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Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs Lookout 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)
7th
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 (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
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
Lookout
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
26th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
Mobile Data Protection (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (15th), Threat Intelligence Platforms (24th), Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) (45th), Mobile Threat Defense (2nd), ZTNA as a Service (19th), ZTNA (15th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (21st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.1%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is 6.3%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Lookout is 0.6%, up from 0.5% 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
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…
DB
Enhanced mobile security with visibility into app and website usage, but installation challenges remain
We use Lookout for mobile devices, such as phones It has reduced our risk around mobile devices. I like the security features and being able to see what apps and websites people are using. There is nothing we have come across that we've desired. We have been using Lookout for one year. The…

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"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."
"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."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"The user interface is intuitive. Anyone can configure the firewall with little knowledge of the product. The back-end is robust with good security."
"The performance is very good and the solution is simple to manage."
"The most valuable feature of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is inspection."
"We have found the product to be scalable."
"The interface and other reports are all user-friendly."
"One of the features I appreciate the most is application control which offers great flexibility."
"I would rate the scalability of this product a nine out of ten because it is highly scalable. We have not had problems with customers in terms of scalability."
"It's a flexible solution."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"We have not had any issues with bugs or breakdowns."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"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."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"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."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"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."
"It is essential to leverage its capabilities more professionally to achieve an even higher level of security."
"The software is a bit expensive to renew."
"The price could be improved."
"The graphical user interface of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an area of concern where improvements are required."
"Integrating OpenVPN with FortiGate would provide a powerful combination of secure remote access and comprehensive network security."
"Zero trust could be added. Nowadays, solutions like Zscaler, Netskope, and even SecureWorks combine multiple features into a single product."
"What could be improved in Fortinet FortiGate SWG is its pricing because it's a bit higher. If it's cheaper, my company could pitch it to customers and engage with customers better about it. What I'd like to see in the next release of Fortinet FortiGate SWG is an improvement in its dashboard or GUI. I'd like it to be more user-friendly."
"It could always be more secure."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"The initial setup requires a little bit of experience with configuration."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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 not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"I would rate the pricing a six out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven out of ten. The additional cost depends on the extra feature requirements."
"The price is relatively expensive compared to other solutions which are providing similar features."
"FortiGate SWG is a cost-effective solution well-suited for organisations of all sizes."
"It is around $50,000 per month."
"It is a cost-effective solution that meets the user's needs."
"The cost has increased since the update so I would rate it eight out of ten."
"When comparing the price of Fortinet FortiGate SWG to other solutions it is expensive. The price could be better."
"The licensing costs are good. Prisma has much more options and support for security, but it has a higher cost. For example, Lookout costs 2/3rd of Prisma's licensing price."
"In terms of feature performance versus cost, they're a good value."
"The pricing is fair; it's comparable to our previous solution, and we carried out multiple POCs and POVs (proof of value). The product is worth the money we pay for it."
"Lookout is definitely on the lower end when it comes to price point and that seems to be the only differentiator. The technology is in place in this space and it's really about who is coming in at the better price point now."
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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
14%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Government
8%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Computer Software Company
19%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Government
7%
 

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...
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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Lookout?
The pricing is a little expensive. We are currently looking at comparisons with other solutions, including Umbrella.
What needs improvement with Lookout?
There is nothing we have come across that we've desired.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
FortiGate SWG, FortiGate Secure Web Gateway
CipherCloud
 

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.
Salt Lake County, Catholic College Bendigo, Azienda Unita Sanitaria
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Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate SWG vs. Lookout and other solutions. Updated: June 2025.
859,129 professionals have used our research since 2012.