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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs OpenText Core DNS Protection​ 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
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
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) (6th)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (5th)
OpenText Core DNS Protection​
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
Domain Name System (DNS) Security (20th)
 

Mindshare comparison

Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway2.7%
Zscaler Internet Access9.7%
Cisco Umbrella9.3%
Other78.3%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
OpenText Core DNS Protection​1.8%
Cisco Umbrella16.5%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security10.2%
Other71.5%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

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.
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.
James Selby - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager Security Division at Virtual-IT
Offers reasonable pricing and solid scalability in the enterprise context
In my limited experience with Webroot, it has shown good scalability, particularly in the enterprise context. When it comes to Webroot DNS, I find it to be a nice solution but prefer a more comprehensive approach. I lean towards XDR vendors that can integrate DNS protection into a unified dashboard, especially as traditional anti-malware solutions like Webroot face challenges with evolving threat actors. Currently, I have around 60,000 Webroot users for anti-malware, but for DNS protection, it is a fraction—about one or two percent—since some clients opt for other solutions. Traditional anti-malware technology is becoming less effective against sophisticated threats.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"The console is cloud-based, which is something I really appreciate."
"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"The solution provided our organization with easy and secure internet access."
"The spam filter is very effective."
"We are happy with the solution for now."
"I like the product's scalability and stability."
"It's stable and reliable."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway does most of its job well, but I especially like its data security feature."
"I have found the web content filtering and malware filter the most valuable."
"The functions of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway are most valuable due to Forcepoint's long-standing presence in the Web Security business, as it was formerly called Websense, which was in the market for almost 15 years."
"Almost everyone who uses it is happy about the product. I don't get any types of complaints from my clients."
"The installation is easy and doesn't take long. The program speedy and doesn't crash. It doesn't consume computer hardware or software."
"DNS protection is valuable."
"When compared with other products, Webroot DNS Protection is the best to secure the end users."
"I would recommend Webroot; it is a very good solution and a solid solution that keeps our computers protected."
"Webroot excels in DNS protection, particularly in blocking malicious sites and phishing."
 

Cons

"I have heard they are doing DDoS filtering, but I am not certain if they are implementing it correctly."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"Stability needs some improvement, we have on occasion experienced some delay when it is synchronized."
"The solution has complexity with the databases, and we have to manually clear old data logs."
"The solution should be better able to support itself and operate faster. Sometimes the technical support team takes too long to respond."
"It's the support that's the problem because that's a different question from the product itself — it's the Achilles heel."
"Improve detailed guidelines to deploy the transparent proxy to Firefox users."
"An area for improvement would be the classification of websites - it can take a long time for new websites to be classified."
"Enhancing the dashboard would provide better insights into users' usage patterns."
"A room for improvement in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the support it offers; it's very bad."
"It needs to be more secure for production environments, currently, it is reliable and secure but as per new internet attacks, it should be ready with a proactive approach to eliminate attack chances."
"It needs to be more secure for production environments."
"Reporting is not done in real-time. Rather, it is done in 15-minute intervales. This is something that should be configurable by the admin."
"It addresses a specific risk related to malicious sites but doesn't cover broader security aspects."
"The reporting system needs improvement. They should make is that we can customize it so we can add, remove or change its interface but they use a template. The reports cannot be changed."
"The price could be improved."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."
"Licensing is flexible. License pricing information is based on the customer, their environment, and on the future approach."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"It is quite expensive."
"The pricing on Forcepoint Web Security is fair. Fair pricing at current market rates, if you are comparing with the competition."
"It is a well-priced option."
"The licensing is not expensive."
"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."
Information not available
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Computer Software Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Construction Company
9%
Construction Company
15%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Outsourcing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business12
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
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...
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...
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...
Ask a question
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Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
SecureAnywhere DNS Protection
 

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.
Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
1. Cisco  2. Dell  3. HP  4. IBM  5. Microsoft  6. Oracle  7. Symantec  8. McAfee  9. Trend Micro  10. Palo Alto Networks  11. Fortinet  12. Check Point Software Technologies  13. Juniper Networks  14. F5 Networks  15. Citrix Systems  16. VMware  17. FireEye  18. Splunk  19. Proofpoint  20. Carbon Black  21. Barracuda Networks  22. SonicWall  23. WatchGuard Technologies  24. Sophos  25. Kaspersky Lab  26. Bitdefender  27. Avast  28. AVG Technologies  29. ESET  30. Malwarebytes  31. Webroot (the company itself)  32. OpenDNS (now part of Cisco)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: August 2026.
913,924 professionals have used our research since 2012.