is understand the OSI model and click; it makes it easier than trying to write a command line or use a Linux command."
"Cisco Secure Email Cloud Gateway has allowed our users to be able to concentrate on the emails that they do receive."
"It's a bit easy to handle Cisco Secure Email; it's not that difficult. For the logs, which are in PDF format, it's not hard to read them. We don't need Wireshark much to analyze the logs."
"This product is the complete solution and the real deal."
"Cisco's Secure Email integrates with Cisco Firewalls, utilizing the AMP as their anti-malware engine, which allows for information sharing between devices."
"The technical support from Cisco is perfect."
"It does a great job of preventing spam, malware, and ransomware. I can only go by what people have told me and what I've seen, but I have not seen spam in a year and a half to two years in my own company mailbox. And there are not a lot of catches where it's catching something that should have gotten through, either."
"My favorite feature of Cisco Secure Email is the threat intelligence capabilities, particularly its integration with Cisco Talos."
"It integrates with Active Directory and we can limit specific users to using specific applications."
"The functions of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway are most valuable due to Forcepoint's long-standing presence in the Web Security business, as it was formerly called Websense, which was in the market for almost 15 years."
"Giving visibility to people's actions in the network, while keeping attackers out: across data centers, offices, branches, and the cloud."
"Transparent Mode: Since we have multiple sites and roaming users, it has helped us in deploying the proxy to users without having to push any configurations to end users."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to allow or block sites by category."
"Transparent Mode: Since we have multiple sites and roaming users, it has helped us in deploying the proxy to users without having to push any configurations to end users."
"In terms of performance, Forcepoint stands out because it is more scalable than any other solution. It can extend to different types of boxes and integrate well with other platforms and vendors. And it doesn't need to have the same kind of box or throughput to have high availability."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"The platform is fairly stable."
 

Cons

"The initial onboarding was causing us some confusion."
"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"The tool should provide on-premise versions. Currently, all versions are cloud-based."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform needs to improve its documentation. It took time to do the implementation."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"Our subscription plan for the solution has a limitation of bot signatures."
"Our customers no longer use Cloudflare because its service is subpar."
"The software has automated alerts, but the automated alerts are not available in the mobile app."
"The initial setup was complex because I have two sites with physical clusters."
"In future releases, I would like to see two main improvements come to mind. First, the current solution requires maintaining two separate operating systems for FTD, which can be cumbersome. I'd love to see a single operating system for the FTD box."
"I would like them to add some clustering or high availability features."
"The user interface needs massive improvement. While the device works fine and it's not complicated to write policies, renaming menu items and showing policy flow in conjunction with the application could help."
"Better dashboards and more interactive overviews would be nice, but the current functionality is sufficient."
"The user interface needs some improvement to become more user-friendly."
"That's why I wouldn't give it anywhere near a perfect score, because the artificial intelligence just isn't there yet."
"The primary areas for improvement are the pricing and the complexity of deployment."
"The automation lifecycle, integration, and export functionality could all be improved."
"We have a lot of false positives, which is one area that can be improved."
"Sometimes attacks or a new ransomware gets through."
"Stability needs some improvement, we have on occasion experienced some delay when it is synchronized."
"Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan."
"But the deployment could be easier. It might take from one day to three days. Usually, that involves an engineer from the vendor and a working team at the enterprise."
"Allow for faster exemption of websites or the ability to reclassify websites."
"Overall the software is occupying too much memory space. Due to this, I have less space for my other office products and data."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"The licensing was all transferred."
"It is a reasonably priced solution."
"Pricing depends on your environment and which model you want to buy."
"The solution is expensive."
"The license was not per user, the license model was per feature. You could choose anti-virus, anti-spam, etc. It was feature-based and charged yearly."
"Cisco Secure Email and the support are priced well. It's not cheap, but there are other solutions that offer less and cost so much. For example, Microsoft is more expensive than Cisco."
"There are additional fees for adding features."
"Cisco Secure Email is expensive, but we get what we pay for."
"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."
"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"It is quite expensive."
"The solution's price is good."
"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Comms Service Provider
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business22
Midsize Enterprise18
Large Enterprise26
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access has strong integration with Microsoft, among other platforms. However, when it comes to Kaspersky, ...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access provides secure access to internal applications for employees, external members of the organization...
What advice do you have for others considering Cloudflare Access?
Cloudflare Access is one of the best integrations available. While about two hundred vendors offer similar services, ...
What do you like most about Cisco Secure Email?
Cisco Secure Email is a budget-friendly solution.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Email?
The pricing structure is good as it is user-based or email client-based, which is positive for clients.
What needs improvement with Cisco Secure Email?
The areas of Cisco Secure Email that could be improved or enhanced are the slowness in the console. I don't think it ...
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.
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 ...
What is your primary use case for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?
We have no big project, but we are trying to sell it in the market here. We are working with Forcepoint because there...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
Cisco Email Security, IronPort, Cisco Email Security, ESA, Email Security Appliances
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
SUNY Old Westbury, CoxHealth, City of Fullerton, Indra
Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
Find out what your peers are saying about Proofpoint, Microsoft, Check Point Software Technologies and others in Email Security. Updated: February 2026.
884,933 professionals have used our research since 2012.