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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Protect comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 1, 2025

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

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Internet Security
4th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (9th), Web Content Filtering (3rd)
Menlo Protect
Ranking in Internet Security
14th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
2
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (54th), Enterprise Browsers (5th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (4th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Internet Security category, the mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 6.1%, down from 7.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Protect is 3.5%, up from 2.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Internet Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway6.1%
Menlo Protect3.5%
Other90.4%
Internet Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
reviewer1991553 - PeerSpot reviewer
Information Security Specialist at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Decreased our security alerts without impacting employees' work
I can't say that there is one specific feature that is most valuable. It's the overall platform that is well-suited to our needs. It's something that is different from a lot of other products or platforms in the marketplace. It provides a single console for security policy and management. That is somewhat important because we used to have other products where you would have to log in to individual appliances, devices, or clusters. Having one spot to log in to or one area to go to for doing different tasks and viewing data sources, just makes it easier from a user perspective. Also, the fact that it's invisible to our end-users and doesn't affect their work is very important. Most companies don't want to have added friction or impact on their users. In addition, the combination of user-friendliness for admins, and security for the organization, works well. As a cloud-hosted solution, it provides ease of use.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The tool categorizes the user profiles which is very comfortable."
"In my opinion, it's a very stable product."
"The URL filter of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is good for web gateway."
"There is some sandboxing available, which is quite useful."
"The platform is fairly stable."
"The GUI is quite nice."
"I have found the web content filtering and malware filter the most valuable."
"This solution allows us to control web usage to ensure that our employees use the internet for business research only, and it also monitors all employees' traffic, giving alerts for searches and blocking any websites not allowed by company policies so the company can ensure our employees make the best use of their time and get the most value from the internet itself."
"Menlo Security RBI has a very good record on stability."
"I can't say that there is one specific feature that is most valuable. It's the overall platform that is well-suited to our needs. It's something that is different from a lot of other products or platforms in the marketplace."
"In addition, the combination of user-friendliness for admins, and security for the organization, works well."
"Menlo Security RBI's best feature is its threat isolation engine."
 

Cons

"We have had issues with downtime, where the service was out one time for 48 hours and nobody knew what was happening."
"We are using a V10000 G3 appliance. It is just a proxy. It is just HTTP, FTP, and HTTPS. Now, as our website has developed and we are using rich time-connectivity protocols, the proxy doesn't have the ability to work with these protocols. It would be nice if the UDP feature was there for it to filter UDP traffic. It needs firewall capabilities for UDP filtering. Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan. Its reporting could be a bit more granular."
"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."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway needs to improve its scalability. We have also encountered less frequent performance issues."
"I would suggest focusing on improving the GUI's stability, especially when implementing new filters or patches."
"The deployment is a bit complex and it requires expertise to deploy, which is something that should be improved and made easier to do."
"We have had latency issues."
"Enhancing the dashboard would provide better insights into users' usage patterns."
"Menlo Security RBI could be more cloud-friendly, and its mobility could be improved."
"There are several features, such as supporting web technologies, that the company is working on implementing in the platform. There are a lot of backend web technologies in use on various websites, for example, two-way audio/video and WebGL, for which support may not be fully implemented in the product."
"Menlo Security RBI can be very costly."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."
"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."
"Compared to the other products in the market, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway can be a cost-effective tool."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"Menlo Security RBI can be very costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

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

Questions from the Community

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 is not user-friendly. The setup process is complex. You need to install FSM, whi...
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 is no vendor working with this technology. If we have another vendor working wi...
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Also Known As

Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
Menlo Security Email Security, Menlo Security Remote Browser Isolation
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
Macy's, HSBC, Bank of Hawaii
Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Menlo Protect and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,644 professionals have used our research since 2012.