We compared Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Cisco Umbrella across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway provides category-based site blocking, making it easy to block specific types of websites. It also offers well-integrated web security, ensuring a seamless experience for users. Cisco Umbrella is highly regarded for its seamless integration with existing infrastructure, extensive range of security features, and ability to centrally manage security.
Room for Improvement: The Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway could improve in terms of accessibility, website classification, latency, and endpoint management. Cisco Umbrella could enhance security by adding a transferring proxy feature and improving its Linux agent for Linux-based companies.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is seen as complicated and time-consuming, requiring in-house expertise or vendor assistance. Customers have praised Cisco Umbrella's support, describing it as excellent and superior to the customer service of other vendors.
Service and Support: Forcepoint's customer service received mixed reviews, with some customers complaining about response time and issue resolution. Customers have praised Cisco Umbrella's support, describing it as excellent and superior to the customer service of other vendors.
Pricing: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is considered reasonably priced but on the higher end. Some users mentioned extra expenses for reporting. The cost of Cisco Umbrella differs based on the specific needs and approach of the customer, with flexible pricing and transparent charges. It is seen as both reasonable and competitive by some, but a few perceive it as costly.
ROI: Forcepoint's ROI has been compared to an insurance policy. Users say they gain peace of mind from knowing that their security needs are covered. Cisco Umbrella has proven to be a valuable investment by addressing maintenance concerns, reducing expenses associated with hardware updates, and effectively thwarting threats.
Comparison Results: Users appreciate Cisco Umbrella for its easy setup, extensive security features, and ability to centrally manage security. Forcepoint offers more granular control and integration with other security products. Cisco Umbrella could improve its Linux agent, while Forcepoint could improve its accessibility, website classification, and support.
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"We can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important."
"Improves security through DNS visibility, which can block malware, phishing, C&C, etc."
"The user interface is great. It's very easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs."
"The primary advantage of Cisco Umbrella is its ability to safeguard our users no matter where they are working from - whether it's in the office or remotely, as per the new work model that has emerged globally. This integrated security solution has simplified our lives by combining all the necessary security measures in one product. Additionally, deploying the product is all it takes to protect all our users."
"It enables us to go granular in the customization of blocking some categories on the DNS."
"One of the most important features is the security posture check which Umbrella offers when a user accesses any website. That is one of the most unique features that it offers."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on."
"The critical role is web URL filtering."
"The solution provided our organization with easy and secure internet access."
"The most valuable feature is the categorization, where you can allow general access to an application but limit specific features."
"It’s pretty stable after you get up and running."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to allow or block sites by category."
"This is a highly detailed product with very good key features."
"The tool categorizes the user profiles which is very comfortable."
"I have found the web content filtering and malware filter the most valuable."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"I would like to see integration with SecurNX in the future."
"I would like to see more integrability with other products."
"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"We faced an issue regarding virtual appliances (VAs) during deployment. They could improve the quality and management of the virtual appliances offered right now. You can't see much because it is a Linux machine, and they have customized it. You don't have any route access to the machine, only seeing limited things in it. When we opened a ticket, they didn't know much about VAs themselves. So, that is where it is lacking right now. I know this will improve in the long run."
"There should be a way to monitor traffic at the user level."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"It's the support that's the problem because that's a different question from the product itself — it's the Achilles heel."
"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."
"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."
"The Sandbox solution should be integrated with the NIST to handle whatever new vulnerabilities or new sites are identified as potential threats."
"An area for improvement would be the classification of websites - it can take a long time for new websites to be classified."
"We have had latency issues."
"It takes 20 to 30 minutes for policy replication."
"In the on-premises version, I don't like the deployment and structuring of the device."
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Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 55 reviews while Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is ranked 6th in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 17 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "We can see all of our locations in one place and only have to make changes once for all our locations". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway writes "Reasonably priced, easy to set up, and offers near real-time reporting capabilities". Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and Quad9, whereas Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Symantec Proxy, Fortinet FortiGate SWG, Fortinet FortiProxy and Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks. See our Cisco Umbrella vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway report.
See our list of best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors and best Internet Security vendors.
We monitor all Secure Web Gateways (SWG) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.