Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Broadcom and Forcepoint are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Additionally, 83% of Broadcom users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 82% of Forcepoint users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] and Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG).

To learn more, read our detailed Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Report (Updated: October 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

October 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

iboss

Featured Reviews

Ashok Ananthula

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.

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Suhas Suryavanshi

Information Security Engineer at M.Tech

Granular control over website access has lead to decreased bandwidth and increased performance

If you have previously worked on the product then it is quite simple. However, if you are new to it then the implementation is a little bit tricky. On the Cloud Proxy, the deployment takes less than one day. If you are using the ProxySG or the on-premises solution, it will take one to two weeks depending on the policy configuration, the size of the organization, and what kinds of policies are needed. The number of staff you need to maintain the solution depends on the size of the organization, and how many changes occur on a daily basis. If you have one thousand employees then you need at least one employee to look after it.

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reviewer1047669

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.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The iboss solution gives me the ability to scan the traffic through all the ports, through all the 131,000 PCP and UDP ports, and with this ability, we have the granularity also for consults over social media and applications on mobile, and this is an advantage that the customers are looking for right now."

"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."

"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 security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."

"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."

"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."

"This product is solid, fairly easy to use, and reliable."

"I recommend iboss for organizations looking for strong cloud-based web security and centralized access control."

More iboss pros

"Customer Service: Blue Touch support is top notch and very responsive when I opened service requests."

"Proxy Solution and ADN and their integration capability with Blue Coat director are positive features."

"We were able to monitor users' social media behavior and control certain activities to be allowed on the social media, which helped to prevent data loss and other activities that could result in a negative impact to the organization."

"It features intuitive proxy policy deployment using a VPN."

"Proxy Solution and ADN, specifically its integration capability with Blue Coat Director to apply seamless policy across all of Blue Coat, along with intuitive proxy policy deployment using VPN and the ability to forward-chain your proxy, make it overall a good solution though growth requires automation support."

"It's a great solution for high load enterprise infrastructure to protect company networks from web threats."

"Since the implementation of this solution, the bandwidth has decreased and the performance in terms of Internet access has increased."

"The functionality of this solution is one of the best, and it is leading the market."

"It's stable and reliable."

"The feature that I find to be most valuable is the flexibility of the single endpoint."

"I have found the web content filtering and malware filter the most valuable."

"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway does most of its job well, but I especially like its data security feature."

"Real-time category protection."

"Transparent Mode: Since we have multiple sites and roaming users, it has helped us in deploying the proxy to users without having to push any configurations to end users."

"Giving visibility to people's actions in the network, while keeping attackers out: across data centers, offices, branches, and the cloud."

"The solution provided our organization with easy and secure internet access."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pros

Cons

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."

"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."

"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."

"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."

"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."

"The easiest device I have set up was the Barracuda line of products."

"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."

More iboss cons

"They need to improve the intellectual analysis for APT vectors from web."

"There were benefits but the evolution is slow, hence wanting to move on with the product."

"It lacks deployment over multiple platforms and integration with SDN architecture."

"It would be great if the product had inbuilt queuing for Quality of Service."

"Blue Coat advertises the ProxySG as a WAF, but it really isn’t."

"The GUI works, but could be better."

"We cannot automate the product since the IP address can only be assigned after acquisition of the serial number."

"It takes 20 to 30 minutes for policy replication."

"The availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well."

"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."

"Overall the software is occupying too much memory space. If they could remedy that, it would be a better experience, because today Windows is occupying too much memory space as well (in terms of the RAM), and this software has also started occupying all the memory. Due to this, I have less space for my other office products and data. I can't, for example, operate a huge Excel sheet or other datasets."

"The biggest issue that hampered Forcepoint was the lack of development and good consistent support."

"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."

"The performance issues in the product are an area of concern where improvements are required."

"The latest deployment was a fairly smooth transition, but previous upgrades and hardware replacements have been very painful."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."

"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."

"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."

"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."

"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."

"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."

"Additional features, such as Flash Proxies, have their own licensing fees that depend on what the requirements are."

"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."

"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."

"The pricing for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is expensive. You pay per user and functionality. I'd rate it a four on a scale of one to ten."

"The solution's pricing is competitive."

"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."

"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."

"The licensing is not expensive."

"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Comms Service Provider

Construction Company

No data available

Outsourcing Company

13%

Manufacturing Company

Construction Company

Financial Services Firm

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	14
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	15

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	23
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	29

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?

iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...

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What is your primary use case for iboss?

iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...

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What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?

The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...

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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.

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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 ...

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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...

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Comparisons

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 5% of the time

More iboss Competitors

Zscaler Internet Access vs Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Compared 27% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Compared 23% of the time

Steelhead vs Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]

Compared 22% of the time

More Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] Competitors

Fortinet FortiProxy vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 11% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Quad9 vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 2% of the time

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

October 2026

Download iboss product report

Buyer's Guide

WAN Optimization

October 2026

Download Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] product report

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

October 2026

Download Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

No data available

Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON

Overview

iboss is the Zero Trust SASE platform that gives organizations complete visibility and governance over their AI, data, and applications through one unified platform, one console, one policy engine, and one data lake.

Your endpoints may already stop malware. Your data and application activity can still be invisible. iboss decrypts and understands every connection, then turns that signal into answers security leaders can act on.

The platform leads with three capabilities in this order: AI Security and Visibility, Data Security and Visibility, and App Visibility and Control. Zero Trust Network Access, VPN replacement, and SD-WAN sit underneath as the access fabric that carries those three. Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

- AI Security and Visibility: conversation capture, shadow-AI discovery, AI DLP, and agent governance across Claude, Co-Work, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Grok, and emerging services.

- Data Security and Visibility: full SSL/TLS decryption, deep content inspection, MIP label compliance, and one-click compliance reporting.

- App Visibility and Control: signatureless CASB, dual risk scoring, in-app controls, and SSPM for major SaaS.

- Containerized Zero Trust SASE: dedicated containers, isolated SSL keys, one console, one policy engine, one data lake.

- Access fabric: ZTNA, VPN replacement, and SD-WAN under the same platform.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

- Complete visibility over AI, data, and applications from one platform instead of separate point tools.

- Encrypted traffic is inspected by default so data decisions use content and context together.

- Shadow SaaS and new web tools appear as they are used, with enforceable controls in one console.

- Native data sovereignty through dedicated containers, in-region inspection, and per-customer SSL key custody.

- Scale proven in published materials: 10M+ users, 100+ countries, 150B+ transactions, 2.5B+ threats blocked.

Economic buyers are CISOs, CIOs, and VPs of Security. Champions include security architects, network and infrastructure leaders, SecOps, and GRC. Primary segments: enterprise and business, financial services, government (including FedRAMP Gov Cloud), healthcare, manufacturing, legal and professional services, retail and hospitality, and MSP/MSSP partners. Education, including K-12, is one vertical among these.

iboss

ProxySG appliances provide complete control over all your web traffic, delivering world-class threat protection. Robust features include user authentication, web filtering, data loss prevention, inspection, and visibility of SSL-encrypted traffic, content caching, bandwidth management, stream-splitting and more.

Broadcom

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway ensures secure internet access with features like URL filtering and real-time analytics. It's known for robust security, scalability, and integration capabilities, making it ideal for managing web traffic and preventing data loss.

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is designed to provide comprehensive protection for web traffic while enabling organizations to maintain security and productivity. By integrating well with Forcepoint offerings like DLP and CASB, it offers added functionality. The gateway equips users with tools such as SSL inspection and Shadow IT visibility. Despite its complex setup and challenges with updates, the platform is recognized for its flexibility, performance reliability, and ability to deliver granular policy control. Customers in demanding environments benefit from its extensive IP-based protection and robust report customization capabilities.

What are the standout features?

URL and Content Filtering: Blocks or allows access to websites based on predefined rules.
Real-time Analytics: Provides immediate insights into web traffic and user activity.
Report Customization: Allows tailoring of reports to meet specific needs.
SSL Inspection: Inspects encrypted traffic to ensure security without compromising privacy.
Shadow IT Visibility: Identifies and manages unauthorized applications used by employees.

What benefits can users expect?

Enhanced Security: Protects against advanced malware and data breaches.
Increased Productivity: Blocks undesired websites to keep users focused.
Scalability: Adapts to growing organizational needs efficiently.
Integration with DLP and CASB: Offers expanded protection capabilities.

Government agencies and professional services deploy Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway in on-premises and hybrid cloud setups for enhanced web security. By monitoring and controlling user activity, these entities maintain productivity and protect sensitive data. The gateway effectively manages internal and external web traffic, ensuring cyber threats are minimized. Specific industry needs are addressed with robust security frameworks tailored to maintain data integrity and efficiency.

Forcepoint

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.

Global Technology and Material Manufacturer

Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota

Buyer's Guide

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

October 2026

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