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Fortra's Clearswift Secure Web Gateway vs Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway comparison

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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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Fortra's Clearswift Secure ...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
36th
Average Rating
7.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.1
Number of Reviews
0
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Netskope Next Gen Secure We...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
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 May 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.3%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortra's Clearswift Secure Web Gateway is 0.5%, up from 0.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway is 2.3%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.3%
Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway2.3%
Fortra's Clearswift Secure Web Gateway0.5%
Other93.9%
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.
KM
Pre-Sales Support Engineer at GTN (Groupe de Technologies et de Negoce)
I would say the solution is stable. We've deployed it here for one year, and for the moment, we've had no issues
I would rate the product as seven out of 10. The product needs maintenance only if something is wrong with the configuration. If so, we are always available to reconfigure or make some adjustments, and the app system numbers are very available. Anytime we need them, they're there for us. The last time I called the engineer in charge of the product, he told me everything was fine apart from the setup. They want to add more ports about a dedicated service that he cannot do for us. I asked him to take a snapshot and send it to me so I can forward it to the system group. The solution can be deployed in companies of any size. One thing I would recommend to anyone contemplating implementing the product would be, don't be put off because Clearswift Secure Web Gateway is not at the top on Gartner. That does not mean it's not a good solution. I think all the solutions are equal. It all depends on how you deploy the solution and where you put it.
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

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"I would definitely recommend iboss for web filtering purposes to other organizations or individuals."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"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."
"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."
"With the Clearswift Secure Web Gateway, we have three antivirus engines searching the cloud web for any heuristics, malware, and viruses that may be contained on a URL or in a document attached to your emails or your traffic."
"The solution is reliable and has high availability."
"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 has some useful features, such as microservices. They have sandboxing that allows the prevention, encryption, and remote browser isolation."
"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, and SWG, and you can monitor and govern all the traffic."
"Overall, the product is nice, and I like the URL filtering, CASB, and other security stacks like threat prevention."
"As Netskope is a cloud-based application, it is possible to analyze and distinguish personal and enterprise instances."
"The solution's CASB, DLP, and threat protection features are very good."
"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."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"if we could add a firewall policy to this process, it would be better."
"Most of our clients want to use a web proxy integrated with other functionalities, like reverse proxies, and if we could add a firewall policy to this process, it would be better."
"The stability of the solution to be very good. It is not the best and could improve but it is better than other solutions, such as Forcepoint."
"The solution could improve the features for Zero Trust Network Access."
"They should work on marketing material to put out their work with a little more effort."
"The accuracy could be improved."
"The initial setup is a bit complex in that it takes a lot of time. In order to get the product to work as you need it to, there is a lot of configuration required."
"Since they have the Netskope client, adding some functionality in the endpoint would be good."
"The solution lacks a good reporting feature."
"The stability of the solution to be very good. It is not the best and could improve but it is better than other solutions, such as Forcepoint."
 

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."
"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."
"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."
Information not available
"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 price is average. Because the license is user-based, you can increase it as per the user quantity."
"The solution's overall cost is cheaper than regular web security solutions."
"We pay a licensing fee of $10,000 on a yearly basis."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
8%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business8
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise4
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
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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
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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.
Information Not Available
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 Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: May 2026.
896,467 professionals have used our research since 2012.