


Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Cisco Umbrella both compete in the web security solutions category. Forcepoint might hold an advantage due to its emphasis on data security and in-depth filtering capabilities.
Features: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway stands out for data retrieval and analysis, granular URL categorization, and excellent integration with other Forcepoint products. It is known for its scalability and stability. Meanwhile, Cisco Umbrella offers robust DNS protection, ease of integration with other Cisco solutions, and a seamless user experience thanks to features like remote browser isolation.
Room for Improvement: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's opportunities include enhancing data analysis speed, scalability, and support quality. Users find the setup challenging and customer support inadequate. Cisco Umbrella could improve in policy granularity and better integration with more products. Users express the need for improved documentation and third-party solution integration.
Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway includes on-premises and hybrid deployment models but is criticized for its complex deployment process and unresponsive customer support. Cisco Umbrella, being primarily cloud-based, is noted for its simple deployment across varying environments and better-organized customer service, though its technical support can improve.
Pricing and ROI: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway's pricing is perceived as high, operating on a user-based licensing model, which can be costly but manageable with good reselling options. Cisco Umbrella offers a fair and competitive subscription-based model, despite being seen as expensive by some. Both achieve good ROI, with Forcepoint benefiting from comprehensive security features and Cisco Umbrella from its ease of management and robust security offerings.
With iboss, whenever you turn on your laptop, the iboss agent automatically connects to the iboss cloud, enforcing all security policies. So with respect to the security side, it strengthens measures.
Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%.
I have seen some cost effectiveness from iboss; it has reduced certain support requirements, making it a more hands-off solution.
I have seen a return on investment, specifically in terms of time saved and needing fewer employees.
Cisco is a big brand in the networking domain, but in security, they are pushing a lot and improving day by day.
From my point of view, the biggest return on investment when using the solution is that it makes it a lot easier to delegate some of the tasks that were traditionally used, such as building policies on the firewalls and doing it through Cisco Umbrella.
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
The quality of the support is fantastic.
We had promising discussions about resolving these issues, but no real action followed.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
If I don't need to go to support all the time, that means the product is working fine, so I'm very happy with them.
There are instances where both the response time and technical support quality need improvement.
They are also able to meet on-demand requirements based on your contract with them, and can easily provide adequate resources and scalability.
I would rate it a nine out of ten for scalability.
If I start seeing sluggishness or anything like that, I just reach out to my rep, and they connect with their dev team, typically resolving it the same day.
Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization.
Cisco Umbrella scales really well with the growing needs of my company, bringing the ability to ensure that people are safe and connected.
Cisco Umbrella scales effectively with the growing needs of my company; it's excellent, and I have experienced no issues.
It's been pretty solid; I've never had an outage with them, and if I ever had, it's only been once out of the seven years.
We've experienced zero downtime.
Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device despite our ClearPass sending information to the iboss box.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
Cisco Umbrella Secure Access is pretty stable in my mind, and we have not seen many glitches that would have interrupted services at customer locations.
The stability and reliability of the Cisco Umbrella platform have been great.
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard.
We also had a problem with a transition when we upgraded from one appliance of theirs to another, but their engineer lost a good deal of our data.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
They need to enhance their CASB solutions since currently, the cloud index support is low compared to competitors.
The setup process is complex.
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
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.
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern.
We've bundled that with our firewall stuff and our VPN, which brings the price down and adds the ability to grow.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
It's really expensive.
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
It's given us a lot more visibility into our computer assets that may be infected with viruses and also shows us people who have unusually large uploads or might be engaging in high-risk activities, such as searches or going to sites not categorized by their web crawler.
iboss was the best solution for us because, no matter what domain you were in, everything is under a single pane of glass, which is exactly what we wanted.
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
The best possible thing is that it is very easy to deploy, easy to configure, and very fast to get onboarded with a customer because this is a cloud-based service.
As organizations move away from legacy applications and data centers, the SASE architecture and ZTNA-based operations become essential.
If you have the complete Forcepoint solution, it can integrate with other Forcepoint products, such as DLP solution and email gateway.
| Product | Mindshare (%) |
|---|---|
| Cisco Umbrella | 9.5% |
| iboss | 3.2% |
| Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway | 2.9% |
| Other | 84.4% |


| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 14 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 8 |
| Large Enterprise | 15 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 51 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 31 |
| Large Enterprise | 51 |
| Company Size | Count |
|---|---|
| Small Business | 23 |
| Midsize Enterprise | 6 |
| Large Enterprise | 29 |
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.
Cisco Umbrella provides fast-deploying DNS-layer security with powerful threat protection capabilities. Trusted by over 30,000 entities, it ranks highly in DNS security and effectively supports secure remote work environments.
Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, and ease of use, enhancing network security through robust threat protection and malware prevention. It processes over 600 billion requests daily, making it a leader in its field. The seamless integration with existing infrastructures and cloud-based nature makes it suitable for remote and distributed work environments, ensuring consistent security throughout. Management is streamlined with a single-pane interface that simplifies administration, while in-depth reporting capabilities provide valuable insights for continuous monitoring.
What are the key features of Cisco Umbrella?Cisco Umbrella is widely adopted in industries requiring advanced DNS-level security to counteract malware, phishing, and cyber threats. Its ability to monitor and protect remote and roaming employees makes it an attractive option for sectors highly dependent on cloud services. By managing DNS queries and blocking harmful sites, Cisco Umbrella enhances cybersecurity across networks, providing an added layer of protection for businesses worldwide.
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?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.
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