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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (6th)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (5th)
Netskope Next Gen Secure We...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
13th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.4%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 2.7%, down from 4.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway is 2.1%, down from 2.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.4%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway2.7%
Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway2.1%
Other91.8%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
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.
BT
Experto de Seguridad Informática at a financial services firm with 1,001-5,000 employees
Granular web controls have improved user-specific access and reduced security incidents
For the moment, the solution is going quite well, and I cannot think of anything specific we could improve at the moment.Perhaps in file control, the maximum size of the files that can be analyzed is a negative aspect or an improvement that I consider necessary in Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"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."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"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."
"The technical support is very good, with very cooperative service engineers and a strong local Forcepoint team."
"For the most part, the solution, when set up correctly, works fine."
"We are happy with the solution for now."
"This solution allows us to control web usage to ensure that our employees use the internet for business research only, and it also monitors all employees' traffic, giving alerts for searches and blocking any websites not allowed by company policies so the company can ensure our employees make the best use of their time and get the most value from the internet itself."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway does most of its job well, but I especially like its data security feature."
"The most valuable feature of Forcepoint Web Security is creating the easy to install further policies that are deployed through the Forcepoint security manual at some stage. Just drag and drop and the policies are there."
"Real-time analytics."
"It is for secure web trafficking, and it is doing what it needs to do. It allows customers to consolidate and eliminate multiple technologies onto Netskope and just kind of turn the dial and use more features, such as CASB, VPN. SWG is another feature. You can monitor and govern all the traffic."
"The solution is reliable and has high availability."
"The most valuable features of the solution are its three modules, which are SWG, ZTNA, and CASB."
"As Netskope is a cloud-based application, it is possible to analyze and distinguish personal and enterprise instances."
"My advice for others looking into implementing the solution it is easy to use, and it is one of the best solutions on the market."
"Prevents data leakage and protects data."
"Overall, the product is nice, and I like the URL filtering, CASB, and other security stacks like threat prevention."
"So far, the solution has been excellent."
 

Cons

"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"The easiest device I have set up was the Barracuda line of products."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"It takes 20 to 30 minutes for policy replication."
"The Sandbox solution should be integrated with the NIST to handle whatever new vulnerabilities or new sites are identified as potential threats."
"Enhancing the dashboard would provide better insights into users' usage patterns."
"There were several issues with the product. Version 8.4 can only be managed with a CLI, they removed the nice GUI interface from version 8.1; the load-balancing needs massive improvements and the incident lists do not sync between appliances, so they need to be manually edited for each one."
"Database synchronization failures"
"Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan."
"The product needs to have more mobility."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"Since they have the Netskope client, adding some functionality in the endpoint would be good."
"Cost competitiveness is its area of improvement. They will have to figure out how can they strategically price it because there are a few players in the game who have been doing it for a long time. They will have to figure out how to go to market on the pricing."
"There is room for improvement in streamlining policies. So what happens is that when you apply a specific Netskope policy, you never know the kind of content it will automatically block, or it will allow."
"The solution needs to improve its on-premise detection technique."
"The initial setup and implementation are not straightforward."
"I think the accuracy could be improved."
"They should work on marketing material to put out their work with a little more effort."
"Netskope provides vigorous policy enforcement for SaaS platforms based on how we configure it, but its vulnerability management and threat intelligence capabilities could be stronger."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"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 quite expensive."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"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 pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"Overall, I am not aware of the option to pay for one time use of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway."
"The solution's price is good."
"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."
"The product is cheap."
"The license model is based on the number of users. You have the possibility to have 10,000 users if you wish."
"The solution's overall cost is cheaper than regular web security solutions."
"The price is average. Because the license is user-based, you can increase it as per the user quantity."
"We pay a licensing fee of $10,000 on a yearly basis."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Construction Company
7%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Outsourcing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Netscope, Zscaler if they continue route they are on now. FIrewalls needs great deal of automation on each end, datac...
Which lesser known firewall product has the best chance at unseating the market leaders?
Those firewalls that allow extend the perimeter. Nowadays, there is a issue with the static perimeter and all is goin...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
No data available
 

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.
Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
Arrow, Cloudrise, Sainsbury, Evalueserve, Stroock, Apria, Ather Energy, CSA, AVX Corporation Nuna, City of San Diego Case, Genomic Health Case Study, Oak Hill Advisors, MaRS Discovery District.
Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
914,109 professionals have used our research since 2012.