Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure comparison

Forcepoint and Menlo Security are both solutions in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category. Forcepoint is ranked #11 with an average rating of 7.8, while Menlo Security is ranked #25. Forcepoint holds a 2.8% mindshare in WSG, compared to Menlo Security’s 2.3% mindshare. Additionally, 82% of Forcepoint users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Menlo Security users who would recommend it.

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Menlo Secure both compete in the cybersecurity space providing secure web gateway solutions. Menlo Secure appears to have a competitive edge due to its more comprehensive feature set offering a robust and seamless user experience despite higher pricing. However, Forcepoint is often favored for its cost-effectiveness and strong support services.

Features: Menlo Secure offers advanced web isolation, comprehensive threat protection, and seamless user experience. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway provides notable features such as policy enforcement, robust content filtering, and real-time analytics.

Room for Improvement: Menlo Secure could enhance its logging capabilities, provide total user count clarity, and improve handling for sites bypassed from isolation. Forcepoint could benefit from optimizing deployment configurations, expanding features for cloud level flexibility, and improving user interface for easier management.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: Menlo Secure offers a straightforward cloud-based deployment model with responsive customer service for quick resolutions. Forcepoint’s deployment requires more configuration but benefits from a solid support system.

Pricing and ROI: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway provides a cost-effective solution with favorable ROI due to lower setup costs. Menlo Secure, although more expensive to implement, offers a feature set that some organizations find justifies the higher expenditure often yielding high long-term value.

To learn more, read our detailed Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Menlo Secure Report (Updated: August 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Menlo Secure

August 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

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.5%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 2.8%, down from 4.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Menlo Secure is 2.3%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
iboss	3.5%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway	2.8%
Menlo Secure	2.3%
Other	91.4%

Secure Web Gateways (SWG)

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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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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reviewer2701794

Head Of Bluechip Enterprise at a manufacturing company with 51-200 employees

Provides strong protection and multiple use cases but struggles with market recognition

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto. Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco. What can be improved is market awareness and adoption of the technology. When selling it in the channel, regardless of how good the technology might be, success depends more on market adoption and awareness.

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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

"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."

"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."

"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."

"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."

"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."

"Consolidating management into iboss's single pane of glass has helped my organization reduce operational costs by around twenty to twenty-five percent."

More iboss pros

"SWG allows me to track internet usage patterns, helping optimize bandwidth and understand how much time each employee spends online."

"The Forcepoint client software can be downloaded on a user's machine so that it can filter the sites from home or the office. That's one of the biggest features. We can use it for filtering our laptops for our users at any place."

"When evaluating this solution to others it is one of the best."

"Secure Web Gateway's most valuable features are firewall blocking and anti-malware scanning."

"Most valuable features were content filtering and monitoring."

"The antiviral sandboxing."

"Real-time analytics."

"It efficiently categorizes which sites should not be accessed during work hours."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pros

"This security technology addresses risk and enables people to conduct business without that risk, which is where the ROI is realized."

"Accessing the internet with a proxy from anywhere is the most valuable feature. It ensures that users are only able to browse legitimate websites. If they happen to go to a legitimate website with a malicious payload, the isolation feature will take care of that."

"It has reduced security events to follow up on. While it is not 100%, there has been probably a 90% or more reduction. We were getting hit left, right, and center constantly from people browsing the Internet and hitting bad websites. It was not just bad websites that were stood up to be malicious, but good sites that were compromised."

"We are not aware of a single compromise from the web since implementing the solution."

"Either you have access to something or don't have access to it, and if you do, we can ensure, 100 percent of the time, that there is nothing malicious that is going to impact our system in any way."

"The solution is invisible to our end users, so it doesn't have any impact on their work or performance."

"The fact that it is a cloud proxy solution is another feature we like. For example, if you acquire a new company, you can use it to protect that new company without the need to install anything physically on their networks."

"We have definitely seen ROI, as we save a ton of money and time because the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools prior to implementing them had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged."

More Menlo Secure pros

Cons

"SSL decryption: We had issues with learners using apps instead of using web browsers. This type of encryption is tough for any appliance in a BYOD environment."

"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."

"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."

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

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

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

"iboss can be improved because the integration could be better; you need to import all the sites that you access today, and there are a few problems whenever you import thousands of websites, making the integration process messy for the users."

"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."

More iboss cons

"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway could be improved by offering a SaaS-based service, which is increasingly being adopted in the market. They need to enhance their CASB solutions since currently, the cloud index support is low compared to competitors."

"Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan."

"It has a problem with tablets and the iPhone. It's not filtering on these platforms. It filters on Windows but not iOS or Android."

"Database synchronization failures"

"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."

"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway needs to improve its scalability. We have also encountered less frequent performance issues."

"The technical support team's response time could be improved."

"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."

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway cons

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists."

"We are now transitioning to another solution. The main reason for that is that managing all of the exceptions and troubleshooting all of the issues our users have had connecting to the internet has become too significant in terms of workload, compared to what we hope we will have with another solution."

"Menlo Secure is a smaller company with limited resources and funding, which makes it challenging to compete with larger companies such as Palo and Cisco."

"The user monitoring could still be improved."

"In the best of all worlds, we wouldn't have to make any exceptions. However, that is a big ask because a lot of that depends on how websites are constructed. For example, there are some very complex, application-oriented sites that we end up making exceptions for. It is really not that big an issue for us to make the exceptions. We feel like we are doing that without a huge impact on our security posture, but we do have to make some exceptions for complex sites, e.g., mostly SaaS-type sites and applications."

"Currently, I don't have a good way to see which of my rules are being used in the access control lists. I have numerous entries, but are they all still needed? A report that would show me my list of who is allowed and whether we're actually using it would be useful because I can then go clean up my list. It would be easier to manage. We would eliminate the vulnerability of unused services."

Pricing and Cost Advice

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

"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."

"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 a well-priced option."

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

"The solution's pricing is competitive."

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

"Licensing is flexible. License pricing information is based on the customer, their environment, and on the future approach."

"It is quite expensive."

"Compared to the other products in the market, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway can be a cost-effective tool."

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

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pricing and cost advice

"The solution is expensive. It's more expensive than the solution I previously used. Compared with the other cloud-based solutions, it's very competitive."

"It is appropriately priced for what they're doing for us. Considering the protection provided, I feel their pricing is spot-on."

"We save a ton of money and time. Previously, the numerous hits that we were receiving from our security tools, prior to implementing them, had to all be chased down, dispositioned, and endpoints had to be reimaged. It was just a ton of effort to do all that. That is where the savings from time and money come in."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

Computer Software Company

Construction Company

Comms Service Provider

10%

Financial Services Firm

10%

Construction Company

Manufacturing Company

13%

Construction Company

12%

Retailer

Comms Service Provider

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	11
Midsize Enterprise	8
Large Enterprise	10

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

No data available

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...

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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 ...

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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.

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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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What needs improvement with Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

There aren't specific areas for improvement; however, they're not as well known as the big vendors such as Palo Alto....

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

People are mainly using it for zero trust web access. Menlo Secure is built from the ground up to provide zero basic ...

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What advice do you have for others considering Menlo Security Secure Web Gateway?

Secure file sharing and data protection is not exactly what Menlo Secure is designed to do. While it can handle some ...

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Comparisons

Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Netskope vs iboss

Compared 10% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs iboss

Compared 8% of the time

FortiSASE vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs iboss

Compared 6% of the time

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Fortinet FortiProxy vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 10% of the time

Zscaler Internet Access vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 8% of the time

Symantec Proxy vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

Fortinet FortiGate vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

Compared 7% of the time

More Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Competitors

Prisma Access Browser vs Menlo Secure

Compared 16% of the time

Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Menlo Secure

Compared 14% of the time

Netskope Next Gen Secure Web Gateway vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

Cloudflare One vs Menlo Secure

Compared 10% of the time

NordLayer vs Menlo Secure

Compared 2% of the time

More Menlo Secure Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

iboss

July 2026

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Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway

August 2026

Download Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway product report

Buyer's Guide

Menlo Secure

July 2026

Download Menlo Secure product report

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform

Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON

Menlo Security Web Security, Menlo Web Security

Overview

Iboss offers a comprehensive cloud-based security platform valued for its scalability and autonomous features, ensuring robust security with easy deployment and management capabilities.

Renowned for its robust security architecture, Iboss integrates seamlessly within diverse networks, delivering efficient granular filtering and advanced content categorization. Its single pane of glass console provides ease of management, allowing rapid scalability suitable for rapidly deploying environments. Operates in BYOD setups due to inline filtering without device installation. Integration with cloud-based applications enhances user control, and features like SASE, SSL inspection, and ChatGPT risk protection stand as highlights. Despite its strengths, users have pointed out areas for enhancement like direct navigation in reports, SSL decryption, and better cloud integration while having room to improve data loss prevention.

What are the most important features of Iboss?

Scalability: Supports rapid deployment across diverse networks.
SASE: A consolidated approach to secure access.
SSL Inspection: Ensures safe data transmission.
Granular Filtering: Detailed control over accessible content.
Single Pane Management: Unifies control through a centralized console.

What benefits should users consider in reviews?

Cost-effectiveness: Offers competitive pricing with robust features.
Autonomous Operation: Reduces management overhead.
Responsive Support: Provides assistance when needed.
Flexible Deployment: Available for both cloud and on-premises environments.

The usage of Iboss spans educational institutions, specifically K-12, to enforce internet policies, protect data, and support remote work environments. It provides web filtering and security frameworks to ensure safe browsing. Its platform-as-a-service model offers flexibility for both cloud-based and on-premises requirements, integrating seamlessly to deliver enhanced security features suitable for various deployment needs including zero trust, CASB, and network security for work-from-home setups.

iboss

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

Menlo Security Secure Application Access

Menlo Security Secure Application Access makes zero trust access easy, giving users secure connectivity to private applications, including web and legacy applications. At the core of Secure Application Access is the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser, which fetches, secures and delivers the content for users.

In addition to providing simple-to-deploy, clientless ZTA, Secure Application Access and the Menlo Secure Cloud Browser protect applications from attacks such as session hijacking, cookie manipulation, and other tactics that employ protocol manipulation.

Secure Application Access protects applications from Internet threats and provides granular controls for added protection of the application and associated data. These security controls include Read-only/Read-write, Upload/download, Copy/paste, AV scanning, Sandboxing, and Data Loss Prevention.

Last Mile Data Protection

Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection identifies and prevents sensitive data from leaving your company by meticulously inspecting all file uploads and user input across browsing sessions. Leveraging the Secure Cloud Browser, users are protected from the internet and you can protect your organization from data loss with comprehensive traffic monitoring and controls. This approach addresses the growing concerns surrounding data leakage in the age of AI tools like ChatGPT.

By identifying sensitive data through file types, regular expressions, or predefined libraries, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection empowers security teams to regulate data input into AI platforms and prevent unauthorized uploads. This capability provides crucial protection for intellectual property, PII, and other confidential information.

The solution leverages the Menlo Cloud Security Platform's visibility and control over traffic to reliably detect and prevent data leaks originating from both browser submission forms and non-browser traffic. With the ability to inspect encrypted web traffic, Menlo Last-Mile Data Protection enforces DLP policies consistently across all users and devices, ensuring comprehensive data protection.

Menlo Security

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.

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

Information Not Available

Buyer's Guide

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Menlo Secure

August 2026

Free Report: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Menlo Secure

Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Menlo Secure and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.

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