Fortra&#39;s Digital Guardian vs WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention comparison

Fortra's Digital Guardian vs. WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention

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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

Cloudflare

Featured Reviews

Spencer Malmad

Owner at Tech Exchange

It's easy to set up because you point the DNS to it, and it's working in under 15 minutes

Cloudflare is highly scalable. Cloudflare is a system with a web portal that the end users like me see. It's a console where we can adjust the DNS, caching, and security features all in that console. Cloudflare owns thousands of servers across the world that cache the data. It's a powerful solution. When clients sign up for Cloudflare, they're getting this monster content delivery network, security, and a web application firewall in one. It's all rolled into one, and it's massive. Unless you have your website hosted on a massive hosting provider, there's no way that you can deliver the amount of data that Cloudflare can provide to the end users. If you have static content, there's no way that you can ever match what Cloudflare can do. Obviously, there are competitors to Cloudflare that do the same, but I'm saying other types of solutions. Let's say you go with F5. Great, that's on-prem. That's in your colo. You can't deliver as much data to the internet as you can with a CDN. You don't have to spend $20,000 on a net scaler, F5, or whatever Cisco's selling now. You don't have to buy that. You pay them $50 a month or $150 a month. It's totally worth it because even in five years, you'll never get the performance value, not just the actual ROI. You have to consider how much throughput you can get with Cloudflare.

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Christian Dagal

Security Architect Manager at Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc.

Ease of sensitive information detection and provides flexibility to customize and redefine policies and user analytics that detect data channels

In my opinion, there's a need for an extensive skill set or knowledge of creating policies. There's room for improvement to make it more user-friendly in creating custom rules and policies. In future releases, I would like to see a quick glance at detected data without downloading the actual file for both Windows and MacOS.

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ScottEastman

Project Consultant at SEVERN HOSPICE LIMITED

Reduces the risks of sending data where it shouldn't be going

We use the solution to ensure that no data breach, such as credit card details and national insurance numbers, leaves the company. However, we have to allow some information to go through because we send a lot of information to the National Healthcare Service If we don't want specific data sent…

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"It is a stable solution. I rate the stability a ten out of ten...I rate the scalability a ten out of ten."

"It's very user-friendly."

"What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering, so it's a valuable tool."

"New and innovative way to protect the client's data."

"DDoS attacks target unprotected machines. Cloudflare detects and stops these attacks using internal systems. It identifies incoming DDoS attacks, issuing challenges or blocking them immediately."

"Centralized, full-featured DNS."

"It is easier to configure and develop documentation to see how we have configured firewalls."

"The UI is good."

More Cloudflare pros

"We have accurate detection on data protection and more visibility on different data channels compared to other DLP solutions. So, basically, more on the principle, there is ROI."

"As long as you know the flow and how the setup phase works, the process can be totally straightforward."

"We have received a good return on investment."

"Basically, we have received a good return on investment."

"I find that their tech support is excellent. And as a reseller, my relationship with my point of contact is also strong. WatchGuard does a good job of maintaining that."

"If we don't want specific data sent out, the tool will stop that data based on the policy we have allocated to it. It has reduced the risks of sending data where it shouldn't be. I haven't faced any issues with the tool's integration capabilities."

"It is something that we need for compliance, and it has been useful. Their support staff is also amazing."

"One of the most valuable features is that when we send emails and it gives a warning, you can configure those email addresses so that they can only send outside the email."

Cons

"Areas like how assessment, discovery, and payload are dealt with and how it all comes into your organization can be considered when trying to make suggestions to Cloudflare for improvements."

"It should be easier to collect the logs with companies like Sumo. However, based on my discussions with the salespeople, I understand that's how they make their money. With the enterprise product, they want people doing those kinds of enterprise features to do the logging. They want them to pay a lot of money, and that's where I have an issue with them. That should be a default. You should be able to get the log no matter what. The logging should be universal."

"Cloudflare does not have an on-premise solution. If they had different approaches they could be better suited to accommodate more customers, such as on-premise and hybrid deployments. For example, hybrid deployments would be useful where you could move the traffic from the enterprise to the cloud."

"The tool needs to improve caching of servers. The product needs to include PFX certificate as well."

"I would like Cloudflare to offer a dedicated account manager for large enterprise clients like us."

"The analytics, basically the dashboard, doesn't have much to it."

"There could be more courses with engineers. I like e-learning, however, having a specialist in a classroom is more comfortable for me."

"We're facing challenges due to an upgrade in the machine learning model. The problem arises from some users abusing the APIs, resulting in an influx of suspicious traffic. Cloudflare's learning model mistakenly identifies this traffic as human. Consequently, it assigns it a higher trust score, akin to legitimate human traffic, causing complications in our architecture. Previously, such traffic would have been categorized as suspicious, enabling us to apply appropriate blocking rules. However, we encounter difficulties distinguishing between genuine and suspicious traffic with the new categorization. Despite these challenges, overall, Cloudflare remains the preferred solution compared to Azure, AWS CloudFront, and Google Cloud Armor."

More Cloudflare cons

"The trouble with the tool is its ability to integrate with a third-party application."

"In my opinion, there's a need for an extensive skill set or knowledge of creating policies. There's room for improvement to make it more user-friendly in creating custom rules and policies."

"Particularly in India, the cost for renewal after three years is 75% of the hardware cost, which is a significant problem."

"There is a problem with the RAM - it's eating up resources. The RAM utilization sometimes reaches up to 80% - 95%, and what we do is just restart the firewall."

"WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention catches so little. When I've implemented it, it just can't look at the traffic in a thorough enough manner to capture as much as it should. And I find that I'm disenchanted with all data loss protection solutions I've tested and looked at."

"They need to stop the VLAN limitation. They have a VLAN limitation on the size of their boxes. It is the worst thing ever. They basically sell their boxes by the size and the number of VLANs it can handle, which is a real issue. You spend a couple of thousand dollars for a firewall, and you can only do 30 VLANs, which is extremely silly, as a matter of fact. It would be really great to have something for easier mass rule changes. It also needs a drag-and-drop function so that you don't have to constantly duplicate firewall rules. It would be nice to have such a feature because you got one WatchGuard, and you want to mirror its config and change a couple of things in another one and move some things around. It is not as easy as you would necessarily think. It is kind of expensive, and its pricing can be a little better for sure."

"WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention needs to improve its support."

"The major problem is pricing and licensing loss. In India, the cost for renewal after three years is 75% of the hardware cost, which is a significant problem."

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The product's pricing is minimal compared to other products."

"The tool is a premium product, so it is very expensive."

"The price of the solution is expensive."

"The price is reasonable."

"There are no additional costs beyond the standard licensing fees."

"I think the pricing is competitive. I think as far as licensing is concerned it's pretty straightforward because it's based on domain. It's just that sometimes domains could be tricky with some customers."

"The cost primarily depends on the size of the organization."

"When you compare Cloudflare DNS to other solutions, such as Akamai, the price is reasonable."

More Cloudflare pricing and cost advice

"As long as your needs are fulfilled, even if the price is high, you will buy the tool."

"It is kind of expensive. I buy it on the appliance. I always buy three-year total security."

"WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention's pricing is expensive. I rate it a seven out of ten."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Educational Organization

17%

Computer Software Company

14%

Comms Service Provider

Financial Services Firm

No data available

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

Questions from the Community

Which is the best DDoS protection solution for a big ISP for monitoring and mitigating?

Cloudflare. We are moving from Akamai prolexic to Cloudflare. Cloudflare anycast network outperforms Akamai static GR...

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...

What do you like most about Cloudflare?

Cloudflare offers CDN and DDoS protection. We have the front end, API, and database in how you structure applications.

What do you like most about Fortra's Digital Guardian?

We have accurate detection on data protection and more visibility on different data channels compared to other DLP so...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortra's Digital Guardian?

As per my experience with both of my clients, I would say that the price is a bit high, but it didn't matter once the...

What needs improvement with Fortra's Digital Guardian?

The trouble with the tool is its ability to integrate with a third-party application. For example, integrating an SIE...

What needs improvement with WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention?

The basic problem is that for every firewall in India, there is a need for a one-year or two-year subscription. That ...

What advice do you have for others considering WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention?

The major problem is pricing and licensing loss. In India, the cost for renewal after three years is 75% of the hardw...

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention?

I don't know the current cost. It's all imported products. It's not assembled in India. It's expensive us here.

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Product Reports

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Cloudflare

May 2025

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Download Fortra's Digital Guardian product report

Data Loss Prevention (DLP)

Download WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare DNS

No data available

WatchGuard DLP

Overview

Cloudflare is a highly-regarded Content Delivery Network (CDN) and a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) protection solution. The robust global connectivity cloud platform that is Cloudflare ensures users are able to connect to the Internet quickly, securely, and reliably. Cloudflare is one of the world's largest networks in the marketplace today. Using Cloudflare, businesses, educational entities, NGOs, vloggers, bloggers, and anyone else with an internet presence can experience more secure, faster websites and applications.

Currently, there are millions of Internet locations on Cloudflare, and the Cloudflare network
continues to grow every day by the thousands. The solution is able to fulfill the requests for
millions of websites seamlessly and serves on average 45 million HTTP requests per second.

Cloudflare has safe, secure data centers in close to 300 cities worldwide to ensure every
client request is filled as quickly as possible. It is Cloudflare’s edge network that makes this
possible by keeping content and other services as close to each client as possible, so the
information requests are always only seconds away.

Many organizations that work in democracy, civil society, human rights, or the arts are able to
access Cloudflare's highest levels of protection for free via Project Galileo. Additionally, official
election websites can be secured from hacking and fraud through Cloudflare’s Project
Athenian, also at no additional cost.

Cloudflare can also help organizations of all sizes develop a robust zero-trust strategy to
ensure the highest levels of productivity and profitability. Employees, stakeholders, and end users have a greater level of satisfaction and overall improved user experience, which can, in
turn, result in higher revenues and overall ROI. Zero-trust and BYOD (bring your own device)
access ensure end users and employees always have the best resources and technology
available to them at all times.

Cloudflare benefits

Cloudflare has many benefits. Some of its most valuable benefits include:

- Faster load times

- Robust DNS security

- Intuitive cloud Web Application Firewall (WAF)

- Free universal SSL

- Image enhancement

- Automatic browser caching

- Next-generation cloud load balancer

- Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

- Rate limiting

- Minification

- Zero-trust capabilities

- Cost-effective

- Reduced carbon footprint

Reviews from real users

“Many websites require an SSL certificate because they sell stuff and want SSL. Cloudflare
comes with an SSL certificate built in. It's automatic. You sign yourself up for Cloudflare, and
an SSL certificate automatically protects your website. If you have a connection between your
website and your host, the server, Cloudflare, and the host, you don't necessarily need a
certificate.” Spencer M., Owner at Tech Exchange

“What I like best about Cloudflare is that my company can use it to trace and manage
applications and monitor traffic. The solution tells you if there's a spike in traffic. Cloudflare
also sends you a link to check your equipment and deployment and track it through peering,
so it's a valuable tool.” Daniel P., Network Engineer at Ufinet

“The most valuable feature of Cloudflare is the GUI. You are able to control the solution very
well through the interface. There is a lot of functionality that is embedded in the service.” PeerSpot user, Competence Center Manager at a tech services company

Cloudflare

Fortra's Digital Guardian is celebrated for its robust data protection, especially in data loss prevention across various endpoints. It enhances organizational efficiency, streamlines workflows, and provides deep insights via advanced analytics and real-time alerts, significantly improving data security and compliance management. Ideal for monitoring, customizing policies, and guarding against internal and external threats.

Fortra

Data breaches pose a serious threat to organizations of all sizes, as the number of incidents and associated costs are on the rise. Whether a data leak was intentional or not, it can also cause permanent reputation damage to your organization. WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention (DLP) is a comprehensive service that helps keep your confidential data private. It prevents data breaches and enforces compliance by scanning text and files to detect sensitive information attempting to exit your network.

WatchGuard

Sample Customers

Trusted by over 9,000,000 Internet Applications and APIs, including Nasdaq, Zendesk, Crunchbase, Steve Madden, OkCupid, Cisco, Quizlet, Discord and more.

Information Not Available

Royal Yachting Association, Sunray Engineering

Fortra's Digital Guardian vs. WatchGuard Data Loss Prevention