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Blue Coat Advanced Web & Cloud Security [EOL] vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Blue Coat Advanced Web & Cl...
Average Rating
6.4
Number of Reviews
3
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (11th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Consultant Proxy Engineering at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Cloud gateway has strengthened remote web security and now needs better Mac and ISP support
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent for the Mac agents. That is where in 2025, we had to migrate to the Palo Alto-based platform. If your use case is for just Windows laptops,you can consider this platform as an option One issue is the data center resiliency part. In India especially, they are not tied up with the Tier 1 ISPs like Tata or Airtel; they were having Tier 2 ISPs and encountered many issues reaching few major sites that my organization depends on, and they were having problems that they could not fix quickly. They also lack a mechanism to route that traffic within their data center; rather, they ask customers to make a pac file change to route it to Singapore explicitly. It would be better if they route from their backend , i mean even if I send it to India DC, they should be able to route it internally to make that work; however, they fail to do that and ask the customer to route it in the pac file. Another suggestion is that in China, they do not have the proper setup; they used to have numerous problems with slowness and lack of premium circuits in China as well. That leads to multiple sites working slowly with latency-related issues. So the main issue is the ISP-related problems that need to be solved.
MB
Senior IT Security at ALEXBANK
Easy to change categories and has many ways to filter
The categorize formula is very helpful. Previously, we used the Cisco solution, where we could not choose how sites are categorized. Blue Coat updated a lot of sites I categorized. There are other valuable features as well, such as block by location, block by IP, allow by IP, and block by user name, domain, or group domain.
reviewer1047669 - PeerSpot reviewer
PS & Technical Manager at a tech services company with 11-50 employees
Has faced usability challenges while managing integrated components
We are working with web gateway and full endpoint security. URL filter is a notable feature. While it is not specifically related to Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway alone, if you have the complete Forcepoint solution, it can integrate with other Forcepoint products, such as DLP solution and email gateway. The URL filter of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is good for web gateway. Clients and consumers do not prefer it because the interface is not good. When using FSM with DLP, web gateway, and email gateway, upgrades cannot be performed simultaneously since Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway might need an upgrade while email gateway does not, despite having the same manager controlling them. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway works well with banking and small companies. Email gateway is less needed as everything is moving to the cloud.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"The solution is very stable, and in four years we have not seen any issues with the product."
"If you need web services, this product covers your needs."
"The categorize formula is very helpful. Previously, we used the Cisco solution, where we could not choose how sites are categorized. Blue Coat updated a lot of sites I categorized. There are other valuable features as well, such as block by location, block by IP, allow by IP, and block by user name, domain, or group domain."
"The content filters and SSL encryption are the most valuable features of this solution."
"It's stable and reliable."
"SSL Inspection ability to send decrypted traffic to other security solutions for inspection."
"The solution is a combination of Gatsby web security and the LP, and the product is simple, stable, and reliable."
"The Sandbox is a very useful solution for sand-boxing malware / phishing etc. from corporate email accounts."
"Forcepoint has still proven to be the best for me."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a user-friendly solution."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway does most of its job well, but I especially like its data security feature."
"One of the main features I have found the solution to be efficient."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"Java does not completely work. We are dependent on Java and when the current console does not run with Java, it is a problem for us."
"The console visibility and the performance impact on the internet needs improvement."
"Every customer has to perform a manual backup, and automatic backing up is needed."
"I would rate this solution a three out of ten."
"The availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well."
"Sometimes attacks or a new ransomware gets through."
"There should be more hardware models available and the application control could improve."
"Stability needs some improvement, we have on occasion experienced some delay when it is synchronized."
"To access the root of the product for troubleshooting you must have a data engineer. This is the big issue with Forcepoint. The support community is not good."
"An area for improvement would be the classification of websites - it can take a long time for new websites to be classified."
"The firewall doesn't have any features because some customers are requesting they will install the firewall without licensing. At this time we cannot go further without licensing. Licensing is a must with Forcepoint Web Security firewalls."
"Ease of use could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The cost is much higher compared to other proxies."
"It is quite expensive."
"Overall, I am not aware of the option to pay for one time use of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway."
"The licensing is not expensive."
"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."
"Licensing is flexible. License pricing information is based on the customer, their environment, and on the future approach."
"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?
I would rate pricing for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway a two out of ten. It's really expensive.
What needs improvement with Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is not endpoint security. If we have a chance to change, we would change it because it ...
What is your primary use case for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway?
We have no big project, but we are trying to sell it in the market here. We are working with Forcepoint because there...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: July 2026.
909,099 professionals have used our research since 2012.