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Cisco Umbrella vs Fortinet FortiGate SWG comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 15, 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)
6th
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 (10th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
121
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
Fortinet FortiGate SWG
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
3rd
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
43
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 17.3%, down from 20.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is 6.1%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
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.
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…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"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."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"The most valuable features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
"We run a real lean networking team, and cloud deployments are super easy."
"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."
"It offers good visibility for the Administrator. The administrator has full visibility of what is blocked or has the knowledge of where users go when they are surfing the internet."
"The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want."
"The most valuable feature for us is the DNS-based protection."
"The feature I appreciate most about Cisco Umbrella is the dashboard and how easy it is to see the reporting, what is blocked and allowed, and it makes it very user-friendly."
"The single-pane-of-glass management is very important. We have a very small team. We can't spend a lot of time going from product to product to product to either investigate or set up policy. We need to have one place that we can go to and set everything up."
"The pricing on offer is excellent."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG's content is its most valuable feature."
"The technical support is good."
"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 product is highly stable."
"FortiGate is easy to configure. We configured one of the units and sent it to Indiana to be installed. We asked them to give us a call when they got it, so we could help them through the process, but they called us back to tell us it works great."
"I am content with its user interface and functionalities."
"Web filters, particularly web application controls, grant us the ability to regulate user access effectively."
 

Cons

"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 solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"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."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Client delivery and client updates should be improved. Client delivery was not as easy as expected. Another area for improvement is the integration of escalation procedures for security issues."
"I don't have an answer for how Cisco Umbrella can be improved, as it has been some time since I've worked with it."
"I think it's a very basic solution, and because of that, Cisco Umbrella would not be a suitable solution for large companies."
"There is room for improvement in the dashboard. It could stand to be a bit more detailed. I would also like to be able to customize the dashboard to focus more on what is important for my company."
"Lower costs including licensing, support, and renewals would be beneficial."
"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"They need to improve analytics so they report on more of the specifics of user activity."
"Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."
"Their technical support could be improved a little bit in terms of responsiveness."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG's SSL offloading features need improvement."
"They should make the product user-friendly and enhance the security features."
"Fortinet FortiGate SWG's costs need improvement."
"It is essential to leverage its capabilities more professionally to achieve an even higher level of security."
"FortiGate's reporting features could provide a better picture of what is happening in the box."
"The solution has many heightened points which we cannot get to without working on CLI."
"One area of improvement I've noticed is the lack of built-in monitoring capabilities in the firewall. Currently, we rely on third-party solutions for monitoring purposes. However, I believe the firewall itself has the potential to do a better job in this aspect. Another aspect of Fortinet that concerns me is related to redundancy. We have a setup with two firewalls working in parallel, which requires a highly adaptable configuration. However, it feels unfair that clients need to purchase two licenses, especially when one of the firewalls serves as a backup. We have noticed that other manufacturers have different policies on this matter."
 

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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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 have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"We did a good negotiation, and at the moment, its price is fine."
"Cisco Umbrella is not a cheap product. However, it's not a matter of the cost; it's more a matter of the value of security. It is easy to measure this value when you have a security incident. I think the price is a good trade-off for a product that can help you avoid security threats."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"In the region I'm from, that of EMAR, Europe, the Middle East, Eastern Asia and Africa, our organizations do not have many liquid cash assets, so the price could be better."
"Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."
"The cost has increased since the update so I would rate it eight out of ten."
"FortiGate SWG is reasonably priced."
"The price is relatively expensive compared to other solutions which are providing similar features."
"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."
"It is less expensive than a Cisco solution."
"The product is expensive."
"I rate FortiGate's pricing a five out of ten."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
20%
Educational Organization
11%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
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...
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 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...
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 o...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
FortiGate SWG, FortiGate Secure Web Gateway
 

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
Salt Lake County, Catholic College Bendigo, Azienda Unita Sanitaria
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Fortinet FortiGate SWG and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
860,825 professionals have used our research since 2012.