TitanHQ WebTitan OverviewUNIXBusinessApplication

TitanHQ WebTitan is the #1 ranked solution in top Web Content Filtering tools, #2 ranked solution in top Domain Name System (DNS) Security tools, #3 ranked solution in top Internet Security tools, and #4 ranked solution in top Web Security Gateways. PeerSpot users give TitanHQ WebTitan an average rating of 9.4 out of 10. TitanHQ WebTitan is most commonly compared to Cisco Umbrella: TitanHQ WebTitan vs Cisco Umbrella. TitanHQ WebTitan is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 47% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 22% of all views.
TitanHQ WebTitan Buyer's Guide

Download the TitanHQ WebTitan Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: May 2023

What is TitanHQ WebTitan?

TitanHQ WebTitan is a secure web gateway (SWG) tool that helps businesses control the web content that can be accessed by its employees. The solution provides complete protection from online threats such as viruses, malware, ransomware, phishing, and comprehensive content filtering. To block malicious sites, WebTitan uses a crowd-sourced approach and obtains a constant stream of URLs for analysis. In contrast to many other DNS-based systems, which only work at the domain level, WebTitan works at the path level and is capable of blocking individual web pages rather than entire domains. With the solution, you have granular control over the types of sites that can be visited by employees, and a wide range of malicious sites are also blocked, preventing malware and ransomware infections, data theft, data exfiltration, and fraud.

TitanHQ WebTitan Features

TitanHQ WebTitan has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

  • URL filtering
  • Web fFiltering
  • Content filtering
  • DNS proxy
  • Cloud keys
  • Policy features
  • Intelligent content categorization
  • Reporting
  • Flexible deployment
  • User identification
  • Advanced threat intelligence
  • Full path detection
  • Scalable support
  • Monitoring via API

TitanHQ WebTitan Benefits

There are many benefits to implementing TitanHQ WebTitan. Some of the biggest advantages the solution offers include:

  • Low maintenance: WebTitan can be set up in five minutes to stop your users from accessing inappropriate content online.
  • Reduce IT overheads: The solution allows you to reduce IT overheads because it is a cloud-based solution that does not require any software installation.
  • Remote access: WebTitan enables you to control multiple locations from a central console which can be remotely accessed.
  • BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) protection: With TitanHQ WebTitan, you can filter multiple devices on and off site.
  • Easy policy creation: Using TitanHQ WebTitan’s user-friendly dashboard, administrators can create multiple policies and decide which policies apply to each user or group of users. This flexibility enables administrators to block malware, viruses, and inappropriate content while allowing certain sites for particular users.

Reviews from Real Users

TitanHQ WebTitan is a solution that stands out when compared to many of its competitors. Some of its major advantages are that it is user friendly and has good web and filtering tools.

Stanley W., Owner/Manager at Shannon Farms, says, “All around, user-friendliness stands out. It has been easy to understand and use the customization options provided by WebTitan.”

Michael G., President at PJM Digital Design, writes, "The most valuable feature is web filtering, where we are able to blacklist and whitelist sites on the fly."

PeerSpot user Michael M., Head of Infrastructure at Anglo-Eastern Ship Management Ltd, says, “We like having the ability to use the API to make calls into WebTitan. The DNS proxy is also valuable.”

Rocky P., IT Systems Administrator at State Attorney's Office 13th Circuit, states, "Their report tool is the most valuable. By using the URL-base filtering, their reports give me a clear view of who is accessing what as well as which computer may have a virus or malware."

TitanHQ WebTitan was previously known as WebTitan, WebTitan Web Filter.

TitanHQ WebTitan Customers

Clarks, Pepsi, Purple, Comcast, Virgin, McDonalds, Sprint, Adtran, Xirrus, Eir, ViaSat

TitanHQ WebTitan Video

TitanHQ WebTitan Pricing Advice

What users are saying about TitanHQ WebTitan pricing:
  • "It's very aggressively priced, which is something that we definitely like."
  • "WebTitan helps reduce costs associated with web filtering. In the event that somebody was compromised due to browsing the Internet, there will be at least one device offline. The time and energy spent cleaning that thing up and getting it back online, as well as having that user set up with some sort of a solution so they can continue working, makes it well worth the money. If a single device has been compromised, my time and the potential of having to buy additional hardware is worth at least a couple thousand dollars. Worst case scenario, if our entire organization or the majority of our organization got compromised, then it could get into the 50,000-plus for recovery. It depends on if it is a massive ransomware attack where it has pretty much crippled our entire business."
  • "The licensing, although I can't remember the exact cost, was very affordable. I want to say it was maybe $40 per license."
  • "The pricing is good. It's a substantial cost, but they've held their prices over the years, which has been good."
  • "We pay an annual subscription for this. They have good pricing. They are not expensive compared to other solutions that we evaluated. I like the fact that it is just one price for the year. I don't have to worry too much about fluctuations."
  • TitanHQ WebTitan Reviews

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    GM at a transportation company with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Allows us to track, monitor, and control internet usage, and makes all desktops available to employees universally
    Pros and Cons
    • "The monitoring abilities of the product are the most valuable for us. As you deploy it, you can adapt it. As you monitor, if employees go to things that you don't like, or to things that you need to allow, the ability to monitor and see how much is necessary—where they're getting shot down or blocked—is helpful."
    • "The interface is a little dated and a little awkward at times. That's a minor problem. It's workable."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use it for all of our customer-facing desktop clients so that we can control and restrict access, versus using MAC address restrictions and the like. The roaming version is the one that we use most, versus at the firewall level.

    We have a lot of employees that use common hardware but they log into each one. Because we have customers who need to be served quickly, we're not into a group policy situation, where we have too many policies or restrictions. We want the desktop clients to be something that employees can log into quickly, without going through security settings.

    How has it helped my organization?

    WebTitan gives us a fast solution that's on the hardware for all users, making that hardware instantly available to them. And it allows us to track, monitor, and control their internet usage, since everything that we do is SaaS or cloud-based. It allows us to restrict access and have visibility. It just fits as a really good solution for us. It's always on the hardware that our employees use, so that multiple employees can go into it. For each of them, it still applies that security and that DNS level of control by category, with the ability to monitor and block and allow access as needed, remotely, which is great.

    Our employees don't notice WebTitan, which is the way we want it to be, until they go to something that they shouldn't be going to. It's nice that it's not too invasive, robust, or more than what we need. The way it helps our organization is that we get the control we want, without it limiting us on the things that we have to do, or changing the nature of how an employee works. An employee can walk up to another computer and they don't have to go through a whole verification process. We all live in a world where we don't have enough employees. The last thing you want them to do is say to a customer, "Excuse me while I wait to log in, and my credentials load up, and it's going to take me two minutes." Two minutes, when a customer is standing there looking at you, is a lot of time.

    Because we've continuously used a product like this—we went from the Cisco Umbrella products to the TitanHQ WebTitan products—we haven't seen a reduction in viruses, ransomware, phishing, or malware attacks because protecting us from them is what we expect a product like this to do. The whole intent is to limit sites that would put us more at risk. It should deliver on that and limit risk exposure through content monitoring, by category or individual sites. That's why we contract for it and we expect it to do that.

    A benefit of WebTitan is that it reduces the costs associated with web filtering. Our other option is to have the IT people that we contract with handle that function and have a higher level of restriction. WebTitan is an affordable solution for what we want it to do. Knowing your conditional use—and stressing that it has a conditional use—it works well for what it is.

    We pay for our contracted IT services on a monthly retainer plus hourly. Versus what we pay them, I suppose WebTitan saves us thousands of dollars per year. I have WebTitan installed on approximately 50-plus pieces of hardware. If we had another application used in conjunction with Azure, and group policies and the maintenance associated with that, it would be hundreds of dollars per month just for the maintenance, and it would be thousands of dollars per year, as we use it across multiple locations in our company.

    It helps the level of service we provide to our customers in the sense that employees expect to have access to the internet. The last thing you want in a customer service-type position is employees who have their noses in their phones. It makes a bad impression. You want to grant the right amount of internet access to the right sites, without it being a distraction and without forcing them to go to their phones. It's a battle because you want to give them everything and because people are inclined to use their own phones. But it's a good solution for its intended use. With WebTitan, our employees aren't distracted as much. That's key. You want to give them internet, but you want it to be the internet you want them to have.

    What is most valuable?

    The monitoring abilities of the product are the most valuable for us. As you deploy it, you can adapt it. As you monitor, if employees go to things that you don't like, or to things that you need to allow, the ability to monitor and see how much is necessary—where they're getting shot down or blocked—is helpful.

    What's nice is that it has content restrictions by categories, but you can dial down to blacklist particular sites. That monitoring solution is key, allowing us to see which applications or which websites they're going to, and whether or not they're time-wasters. We want to be flexible but we don't want to be stupid. For example, we want to make sure that we're blocking email clients universally. We feel those are a big risk, as are streaming sites and the like. Monitoring is key because the internet evolves. Content restrictions are great, and it's great that WebTitan updates them, but it's important that you're seeing where the employees are inclined to go.

    What needs improvement?

    The interface is a little dated and a little awkward at times. That's a minor problem. It's workable.

    And while I really liked how they set me up, by telling me not to assign it to my own email and to use an admin email so that we could have other users, a weakness was around their communicating to me all the things that are possible, and probably realizing that they fit a niche in a business. It's a solid product and I'd like to do more with it. I'd like to integrate all these things, but time is a problem.

    Buyer's Guide
    TitanHQ WebTitan
    May 2023
    Learn what your peers think about TitanHQ WebTitan. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,461 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used different vendors and it's evolved over the years. TitanHQ is the third or fourth vendor that we have had and we've been with them for a couple of years now.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I've never had an issue with the solution. It seems to be up all the time.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It protects employees at the level we want it to. We key it to employees where we feel that that restriction is necessary. We don't put it on everyone's hardware.

    How are customer service and support?

    TitanHQ's technical support was prompt and helped me through to a solution. The issue had to do with redundant licenses. When we were replacing equipment, we wanted to make sure that we didn't all of a sudden blow up to 100 licenses being used, when we only have 50 clients. We wanted to remove any occurrences of dual licenses so that we weren't going to be charged. They were super responsive about how to remove it from our old devices so it was easy enough for me to get it done.

    One other time I contacted them about something small, about a website that I was trying to get whitelisted and they helped me quickly.

    I've always found them to be responsive. I prefer email or chat. I ask a question and they respond back. That's the way I want it to go.

    If it was urgent—and I've never really had an urgent issue—at worst, I'd turn blocking off intermittently. If I felt that it was dragging our business or causing some delay, I would just turn the product off and then turn it back on when I felt that the situation had resolved itself. But I've never been in those circumstances.

    I rate their technical support a solid eight out of 10. You always have to wait a little bit. No one is going to be at your beck and call. There's a time zone issue because I'm in the Pacific Northwest and they're in Europe. But that still hasn't been a problem. I've always found them to be responsive at the level I need them to be.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We used Cisco Umbrella, but TitanHQ as a company is a lot easier to work with. It seems like there are actually people behind their product, versus people who just auto-respond if you need help. TitanHQ is a real company with real people who are actually trying to help you do what you need to do. There are people to help you if you need it.

    WebTitan was a solution that was similar to what we had before, at a much more affordable price, with a better support team, and a more responsive sales team, top to bottom. Their email communication is better. I'm being updated about things when they're rolling them out. That didn't happen with Umbrella. My view of a given product is certainly colored by my experience with similar products and where they failed me.

    I felt Umbrella went too far and started changing, certainly when it comes to the cost versus the product. And our conditional use was too much. That's one of the reasons we selected WebTitan. 

    If I had to pick a single reason that Umbrella lost me, it was that their renewal process, even using a reseller, was a pain. I couldn't get anyone to sit there and renew it with me. Don't make it hard for people who want to buy your product to buy your product. Umbrella lost me through that whole process, not to mention when I got their quote. 

    I wear a lot of hats. The last thing I need is three different resellers coming up to me for this product and for that product. It's frustrating because not all resellers represent all products. Even if a product didn't meet all my needs, but met the majority of my needs, because of time constraints, and because this is not my only responsibility, the last thing I want to do is change a vendor. I'd be willing, sometimes, to pay a higher cost just not to change. There might be minimal benefit when considering the time that is required to get that transition to happen. And it's not always about cost or money. And it's not always about features. It might be just the right combination of features, cost, and time commitment, since the one thing I can't back is time.

    WebTitan was the closest to what Umbrella used to be before Umbrella changed. That, again, was related to time. I wanted to roll out a product relatively quickly. Once a product is removed and you need that product replaced, you need it quickly. I wanted a product that was the closest to what I was familiar with, giving me the features that I felt I needed, and WebTitan fit that quickly.

    I was able to contract it and get it up within a couple of weeks. I was paying for two services concurrently and I was so frustrated with that reseller that I was able to move WebTitan forward. So far, it doesn't take much of my time, which I like.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup wasn't too bad. We have gone through some equipment rotations and there are probably easier ways to do it than the way we did it, but I find their team to be really helpful, so it wasn't too complex.

    Regarding not needing to install an agent, if you're using the roaming client, it works well when it comes to installing it. But how important is it to me to be at the firewall level? There are a multitude of products out there that offer that solution. For content monitoring and DNS monitoring, it's not key that it is that way. The roaming client is for whatever network you're on. That's what's good about it and what I like about it.

    COVID kicked us all in the pants and as a result, we didn't buy hardware for a couple of years. But we just replaced every desktop and we were able to reinstall it and bring it back up on all of the new hardware that we brought in over the last two or three months. We initially put WebTitan on one set of clients, and now we've worked it into another set of clients. There were no issues.

    I tend to roll it out myself with my staff. We have multiple locations, versus rolling it out uniformly, all in one place. If we have an issue, I'd have to be the one to support it. It could go faster, but we choose to not go faster. We didn't have an implementation schedule. We did it over the course of a couple of months. We took Umbrella off and put WebTitan on, so they ran concurrently for a while. That way, we didn't change the world too fast for anyone.

    For us, our 50 desktop clients are a lot, while for other people they might not be. Our employees are not all simultaneously logging on at the same time, so we do roll it out at particular times. We don't want our employees to be shocked by this. We used Umbrella for years, so the expectation wasn't too different. This was just another vendor.

    The amount of oversight required after WebTitan has been installed is, honestly, almost zero. When employees need to go outside of what WebTitan allows, they will tell you. You can go into it and observe as much as you want, but it's good to live in ignorant bliss sometimes. No complaints, no problems. The genius in all DNS filtering is that, if you go by category, you're safe to a certain degree, the employees will tell you if there's something they need to see.

    We don't allow the employees to bring their devices, with some exceptions, onto our network, other than our wireless network, which is mostly a guest network. If employees really want to go to something that is restricted, it tends to be for personal needs, not professional. But if they can make a case for it, we can go into WebTitan and make those changes almost immediately. It doesn't take much maintenance. It's as much as you want it to be.

    What was our ROI?

    We're a small company so we don't really track ROI at this level. My belief in a product is probably more of a ratification than the ROI of the product. 

    Still, you want to look to the horizon and say, "Look, I just don't want to have these risks. I need to do something to control them before they get to my desktop or software solution at the client level." That's where web content filtering comes in. That's what is important, but it can be a tough sell. 

    You can feel good about a product, but you can't quantify why you feel good about it. If I increase your sales by $10,000, that's quantifiable. If I reduce a security risk, that's not quantifiable. You can feel good about that, but it's an expense. We've been fortunate. We haven't had any recent incidents, so it's hard to quantify the ROI on it.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I contracted the product myself and that's what I like. The billing is simple. It's on the company credit card. And by doing it myself, rather than through a reseller, I was able to develop the relationships.

    What other advice do I have?

    I'm not an IT professional. I'm a general manager who wears a lot of hats, with some IT experience. The customization options provided by WebTitan are not at an easy level for me, but I have a moderate knowledge base and I can use them. They're understandable. We contract out for our IT assistance and we get billed for every inquiry I make. I can have them assist me if I need to, but that's one of the things we like about WebTitan, that it's understandable. It's easy to deploy. It does what we need it to do, without being too broad, too deep, or too restrictive. It fits that nice niche between what you need and "not too much."

    Another reason we like this product is that we don't have Azure. If we had Azure, we could implement more group policies. Back in the day, there were terminals that did nothing other than help people. Effectively they were sophisticated cash registers. If employees were logging into Azure every time with their credentials and whatever else is needed, there would be a delay in the service they give. Since we use cloud-based services, we already have a secondary level for them to get into the applications they need. We don't need that so broadly on a client, when it is basically just used for printing something out, for data entry into our application, and selecting some of our car rental products.

    It's the product that's just right for us, for what we want to do. WebTitan provides the level of protection that we need, without it being onerous. I emphasize that point, but that's what it does very well for us.

    Its capabilities are probably more than we need, and I'm probably not using it to the degree that I could. If I was less busy, and I could spend more time learning about the product, I could roll more features out myself, or with our contracted IT people, and we could have an even more robust instance. Should I be educated more about more of the things it can do? Sure. But is it the only thing I'm dealing with today? No.

    We're a franchise and we're on the large side of franchises in the car rental world. But a lot of franchises don't have dedicated IT support. If you're looking for a solution that offers a low price point for web filtering and DNS content filtering, which everyone needs in our industry, WebTitan is a good choice. More people who are in small businesses like this can benefit from it.

    It's one thing to have desktop security to resolve issues as they happen. Web filtering takes your staff away from the areas of the internet they shouldn't be in. My staff is here 24 hours a day while I'm here from eight to 12. And there are 50 of them, and one of me. Without a solution like this, that is capable and robust, but without being burdensome... It's a solution that fits the needs of a business of this size.

    It's a great product and it could be for all sizes of business. That's a key: As your business changes or grows, you don't like to think about the things that can happen without a solution like this. If WebTitan stopped selling this product tomorrow, I'd find another vendor who would do the same thing, but I probably wouldn't be able to replace everything it has. It's easy to use. It scales up to any size of organization. I've never found it to lag. For someone who can't know all the things that they should know in this area, this is a product they should have, to make sure that their business is safe and secure. If you have a lot of employees, with everything on the internet now, you need to know what's happening. It's a perfect solution in that sense.

    I researched a lot of products before I picked up WebTitan and I'm glad that I did.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Owner/Manager at Shannon Farms
    Real User
    Top 20
    User-friendly, customizable, and fairly priced
    Pros and Cons
    • "It has been easy to understand and use the customization options provided by WebTitan."
    • "I've been trying to install an OTG on Windows 7 machines, and I simply can't get it to work."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution to monitor our computers, to filter out porn and whatever other content we decide. We can set it up as we wish, however, we have got it to monitor our computers for porn and malicious websites.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It's helped our organization spend less time researching and playing games and allowed us to actually work more. We gained productivity and it has been great. Our goal was to get people away from areas they were addicted to. Gaming and the like were our biggest issue. By downloading WebTitan, we have been able to filter out all games, and by doing that, we have gained productivity. People are working instead of playing stupid games on our computers.

    What is most valuable?

    All around, user-friendliness stands out. 

    We don't use it in-depth, we just use the basic features. We knew what we wanted to do, what we wanted to block, and what we wanted to filter. We got this program as it matches. It's almost a carbon copy of what we use on our cell phones.

    It has been easy to understand and use the customization options provided by WebTitan.

    The solution protects all our staff, including remote, domestic, and traveling workers. It's something that we were after. It's very important, as we had problems with our kids getting into our computers via our router's Wi-Fi access, and they started to get addicted to stuff that we saw absolutely no benefit of. It is very important for our children. However, as far as people traveling, that wasn't that important. We did it for our children.

    What needs improvement?

    I've been trying to install an OTG on Windows 7 machines, and I simply can't get it to work. That said, I haven't had the time. We've been busier than ever in the last two or three months. I haven't had the time to actually call WebTitan and ask them what the problem is there. However, it seems there's something going on with Windows 7 where I can't install their OTG. Windows 10 I installed on multiple PCs and I haven't had a problem with it whatsoever. Yet with Windows 7, I simply can't get it to show up.

    When I get into WebTitan, there's a user tab and it shows all the PCs I've got connected to it. However, every Windows 7 machine I've tried to hook up does not show up there and that needs to be improved. Still, it's not something WebTitan hasn't been able to help me with as I simply haven't got the time to call them and say, "Hey, am I doing something wrong, or is there something wrong on your end?" 

    Other than that, we didn't buy it to get into the very minute details of what it can do. We bought it with a mindset of "This is what we want it to do." It's been working for what we wanted it to do. It's been working great, other than the Windows 7 PC issue.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for two months. It's very easy. We have a different program on our phones that we've had for a year, and they're very, very similar, so it was easy to learn. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The stability is great. I've had one glitch and it went away about a week or so ago. I was ready to call customer service and the next morning I got on my computer and wanted to check it out one more time. When I did, I saw that it had gone away. Every computer that we have on the system had defaulted back to the default policy for some reason. The OTGs we have installed where some computers are under a different policy had all gone back to the default policy. It just corrected itself.

    I don't know what happened or what somebody did, however, it's not something I had to spend a lot of time on. At first, all our users contacted me and said, "Hey, we can't do this. We can't do that," and I did a little research and saw that they should have been able to do that. I figured out that everything had defaulted back to the default policy. 

    It's been very dependable. I haven't spent more than probably an hour combined within the last two months checking it out and trying to fix something that isn't broken. Physically, it was plug and play and it's been very reliable so far.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution can scale. You buy per PC and it depends on how much money you want to pay somebody. If you want to add more PCs, you will have to pay more for your subscription.

    Right now there are 24 users on the default policy, however, there are many that are connected to wifi. What we have is 24 PCs hooked up to it, however, everybody's got smartphones, and there are probably 50 smartphones hooked up to it that we can't see. The roles of these device owners vary from management positions to just corporate employees and anywhere in between.

    As our company grows, we will expand its usage. So far, we see absolutely no point to go anywhere else. We wanted something very basic and it's taken care of exactly what we wanted. As we grow, we will buy more subscriptions.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support is great. Every time I've called, they've been able to help me. Even if I can't get a hold of them right away, I can leave a message and they'll call me back. They're very helpful.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We had nothing before this, so I can't say that the costs were reduced. We had wide-open internet and there were no filters and no blocks.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is straightforward and WebTitan helped. We spoke over the phone and connected the PC. They were given access to our PC and were very straightforward. In a mere 20 minutes, we were up and running.

    WebTitan doesn't need to install an agent or software on individual workstations. Every PC that we have has an OTG, which is software provided by WebTitan that you have to install. You can set a default policy if you like. Every PC connected to your internet falls under that default policy. If somebody wants to do it that way, it's a great feature. We installed an OTG onto every PC that we were going to have, that way, one person's PC can be monitored in a different way than your next person. It all depends on how you want to do it and how the end-user wants his computer to be monitored.

    That said, you can just set up WebTitan and you don't have to install anything on any individual PC, however, that's not how we chose to do it.

    We had to reuse our previous hardware setup for this installation. We bought nothing as there was nothing we had to add.

    It was cost-effective. I could use my existing products and did not need to buy anything. It cost me nothing other than buying their service.

    Our implementation strategy was via a text message We sent to all of the end-users a text message saying "We have now installed WebTitan on our base router, main router, and from here on out, this is what we'll be monitoring." I sent everybody a picture message of the interface of the web type pass that shows what has been enabled and disabled. We were very basic and straightforward. I let everybody know that if there was something they needed to be blocked or unblocked, they should take a picture off that website and send it to me and I’d block or unblock it for them, according to what made sense.

    No staff was required to deploy. There was someone I talked to from WebTitan and then she had another technician.

    Very little oversight was required after WebTitan was installed. If staff had issues with unblocking something, they’d come to me. That was very important, as nobody's really interested in spending a lot of time sitting in front of a computer and monitoring something. We wanted something we could install and walk away from. We're all fine and dandy with that.

    What about the implementation team?

    The deployment was handled by just me and a WebTitan representative. I did not use an integrator, reseller or consultant for the deployment.

    What was our ROI?

    We've definitely seen an ROI. Our people now work instead of playing games. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There's someone that's been pounding me to look at his solution. He says he does the same thing for free, and I've been telling him, "Well, who do you call if you have a problem?" And he can't give me an answer. 

    I tell people that if they can do it for free and they have got the time to actually sit back if there's a problem and spend two days trying to figure it out, then good for them. My situation is that I need a program that's fool-proof and fail-proof. My time is worth something, therefore, the price we pay for the subscription that includes somebody always improving the backend in a way that I'm not even aware of, makes everything worthwhile. It's a very minimal fee compared to the trouble we could have.

    There's a one-time yearly fee. We paid for it, and they never mentioned that they needed more money.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I sat in front of a computer, went on Google, started to research and I came upon several options. When I came across WebTitan I saw that I could check out their interface. It really resembled the program we use on our smartphones already. I liked that I didn't have to try to learn two different software. This is an almost complete match which is why we chose it.

    What other advice do I have?

    We do not use WebTitan On-The-Go.

    We don't monitor for viruses, ransomware, et cetera. We are all on Google Chrome and Microsoft. Some software comes with Microsoft, for example, Microsoft Defender, so we didn't have a problem worrying about malware or security issues.

    We left our internet wide open due to the fact that nobody really wanted to get involved or spend the time setting something up to monitor it, and we thought it wasn't necessary. However, the biggest holdback was that nobody really wanted to take the time. We thought it was more complex than it actually is. If somebody asked me, I'd tell them, just get WebTitan. It takes 25 to 30 minutes to set up. You don't have to buy anything, it'll integrate right into your existing equipment, and it's not complicated at all.

    If you need to monitor your internet and you've been dragging your feet out of fear of the complexity of doing it, don't worry about it. It's very simple and straightforward. We are, by no means, technical geeks. We've got a lot of automation in our place, however, we don't get into programming. We don't want to worry about installing the monitoring software, and then monitoring it. It's simple to install and somebody else takes care of everything for us.

    I'd rate the solution ten out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    TitanHQ WebTitan
    May 2023
    Learn what your peers think about TitanHQ WebTitan. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2023.
    708,461 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    President at PJM Digital Design
    Consultant
    Boosts productivity, intuitive setup, and it required no new investment in hardware
    Pros and Cons
    • "The most valuable feature is web filtering, where we are able to blacklist and whitelist sites on the fly."
    • "On occasion, we whitelist a site and it still gets blocked. To get it working, we have to remove it and then re-add it a couple of times, until it finally takes hold."

    What is our primary use case?

    We primarily use this solution for filtering. It handles whitelisting and blacklisting URLs and websites that the client machines can go to.

    We use the onsite DNS proxy running on a Hyper-V machine, and we use the WebTitan DNS servers for our forwarders.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Using this solution has helped to boost productivity in the company. For example, it has prevented people from watching basketball, be it the Final Four or March Madness. It has also prevented people from going to Amazon and shopping. We have subsets of users that purchase things for the business that are allowed to go to sites like Amazon, but overall, it has boosted productivity by blocking users from going to unwanted sites during the business day.

    In terms of helping to reduce viruses, ransomware, phishing, and malware attacks, it is difficult to quantify. We haven't had a ransomware attack, either previous to our implementation or since that time. Typically, phishing attacks come in via email, but we use Office 365 for that. We do have spoof emails coming in, although the email feature is not something that we have enabled in WebTitan.

    Using WebTitan helps to protect our staff, regardless of where they are working from. We have a SonicWall set up and we use the NetExtender VPN. All of the DNS is pointed toward the WebTitan proxy, as well as our wireless connections. Anybody that comes into the office with that phone that connects to the network is served through the WebTitan proxy through DNS.

    This is critically important for our organization because it's the number one thing that is protecting the environment. The biggest task these days is preventing malware, ransomware, and phishing. As part of a combined approach, it's been effective.

    We were able to use our existing server with Hyper-V on it to set up the DNS proxy. Other than the licensing of the software itself, there was really no extra cost added because we used existing hardware.

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable feature is web filtering, where we are able to blacklist and whitelist sites on the fly.

    Overall, the system is fairly easy to use. I would rate it a seven out of ten in terms of how easy it is to understand and use the customization options.

    It was very important to us that WebTitan doesn't need to install an agent or other software on individual workstations. That was one of the reasons we didn't go with some of the other options; we really don't want an agent running on a machine, taking up resources. It makes bringing new machines into the environment more difficult and more time-consuming.

    What needs improvement?

    Although the interface is easy to use, it takes some getting used to.

    The main issue that I have with the product is related to the DNS proxy. The fact that all of our clients are pointed to the DNS proxy for DNS has caused us some problems. The serious one was that there was a Microsoft update that was released and when we updated the server that the DNS proxy resides on, it stopped the Hyper-V service from starting. That brought down the entire business, which was not good for us. Due to issues like this, the DNS proxy is my least favorite part of this solution.

    On occasion, we whitelist a site and it still gets blocked. To get it working, we have to remove it and then re-add it a couple of times, until it finally takes hold. The same thing happens with the blacklist but it happens more often with the whitelist. It doesn't happen all of the time, or very often, but it happens.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been working with TitanHQ WebTitan for between two and a half and three years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    This is a stable solution, as long as our DNS proxy stays up.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We have added some PCs and some servers to our infrastructure, and it scaled up okay. I haven't doubled or tripled the number of client or server machines, so it would be hard to speak to that. However, it scales fine for our purposes.

    We have between 30 and 35 workstations, with a couple of servers. Every user typically brings in their phone and connects to the wireless network. In total, we probably have between 60 and 70 devices connected on any given day.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support has been good and they've been supportive. That said, it could be a little easier to navigate. Sometimes, we're not sure what number to call or who to contact, so if there could just be a screen presented to us, that would just make support a little easier.

    It's been a while since I opened a ticket, but I think it's a phone call. Submitting a case is a little onerous. I would prefer a more specific protocol to be able to use to submit a case and track it, rather than just calling support and talking to someone. It's fine, but it's nice to be able to reference back and have a web interface where I can manage the support calls.

    We did not use live support to help us with onboarding. We were provided with documentation, so that was the extent of what we had used.

    I would rate the support an eight out of ten. It's more the process that I would criticize, and not the actual people in support. They have been fine.

    The last issue that we had to deal with was difficult. When the proxy failed because of the update, we handled it by changing our DNS back to our domain controllers. The problem was that we were still having issues.

    It may have been my fault because I had forgotten that the DCs were also set to have WebTitan as their forwarders. Nobody reminded me, either. We chased our tails for half a day and then finally realized that we should check the configuration. Once I saw the forwarders configured, I removed them and put in our Verizon forwarders. After that, everything started working. Things like that just happen, and it's really nobody's fault.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    Prior to WebTitan, we did not have another web filtering solution in place.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup was not complex, although I'm in IT. It certainly would be complex for a layperson that's not familiar with these types of things.

    The most difficult part was probably getting Hyper-V and the remote DNS machine set up and running. Besides that, it was fairly intuitive.

    The deployment was completed in one business day but building the whitelist and the blacklist is an ongoing task. Initially, that probably took another half business day.

    Our implementation strategy began with an online demo with a WebTitan representative. We looked at the product and the documentation, and read case reports. We did not test it. Rather, once we decided we were going to use it, we committed and installed it.

    What about the implementation team?

    Two of us were responsible for the deployment. I'm the IT consultant and handle all of the IT tasks. The other person wears many hats, primarily office manager, but does day-to-day IT.

    Once it is installed, it's pretty much hands-off after that. There were two instances when the DNS proxy failed, which we had to look after. Also, there is basic day-to-day maintenance of the different sites. Overall, however, it's hands-off as long as nothing breaks.

    What was our ROI?

    In the sense that it's increased productivity, we have seen ROI.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    WebTitan is an inexpensive product compared to others on the market, so it has helped to reduce costs associated with web filtering. I estimate that it is between 20% and 30%, compared to the alternatives that we looked at.

    It's very aggressively priced, which is something that we definitely like. With corporations, everything is the bottom line. That's what they look at first and that's what they were satisfied with.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We looked at several solutions when we were evaluating products. One was Barracuda, and there was a Symantec product along with a couple of others.

    The advantage that we saw with WebTitan was that we didn't have to install a local client. It was also cost-effective.

    Our main reason for choosing it was that it worked.

    What other advice do I have?

    My advice for anybody who is implementing WebTitan is to look at the environment carefully. Make sure that wherever you're using the DNS proxy is very stable, because that's the heartbeat of the product. If that fails, everything fails.

    Also, try to get used to using the interface to build your white and blacklists. I think the key thing is making sure that the DNS proxy is on a stable machine, and that you're going to test updates before you apply them. Microsoft is notorious for breaking something every other month with an update.

    I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Hybrid Cloud
    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    Director Of Information Technology at a consumer goods company with 11-50 employees
    Real User
    Top 20
    Keeps us from getting compromised with something that will impact the day-to-day business
    Pros and Cons
    • "Not a whole lot of oversight is required after WebTitan is installed. I get email notifications and occasionally browse the reporting. This is pretty important because I don't have the bandwidth to actively monitor all this stuff 24/7. It is just not possible. Therefore, it is important that it doesn't require a lot of my time once it is deployed and working."
    • "There were a few little glitches in the beginning when rolling out the client app that resides on laptops."

    What is our primary use case?

    The main focus is just adding an additional layer of security to what we already have, knowing that no particular solution protects you 100%. It provides an additional layer of security while browsing the Internet, which seems to be the most vulnerable place for most companies. It doesn't necessarily mean you are going to a legitimate site, as it could be redirecting you to something malicious, which turns out to be pretty bad. We already have an existing antivirus and gateway security. This was more just an added layer. We are strictly using it as a DNS filter. It seems to achieve what we are looking for. It also blocks some content that could be potentially questionable or harmful.

    For our main corporate LAN, we are using WebTitan DNS forwarders that we have set on our local LAN through their DNS filtering servers. Then, we use the OTG client for our mobile devices. We also have laptop users who may or may not always be at our main corporate LAN office, and when they are not on the premises, they use the OTG client.

    We are strictly Windows-based.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It is not necessarily providing any value as far as streamlining our processes. It is not helping with the day-to-day business side of things. It is more just an additional layer of security. It provides me more of a, "Hey, I have this additional layer of security. I have visibility into what is going on with these devices on the Internet browsing side." 

    Keeping us safe is important. The safer we are, the less likely we are to get compromised and then have lost revenue and costs, whether it is a ransomware attack or just a single device down.

    Since we have deployed this solution, it seems like there are fewer threats that our gateway security appliance detects. However, I have no way of saying, "Hey, without this solution, there would have been 100,000 attacks in the last six months, and with this solution, it is now 50,000." I have no way to really validate whether it is the WebTitan solution that is responsible for the decrease in threats being blocked at the gateway. I suspect that is the case as it seems like the number of threats have gone up for most businesses in the past year. So, it seems to have helped, but I have no way to really quantify whether that is the case or not.

    A remote user has the WebTitan Cloud OTG client installed along with other applications that we have deployed, security, etc. This is really important in regards to keeping the technology side of our business going and keeping us from hopefully getting compromised with something that will impact the day-to-day business on the technology side of what we do. 

    What is most valuable?

    The dashboard of the customer portal has an overview of the web stats for the day, showing where we are at with some of the sites or addresses with high consumption and on what devices. It also has the ability to pull up past reporting, etc. Then, it ties all that stuff out to individual users, which is great. Since there is a lot of web traffic, if you are not sure where that is coming from inside your organization, then it is kind of hard to correct.

    The DNS Proxy 2.06 works. There are no major delays in browsing the Internet. I haven't had any issues with it. Obviously, for seeing certain content be blocked, it seems to work just fine.

    What needs improvement?

    They probably could improve on the initial deployment and the issues that we ran into with the WebTitan Cloud OTG client installation on our mobile devices or laptops. Other than that, everything has been pretty turnkey for the most part.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We rolled it out around November or December 2021. We demoed it for a bit, then went live.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Not a whole lot of oversight is required after WebTitan is installed. I get email notifications and occasionally browse the reporting. This is pretty important because I don't have the bandwidth to actively monitor all this stuff 24/7. It is just not possible. Therefore, it is important that it doesn't require a lot of my time once it is deployed and working.

    How are customer service and support?

    The little bit that I have dealt with them, the technical support has been fine. I have dealt with all kinds of different organizations and providers who had good and bad tech support. They rank right up there with some of the other good ones that I have dealt with. I would rate the technical support as nine out of 10.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    How was the initial setup?

    It is pretty straightforward to implement and put live in an environment.

    The complete deployment probably took way longer than it should have. That was really more on my end, not on TitanHQ's end. I am the IT department, consisting of one individual. Under normal circumstances, if you had an organization with multiple IT individuals, then it could get deployed pretty quickly within a short period of time.

    We had an existing server, which was an existing domain controller, that already had DNS on it. So, we just utilized the DNS forwarding side of the DNS server to essentially point to WebTitan's DNS filtering servers. Other than a little bit of my time to update the forwarders to what they provided, it didn't take more than a few minutes to make the change. Therefore, there was very little cost on that piece of it.

    What about the implementation team?

    The guys at TitanHQ were able to help with the initial testing that I did. Once we decided to go live with it, they made it pretty easy to deploy in our organization. There were a few little glitches in the beginning when rolling out the client app that resides on laptops. However, once they figured out what was going on, that was resolved. Then, all additional deployments to all the remaining laptops in our organization were turnkey and problem-free.

    The initial account representative that I dealt with was great about communicating. He set up remote Zoom calls to kind of go over the platform and help with the onboarding process, then looped in the tech support team when needed. It was a pretty turnkey process from start to finish.

    What was our ROI?

    As far as seeing the value, it was probably instantaneous. Once we went live with it, I could review stats on the customer portal side of things and just dig into the details, which was easy to understand. It was pretty instantaneous to say, "Hey, we made the right decision."

    In my mind, it is well worth the money that we spent. We will continue to probably spend per year on this solution, knowing that this is one additional thing that I can say, "Hey, I have implemented," that will provide us the best protection out there along with everything else that we have.

    WebTitan helps reduce costs associated with web filtering. In the event that somebody was compromised due to browsing the Internet, there will be at least one device offline. The time and energy spent cleaning that thing up and getting it back online, as well as having that user set up with some sort of a solution so they can continue working, makes it well worth the money. If a single device has been compromised, my time and the potential of having to buy additional hardware is worth at least a couple thousand dollars. Worst case scenario, if our entire organization or the majority of our organization got compromised, then it could get into the 50,000-plus for recovery. It depends on if it is a massive ransomware attack where it has pretty much crippled our entire business.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    I looked at a couple other solutions, like Cisco Umbrella, but this was the one that I decided to go with. I decided to go with WebTitan because of online reviews and the price point. It felt like the right solution versus some of the other ones out there.

    I demoed Cisco Umbrella for a bit. It just seemed like it was going to take too much time to get it up and running in our organization. I felt that the cost and the amount of time, then potentially what it might require moving forward, was just too much.

    What other advice do I have?

    I elected not to use it with Azure Active Directory. We don't use Azure and I don't have AD integration set up at this point. Down the road, I might elect to do so. It just didn't make sense for the size of our organization.

    It probably doesn't provide much value on the customer service side because that is a totally different system. It is self-contained and cloud-managed by the provider.

    Being around the technology industry for many years and just seeing different services and applications come, go, and evolve, I would say WebTitan (at this point) seems to be a good solution that doesn't require a lot of out-of-pocket expenses. It also doesn't require a lot of IT resources to implement and manage moving forward.

    I would rate this solution as nine out of 10.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    Mark Politowicz - PeerSpot reviewer
    Endpoint Management Engineer at State of Idaho
    Real User
    Customizable and intuitive with good documentation
    Pros and Cons
    • "It has been easy to understand and use customization options provided by WebTitan."
    • "The documentation could always be better. That's true for any organization."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use the solution for web filtering at our patient-access computers including a classroom for teens.

    How has it helped my organization?

    I don't have any metrics, however, I can say that the proctor or teacher for those students was getting frustrated with having to police the students so closely. With this program, he doesn't have to. I haven't done any penetration testing on it to see if there are ways around it unless the users are able to change the DNS servers somehow. I even think there's a solution for that too with Titan, with using their certificate, or they have to also have a small client that you can't install. However, at this time, installing anything locally doesn't seem necessary.

    What is most valuable?

    There are a few features we really like. It seems to be very robust. It's easy to set up. It has a lot more functionality and capabilities than we aren't even using yet. For instance, WebTitan has a solution for laptops that go offsite. Currently all we have to do is set up a location in the Web Titan console, which is very easy to use, have an external facing IP address, and then use WebTitan DNS servers locally on the laptop. It's really easy to use. There's nothing for us really to install.

    It has been easy to understand and use customization options provided by WebTitan.

    Their documentation is great and the console is very intuitive. The reporting seems to be very good too. I haven't really been pulling very many reports. I just look at them once in a while. The proctor for the students looks at reporting a little bit more closely than I. I just glance at it every once in a while.

    In terms of a reduction in viruses, ransomware, phishing, malware, et cetera, we haven't had any reports of that yet. The hospital with the students that I'm referring to is fairly new. It's around eight months old. The instructor has not reported any. That said, before we started WebTitan, there wasn't any reported malware, phishing, or anything like that going on. I can't say there's a reduction because they didn't report any to start with. However, we also haven't had any attacks. 

    WebTitan has helped reduce costs associated with web filtering because it is less expensive than an appliance.

    We get immediate value from the solution. Reports from the admin console reveal both blocked an allowed sites. WebTitan negates the need for a proctor monitoring patients with regard to web filtering.

    WebTitan didn't need to install an agent or software on individual work stations, and that saved a lot of time.  It made deployment go a lot faster. Also, none of these computers are actually on our physical network. It's challenging to do remote support with them. We have a cloud service appliance that we can use to remote in with them but somebody needs to be there. Somebody has to accept the invitation, for example. In our configuration, deploying an agent or certificate would require a lot of hands-on effort since we had to deploy WebTitan after the laptops were deployed . 

    What needs improvement?

    I really can't think of anything else that they could do. Maybe the longer we use it, we may come up with some ideas for improvement.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used the solution for about a year now.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Stability is good. It seems we haven't had any problems with that whatsoever.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Extremely scalable. 

    How are customer service and support?

    Their support is amazing. If I ever have a question, the fellow that set me up allows me to just drop him an email real quick. He answers right away, even though he's in a different time zone. He may be in Ireland.

    When we first purchased it, our contact was really good about sending me complete instructions on how to deploy it. Those instructions were extremely helpful. The level of support that we got for that onboarding was great.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    On our main network, we use Cisco Umbrella, however, with regard to other types of similar solutions, no. We tried using the LanSchool web filtering. It wasn't robust enough.

    How was the initial setup?

    We are in the process of expanding our deployment. The intended use of technology for this project was a moving target. Outcomes kept changing  WebTitan helped fulfill those outcomes.

    Per computer, it's easy to install. Determine the external IP log into the admin console, create a location using the external IP and configure the web filtering rules (easy and intuitive)

    Per machine, it only takes a few minutes just to change the DNS entries. You could get the whole thing done quickly. We have 15 laptops out there. That might take half an hour or maybe an hour to be generous. You have the whole thing done in an hour and 15 minutes, an hour and a half.

    Our implementation strategy for setting up testing and rolling out WebTitan to our users was to have some test computers. Now that we're working from home, I also have an extra laptop here on-site with me at home where I can actually test on my own DSL to see how it works. 

    I also rolled it out on a couple of virtual machines on our network to see how it would play. Once I tested that and got that working and had it checked to make sure it was blocking sites, then we went ahead and did it on the DSL computer down at our hospital. It worked great. When the proctor realized that the LanSchool was not going to be able to do what he needed, it is being deployed there now as well.

    The oversight required now after the solution's been installed is basically just checking logs. We're still with the hospital where the students are. I'm sure that's going to take a little bit of tweaking to see if everything is covered properly. Maybe students are finding sites that might be uncategorized. You can filter by a category, you can filter by a specific site, or by content. There's going to be a little bit of fine-tuning there if the students are very creative and find ways around the filters or find sites that they want to go to that they shouldn't be seeing. That's going to be any solution really.

    The level of oversight we needed was important to us. LanSchool, while it's great for content management and blackboards, it is really not robust enough for blocking the students from certain malware. Students will try to find any reason not to work or to do their assignments. They do an online learning-based solution that they do require access to. It's not like you can't just shut them out of the internet, there are certain things that they need to be able to see. The nice thing is that, with WebTitan, it's so customizable. You can say, "Here, you can go to these things. You can't go to those." However, you do need to tweak and maintain it as you go, as students try to get around certain filters.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    We reused our previous hardware to set up for the installation. It did not affect the cost of our overall setup. The licensing, although I can't remember the exact cost, was very affordable. I want to say it was around $40 per license approximately. It is inexpensive.

    We didn't have to add any extra RAM or anything. The laptops we were using were fine, the computer, the DSL computer they were using was fine. The product doesn't really add any overhead to it.

    If we need to expand, we will need to purchase more licenses.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We did some research on different platforms. We did a trial. There was a trial version available of WebTitan and that's how I tested it and it seemed to work great. The pricing was right. Our contact was awesome with answering any questions during the trial period. It seemed like a really good way to go.

    What other advice do I have?

    At this time, we do not use WebTitan On-The-Go due to the fact that all the computers we're using are stationary or they're always going to be on our network.

    I'd rate the solution a ten out of ten. I'm very happy with it.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    Infrastructure / Database Lead at a healthcare company with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Saved us many times from malware payloads, and helps productivity by blocking general browsing
    Pros and Cons
    • "It's extremely stable. I would say it's flawless. We did have some concerns that, if it did fail, all internet access would stop for our people because the proxy wouldn't be there. That concern has subsided over the years because it's proven that it doesn't really fail."
    • "For security, it's very restrictive. For us, it blocks a lot, even too much, so we have had to create exceptions. A new implementation takes a bit of time to train it up, to put in all the exclusions, but once you have that done, it's just a matter of adding things as they come up."

    What is our primary use case?

    Our use case is about protecting our infrastructure. We also restrict certain user profiles, so as a productivity tool it blocks access for general browsing.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We get two overall benefits: security and productivity.

    For security, it is, maybe, a little bit restrictive. But it suits us that we have time to unblock websites. It can be a little bit tricky in that sometimes you need to understand how web frameworks work. You might unblock a website, but there could also be content delivery networks or different frameworks that come from a website, and they need to be blocked as well. It takes a little bit of understanding. But we're happy that it's overly restrictive because we can actually see that WebTitan has saved us a good number of times, occasions when we would have had some type of malware payload delivered, but we have seen that it was blocked.

    We've absolutely seen a reduction in malware attacks by using WebTitan. We have confirmed evidence. We can see the blocks of malicious websites. If somebody opens up an attachment and there's a link in it, it's blocking the link. It has done its job. The benefits outweigh the hassle of configuring and maintaining it.

    In our company, productivity might stop if there were, for example, a big sporting event coming up. In a manufacturing environment, we don't want people to be tuning into the sporting event. The profiles we have in manufacturing cut their access down to the bare-minimum, essential websites.

    What is most valuable?

    The basic functionality of blocking access to websites has proven very beneficial.

    What needs improvement?

    We have never really fully come to grips with the customization options provided by WebTitan. It is a little bit tricky and what happened was that we got it working the way we needed it to work and we just left it at that. But WebTitan do provide all the assistance and support that you need to get it going.

    For security, it's very restrictive. For us, it blocks a lot, even too much, so we have had to create exceptions. A new implementation takes a bit of time to train it up, to put in all the exclusions, but once you have that done, it's just a matter of adding things as they come up.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using WebTitan for eight to 10 years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It's extremely stable. I would say it's flawless. We did have some concerns that, if it did fail, all internet access would stop for our people because the proxy wouldn't be there. That concern has subsided over the years because it's proven that it doesn't really fail.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    We've had to scale up and it's scaled now. We have it on a VM, so we had to add virtual resources, but that was fine. The product itself scales okay. 

    We currently have 1,500 users and they represent a mix of remote and on site, but they are primarily on site. We don't really need to differentiate between those groups of users because users VPN in, so it's the same model regardless of whether people are on site or remote.

    How are customer service and support?

    You find out how good a company is through the support that it provides, and over the years, their support has been great. We've only had one or two issues and they were caused due to our site growing. The on-prem appliance wasn't sized for our requirements as a result and there were some knock-on issues.

    They were timely and resolved things fast. It was easy to work with them and the communications were clear. We also have a level of trust in them because they have offices here in Ireland, so we have a good relationship with their people.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    In the past we had Websense Content Gateway and we had McAfee Web Gateway. We were on Websense, then we went to McAfee Web Gateway and we went back to Websense, but it still wasn't any good. They were really at varying levels of "awful." When we moved to WebTitan, it just did what we needed.

    The other solutions were just awful to configure and were very limited with what you could do, in terms of the reporting. That was 10-plus years ago, and those products certainly have evolved a lot in a decade.

    How was the initial setup?

    We did our configurations back in the early days, so maybe it has improved since then, but some assistance on how to configure it might help, some pre-made assistance on how to configure and deploy. But it's good. It's a good tool.

    We did it on a trial basis and phased it in. There were three of us involved, although we had one engineer whose project it was, and it took a month or two. Then we started migrating users over to it. We took a cautious approach.

    After the initial deployment, it's straightforward. You forget about it really, and it's only when users request that a website be unblocked that you have to work on it. We might have one or two requests a week to unblock a website. In terms of oversight, it's just reviewing the logs periodically to see what's happening. There's no maintenance.

    What was our ROI?

    The solution hasn't reduced our costs associated with web filtering because we're still using advanced threat protection and we're using URL filtering there as well. WebTitan is part of our suite of defenses. We have protection in place on the client-side as well as on the network, including intrusion detection. It's part of a toolset. I wouldn't say that if you get WebTitan you can get rid of some other things.

    But the cost-saving part is in respect to the cost of a breach. It has saved our having to respond to something nasty getting on-premises.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The pricing is good. It's a substantial cost, but they've held their prices over the years, which has been good. 

    It's a little bit restrictive when it comes to growth because at one stage they were selling additional blocks of 500 and you could end up paying for more than you needed. But overall, it's been fine. I can't complain, given what we get out of it and what we pay for it. 

    What other advice do I have?

    Evaluate from the start, whether you want the on-prem or cloud version. It depends on what industry you're in, and on what your requirements are. We shy away from cloud-based, because there is just too much farce, as a tightly-governed company and with GDPR, et cetera. We've only seen that things have settled down on that front in the last couple of years. Now, there is some solid framework and guidance on how to do this stuff right. By that I mean that the solution holds onto people's browsing history, and that is quite sensitive data.

    This issue has nothing to do with the actual product. Companies need to decide for themselves which approach is best for them, understanding that there could be a lot of lengthy policies and procedures and approvals required before you actually even use the product. And that would be true regardless of any proxy software you're considering. 

    So you need to look at what the right approach is for you, from the start, based on your requirements. I believe the transition from on-prem to cloud is easy. 

    Overall, I would rate WebTitan at nine out of 10. It dropped a few points with how restrictive it is and because of the issues in getting it configured. But I add a few points back based on the fact that it has saved us numerous times, and that the support and the reporting are quite good.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    Michael Mok - PeerSpot reviewer
    Head of Infrastructure at Anglo-Eastern Ship Management Ltd
    Real User
    Enables us to effortlessly filter out the content that we do not want, including specific websites or domains
    Pros and Cons
    • "The DNS proxy is also valuable. It has nothing to do with blocking websites, which we can do by sending all our DNS requests through WebTitan. However, the DNS proxy gives us more information about the machine sending the request. If you cross-reference that information with WADA, you can determine which user is making the request and create a user-specific policy or profile."
    • "WebTitan could improve the software module and the platform's overall stability, and its competitors have a more sophisticated user interface. We have found some bugs as well as some issues with functionality and security that we've already forwarded to TitanHQ."

    What is our primary use case?

    The primary use case for WebTitan is content filtering, but we are also incorporating more security into that. For example, if we want to specifically block a web page or domain, we can do it through WebTitan

    We use a SaaS version deployed globally throughout our offices. There are two ways to deploy WebTitan. One is a site-based deployment, and the other is an on-the-go or machine-to-machine deployment. We have all the sites deployed and are moving into an OTG configuration, so our laptops are protected. We are deploying OTG right now for all machines and DNS Proxy at all our locations.

    How has it helped my organization?

    WebTitan enables us to effortlessly filter out the content that we do not want, including specific websites or domains. Covering offsite workers used to be less important, but employees are increasingly working from home, so it's helpful that WebTitan covers all our employees regardless of where they are. Our licensing model covers all our users.

    We've seen some reduction in attacks since implementing WebTitan, and I think this will significantly improve once we automate our blocklist. It accounts for about a quarter of our larger security arsenal, but we have other tools to protect against malware, phishing, viruses, etc.

    It has also saved some money on web filtering. It's a much more economical solution compared to Cisco Umbrella. And while it doesn't improve the end-user experience per se, it increases our IT team's effectiveness at preventing users from accessing harmful content. 

    At the end of the day, WebTitan is there to restrict users from navigating to malicious websites. Obviously, users would prefer to go where they want, but WebTitan helps us protect them from malicious websites and phishing links. So in that sense, it's been great.

    What is most valuable?

    We like having the ability to use API to make calls into WebTitan. This is crucial for us, especially when we are automating WebTitan's domain or URL blocker and integrating it into our security system. 

    The DNS proxy is also valuable. It has nothing to do with blocking websites, which we can do by sending all our DNS requests through WebTitan. However, the DNS proxy gives us more information about the machine sending the request. If you cross-reference that information with WADA, you can determine which user is making the request and create a user-specific policy or profile. 

    What needs improvement?

    WebTitan could improve the software module and the platform's overall stability, and its competitors have a more sophisticated user interface. We have found some bugs as well as some issues with functionality and security that we've already forwarded to TitanHQ.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We've used WebTitan for almost three years.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    WebTitan should be able to support a large organization. We have around 14 sites and 2,000 users, and it has been okay so far. For greater scalability, they would need to assign more resources to the tenants. You would need a different resource pool to support an organization with around 10,000 users.

    How are customer service and support?

    I would rate TitanHQ support eight out of 10 based on their ability to resolve day-to-day issues. My experience has been relatively good so far. However, we discovered some bugs in the DNS proxy, and they still haven't told us if they've resolved the issue. That's why I would rate it eight rather than 10.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    In the past, we used some other web filtering solutions. Some are built into endpoint detection and response systems, while others are integrated into firewalls. However, it's better not to have features like DNS proxy tied to the firewalls or EDR. 

    We used Cisco Umbrella for a short time, but we found that it was too sensitive. It had too many false positives where it blocked everything before validation.

    Feature-wise, WebTitan is comparable to Cisco Umbrella and other solutions, but its main advantage is the pricing structure because Cisco Umbrella costs about three times as much. 

    How was the initial setup?

    Setting up WebTitan is straightforward because everything is online. We didn't really need help to deploy WebTitan. We just read the materials and follow the instructions. It's really not complicated. The difficulty is encountering bugs. That's where we need some help.

    Configuring WebTitan's filters is simple because there's nothing about the user that needs to be set up. You install the WebTitan DNS proxy then go to your Active Directory and install the WADA. Ensure that it's working on the right ports through your network, and that's it. For an OTG configuration, you install an agent on every single device. We have the facilities to run that on all of our machines remotely. It's not too hard. 

    I set up the filter by myself in one day. However, it took us almost a year to deploy the proxy, the WADA, and user resolution on all the sites. The global security and infrastructure team, which consists of about three or four people, worked with me on the second part of the deployment. But most of that has nothing to do with WebTitan. It's about ensuring our Active Directories and everything else are clean, so we can get the best data.

    As long as you set up the policy categories correctly and ensure that the safelist and blocklists transfer from the default policy, it's not difficult to manage. You can also manage it through an API. You can do your automation on your own platform, and it sends a signal to WebTitan about what to block and what to unblock.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I think the price of WebTitan is reasonable. They have an edge in the market. I don't think there's a comparable solution for the same price. It takes some of the workloads off our firewall or EDR, so it's well worth the price for what it does.

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate WebTitan nine out of 10 because of the price and the features. Better stability and data services would make it a solid 10.

    My advice to people thinking about implementing WebTitan is simple. When it comes to security, never put all your eggs in one basket. Our company has no less than three products for every type of security function. 

    For example, I block all the different categories I do not want users to access through WebTitan. At the same time, I have my EDR on every PC blocking phishing and malicious websites. We have our firewall on top of that providing the same protection. 

    Furthermore, we use two brands of firewalls that provide the same protection against malicious files and websites. In short, there are three layers of protection for my users.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user
    IT Systems Administrator at State Attorneys Office 13th Circuit
    Real User
    Top 20
    Its reports give me a clear view of who is accessing what as well as which computer may have a virus or malware
    Pros and Cons
    • "Their report tool is the most valuable. By using the URL-base filtering, their reports give me a clear view of who is accessing what as well as which computer may have a virus or malware."
    • "I would like to have a live chat feature with their support. This is one of the things that I like that they haven't offered yet. If they have live support, then at least I can work with an engineer when I have a problem and not have to wait for the engineer to respond."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use their cloud-base for the DNS, and this is called WebTitan. Basically, we send on a DNS request through their DNS servers for filtering. Our use case for WebTitan is to filter all the bad URLs to check and make sure that we don't have any malware, etc. that might go through our network. We use it to replace the traditional proxy that requires a server onsite with a CPU, etc. 

    How has it helped my organization?

    The issue that we had before with our proxy is sometimes that proxy would not be responding. We had to go into the server, do a restart and troubleshoot. With WebTitan, they have a group to control the cloud-base. I haven't really had to do a lot of extra steps. Usually, when something like that happens, I just reach out to their support. They can tell me right away what is going on with the system. Most of the time, it is something on my end that I need to reconfigure. In general, I have not really run into a downtime issue with WebTitan since I have used it.

    WebTitan protects all our staff. This is important because we are in law enforcement. Therefore, we need to ensure that we don't have a high chance of contracting malware because of the confidentiality of our information.

    WebTitan’s Web filtering has helped improve the quality of service that we offer to customers. This is important because we always need instant access to the Internet. The response time is crucial for us, especially when we need to reach out to different agencies to research information.

    What is most valuable?

    Their report tool is the most valuable. By using the URL-base filtering, their reports give me a clear view of who is accessing what as well as which computer may have a virus or malware. Once I get the reports, I have to review them. Then, I go into WebTitan to search for that computer to see exactly what URL went through. After that, I will reach out to the workstation. This still requires somebody to keep an eye on what is going on.

    It is pretty easy to understand and use the customization options provided by WebTitan. Everything is straightforward and pretty easy for me.

    What needs improvement?

    I would like to have a live chat feature with their support. This is one of the things that I like that they haven't offered yet. If they have live support, then at least I can work with an engineer when I have a problem and not have to wait for the engineer to respond.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using them for almost a year.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    They are stable. We haven't run into any issues with their system since using them.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    They are pretty scalable. Our office is small, as we have only 500 users, but we haven't run into issues with them since we got the system up and running.

    All our employees are using WebTitan in one way or another.

    How are customer service and support?

    Whenever I have questions because I am not sure of what something means, I reach out to their support. Usually, they get back to me pretty quickly.

    Overall, the technical support is great. They usually work with me to try to figure things out in a decent amount of time. I don't really have a lot of complaints for them, just compliments.

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Positive

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We previously used EdgeWave. They were sold to GoSecure. GoSecure bought them, then the biggest problem that we had with their system was we had to maintain the hardware. The hardware would have cost us somewhere around $30,000, and then we would have to pay for maintenance support on top of that. Adding up all those factors when using WebTitan saves us money.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is not too complicated, but there are multiple servers. I would rate the process as three out of 10, where 10 is most complex. 

    It is preferable that WebTitan doesn’t need to install an agent or software on individual workstations. We don't like having third-party software installed on our system. There is a fear with a third-party company that somebody, even though they are our vendor, will still have a way to look into our computers. Therefore, we preferably don't install any agents on the computers.

    To get it up and running, it took me less than an hour. To be perfect on the configuration, it took about four hours to just figure out all the kinks and everything else.

    What about the implementation team?

    We set it up in our test environment and had some users go through it. We had a list of bad URLs that we sent through it, just to see how it responds. Then, if everything went okay, we can roll it out to our users almost instantly.

    We used TitanHQ's technical support team for onboarding. They have been helpful in every way. Their documentation is great, but there were things that I was not 100% sure about, so I reached out to their support who responded with helpful information.

    What was our ROI?

    We have seen ROI in time and effort. Budgetary-wise, overall when factoring in the cost for WebTitan, it is cheaper every year in comparison to other systems.

    We have seen approximately a 30% reduction in malware attack traffic. I am confident in WebTitan to filter this out for me.

    WebTitan has helped reduce costs associated with Web filtering by more than 50%.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    We pay an annual subscription for this. They have good pricing. They are not expensive compared to other solutions that we evaluated. I like the fact that it is just one price for the year. I don't have to worry too much about fluctuations.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    We also evaluated Cisco Umbrella. It does pretty much everything that WebTitan does. However, they are really expensive.

    What other advice do I have?

    Give them a try. I know that a lot of people still have mixed feelings about WebTitan. Whatever they had in the past, when I read the review from them, some people seemed to complain a lot about their performance. However, since we have used them, I haven't really experienced any performance issues.

    Overall, I would rate the solution as 10 out of 10.

    Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
    PeerSpot user