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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Quad9 comparison

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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) (10th), Web Content Filtering (5th)
Quad9
Ranking in Internet Security
6th
Average Rating
6.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.9
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2026, in the Internet Security category, the mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 5.3%, down from 7.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Quad9 is 4.7%, 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 Gateway5.3%
Quad94.7%
Other90.0%
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

"Reporting and automatic updates of website categorization."
"We deployed this solution during COVID, for two or three customers, and the customers are very happy with this product."
"Most valuable features were content filtering and monitoring."
"The antiviral sandboxing."
"The value of Secure Web Gateway is the visibility it offers and the ease by which we can put controls in place."
"In my opinion, it's a very stable product."
"It is fairly easy to setup and use."
"When evaluating this solution to others it is one of the best."
"Setting up Quad9 is straightforward if you know what you're doing, and it's easy to use overall."
"The most valuable feature of Quad9 is that it is a free solution."
 

Cons

"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."
"We have had latency issues."
"The performance issues in the product are an area of concern where improvements are required."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"Reports in the sand-boxing, ease of deployment of sensors to ready to go server with one click of a button."
"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."
"The solution should be better able to support itself and operate faster. Sometimes the technical support team takes too long to respond."
"The reporting could be improved."
"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 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."
"Compared to the other products in the market, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway can be a cost-effective tool."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."
"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."
"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"The price of Quad9 is free."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Comms Service Provider
27%
Computer Software Company
8%
Hospitality Company
6%
Government
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: September 2026.
914,262 professionals have used our research since 2012.