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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Quad9 comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 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

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Internet Security
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (8th), Web Content Filtering (2nd)
Quad9
Ranking in Internet Security
7th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of May 2026, in the Internet Security category, the mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 7.0%, down from 7.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quad9 is 5.3%, down from 5.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Internet Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway7.0%
Quad95.3%
Other87.7%
Internet Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Louis Geoffroy - PeerSpot reviewer
President at IDEBUG
It's easy to use and set up, but I've faced performance problems
I have experience with Quad9 and most other filtering solutions. Quad9 was working well initially, but it started slowing, so I switched to OpenDNS. I recently checked Tom's Hardware, an IT review site, and read a review of seven DNS filters. Open DNS was ranked the fastest, and Quad9 was second. Google was on there too, but they said it didn't filter enough.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Real-time category protection."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a user-friendly solution."
"The critical role is web URL filtering."
"The initial setup was straightforward."
"Ability to send decrypted traffic to other security solutions for inspection."
"It is fairly easy to setup and use."
"Secure Web Gateway's most valuable features are firewall blocking and anti-malware scanning."
"Ease of updating the latest hotfixes and patches on the appliance."
"The most valuable feature of Quad9 is that it is a free solution."
"Setting up Quad9 is straightforward if you know what you're doing, and it's easy to use overall."
 

Cons

"The solution should be better able to support itself and operate faster."
"There are 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. The incident lists don’t sync between appliances, they need to be manually edited for each one."
"One improvement I'd like to see would be to simplify managing the endpoint for both DLP and web security, so that endpoint management becomes easier."
"A room for improvement in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the support it offers; it's very bad."
"The Sandbox solution should be integrated with the NIST to handle whatever new vulnerabilities or new sites are identified as potential threats."
"Improve detailed guidelines to deploy the transparent proxy to Firefox users."
"The product needs to have more mobility."
"It has a problem with tablets and the iPhone. It's not filtering on these platforms. It filters on Windows but not iOS or Android."
"Quad9 could improve by having more free features, such as custom DNS filtering."
"It used to work fine for all the devices, but it started to slow and become non-responsive. I would have to reload the page two or three times before all the pages loaded. With OpenDNS, I only need to load the page once."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."
"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."
"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."
"It is quite expensive."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"It is a well-priced option."
"Overall, I am not aware of the option to pay for one time use of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"The price of Quad9 is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
25%
Computer Software Company
9%
Hospitality Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
5%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 is not user-friendly. The setup process is complex. You need to install FSM, whi...
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 is no vendor working with this technology. If we have another vendor working wi...
Which would you choose - Cloudflare DNS or Quad9?
Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and ...
 

Also Known As

Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
No data available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
CISCO, Netlab, proofpoint
Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Quad9 and other solutions. Updated: April 2026.
893,438 professionals have used our research since 2012.