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Cisco Umbrella vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 21, 2025

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
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
5th
Ranking in Internet Security
3rd
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Ranking in Internet Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
122
Ranking in other categories
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (1st)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Ranking in Internet Security
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Web Content Filtering (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.2%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 16.4%, down from 19.5% 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
ProductMarket Share (%)
Cisco Umbrella16.4%
iboss2.2%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway3.9%
Other77.5%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

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
Emilio Montoya - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures internet navigation safety and boosts productivity
The features of Cisco Umbrella I prefer most are DNS protection and traffic redirect. With Cisco Talos's threat intelligence, we reduce the impact of malware traffic in our network, and we currently see the behavior of equipment and choose the correct sites. Cisco Talos has helped us reduce the impact of malware traffic. We can see the behavior and choose the correct sites. We're currently testing secure access with Umbrella in order to secure access to core applications. It's a product that the user doesn't even know is there, even though it is protecting them. It's not hard on the equipment. And, for us, it centralizes everything, which improves productivity. With the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, we've seen impacts on the management of user connectivity by allowing us to deliver safe connectivity. We are testing the Secure Access product with Cisco Umbrella to improve our connectivity with our users in order to secure access to the corporate applications. Cisco Umbrella is in the cloud, which is nice.
AhmedHawana - PeerSpot reviewer
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is really important. In today's era, administration costs and operational expenses will cost you a lot, and it reduces that as well. You don't need extra resources to manage all your parameter firewalls, looking at every single device to allow resources internal access. By just introducing the single-pane-of-glass management, it has lifted the burden off of management, especially the network management."
"Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy."
"It blocks malicious DNS queries daily which is very beneficial."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Cisco's support is better nowadays."
"Overall, it is a very good solution. It is a simple solution and very easy to set up."
"It is user-friendly. It is easy to manage the solution."
"I think recently with many people working from home, Cisco Umbrella has been very useful. For example, we can manage the device and the network when the employee is not working on the local host. Cisco Umbrella is very valuable for this kind of infrastructure."
"​They have a wealth of articles in their knowledge base. This has given me the freedom to troubleshoot on my own time. ​​"
"The solution provided our organization with easy and secure internet access."
"The tool categorizes the user profiles which is very comfortable."
"The antiviral sandboxing."
"One of the main features I have found the solution to be efficient."
"Most valuable features are content filtering and monitoring."
"I like the product's scalability and stability."
"The solution’s administration is easy."
"It's stable and reliable."
 

Cons

"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"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 the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Cisco Umbrella can be improved in terms of limited coverage and wind vulnerability."
"Instead of creating a TAC case, it would be better if we could just call in and they could answer us immediately."
"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."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"If you wish to inspect all the traffic and it's integrated with Cisco AnyConnect, all the traffic basically goes through Cisco AnyConnect, which is not a good idea. That means you need to have more internet capacity as a data sampler, so in the case of a split tunnel, we cannot inspect the traffic that is being migrated through the local internet. I'm not sure whether there is a possibility wherein Cisco Umbrella can also inspect the traffic that is outside the AnyConnect tunnel."
"With any Cisco product, it's the licensing side of things that needs improvement."
"It is a value for money product for sure. However, it does not have that kind of awareness plus brand within the customer, as they are influenced more by brands such as Palo Alto or Fortinet."
"What's missing in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a specific level of micro-control on protocols or devices, for example, where you can control a particular user or user device."
"The reporting must be improved."
"The solution has complexity with the databases, and we have to manually clear old data logs."
"The availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well."
"The deployment is a bit complex and it requires expertise to deploy, which is something that should be improved and made easier to do."
"Database synchronization failures"
"The initial setup can be complex."
"I am looking forward to the full integration of the endpoints that they offer for web security and DLP."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."
"Its value exceeds its pricing."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"The price depends on the use case, and it's a bit linear. But it depends on the customer's strategy and how Cisco plans to optimize the costs."
"Cisco has a model called ELA. With ELA, if you buy the solution you will have the complete security portfolio and you can pay it yearly or after three years, it depends on the contract."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"The price should be slightly lower than the current price because if you look at the whole solution, it is simply a threat intelligence solution to block blacklisted things. The price should be lower looking at the features provided by the solution. The price isn't too high either, but it could be lower."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"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."
"It is quite expensive."
"Overall, I am not aware of the option to pay for one time use of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."
"The licensing is not expensive."
"It is a well-priced option."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Healthcare Company
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise5
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business49
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
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...
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...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zs...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
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.
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 ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
 

Overview

 

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.
Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
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 Cisco Umbrella vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and other solutions. Updated: November 2025.
872,846 professionals have used our research since 2012.