Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs SonicWall CFS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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 Web Content Filtering
2nd
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
55
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (8th), Internet Security (4th)
SonicWall CFS
Ranking in Web Content Filtering
9th
Average Rating
0.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.7
Number of Reviews
1
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2025, in the Web Content Filtering category, the mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 7.5%, down from 10.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall CFS is 2.8%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Web Content Filtering
 

Featured Reviews

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.
DS
Reliable content filtering but need more traffic control
To deploy it as a proxy, we use this solution for content filtering, URL filtering, and solution filtering on the user end. When the user is connecting to the internet and should not access some social media website or malware sites, we can block it through SonicWall CFS. CFS is our content…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Provides good visibility and good filtering features."
"Transparent Mode: Since we have multiple sites and roaming users, it has helped us in deploying the proxy to users without having to push any configurations to end users."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway has improved our organization through its ease of use."
"Ability to send decrypted traffic to other security solutions for inspection."
"The antiviral sandboxing."
"Reporting and automatic updates of website categorization."
"The tool categorizes the user profiles which is very comfortable."
"It allowed our company to not worry about the security of a page, but talk more about the content and the productivity of specific types of web categories."
"It is very stable."
 

Cons

"It takes 20 to 30 minutes for policy replication."
"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."
"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."
"Sometimes attacks or a new ransomware gets through."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway needs to improve its scalability. We have also encountered less frequent performance issues."
"Reports in the sand-boxing, ease of deployment of sensors to ready to go server with one click of a button."
"The availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well."
"I am looking forward to the full integration of the endpoints that they offer for web security and DLP."
"Malware, scanning, capture, and integration should be included with the content filtering."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Compared to the other products in the market, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway can be a cost-effective tool."
"Licensing is flexible. License pricing information is based on the customer, their environment, and on the future approach."
"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."
"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."
"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."
"Licensing is on a yearly basis and the pricing is very reasonable."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Web Content Filtering solutions are best for your needs.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
12%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
No data available
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

Questions from the Community

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 can improve the Secure Web Gateway for enterprise-level services. If some internet service providers want to offer Web Proxy as a service, these appliances cannot handle that. They have ...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
 

Also Known As

Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
SonicWall Content Filtering Service
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about iboss, Forcepoint, DNSFilter and others in Web Content Filtering. Updated: August 2025.
865,649 professionals have used our research since 2012.