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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Symantec Secure Web Gateway comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 2024

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
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (4th)
Symantec Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
27th
Average Rating
6.6
Reviews Sentiment
5.8
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

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 Symantec Secure Web Gateway is 1.4%, up from 1.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.5%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway2.8%
Symantec Secure Web Gateway1.4%
Other92.3%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

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.
KK
Principal Consultant at CSaaS
Monitors traffic effectively but struggles with integration challenges
I find that the technical support is mediocre, at least for the Middle East. I frequently face challenges when contacting OpenStack through the distribution channel. It should be more straightforward. I notice that customers work with partners, not directly with Symantec, relying on local company integrators for support. Symantec becomes the level two or level three support, which requires navigating through a supply chain that is quite extensive.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Granular setup, which was able to set different levels of filters using the OUs in the AD."
"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The value of Secure Web Gateway is the visibility it offers and the ease by which we can put controls in place."
"I can now go to sleep not being bothered of users accessing sites that are wasteful or can compromise security."
"The agent is acting as a HIPS, host intrusion prevention system, apart from providing trusted access to any external websites."
"We are happy with the solution for now."
"Secure Web Gateway's most valuable features are firewall blocking and anti-malware scanning."
"The solution provided our organization with easy and secure internet access."
"Forcepoint has still proven to be the best for me."
"We deployed this solution during COVID, for two or three customers, and the customers are very happy with this product."
"As a proxy, there are many features available that benefit the customers, including caching, the security appliance, the cloud of service, and many other features."
"It offers an easy initial setup."
"The most valuable feature is the endpoint security."
"Scalability is not really any major issue, it is quite scalable and if we need to do more deployments, we just add them."
"I find the product to be very straightforward."
"It's nice to have it in the cloud where we can pull the reporting together for it so we can see what's happening in machines at different locations."
"The most valuable features are the website blocking capability and SSL interception."
"In terms of most valuable features, I like the ICAP capability and URL filtering the most."
 

Cons

"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."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"It is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Its pricing could be better."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"A room for improvement in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the support it offers. It's very bad. What I'd like to see in the next release of the product is for it to be less complicated because at the moment Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is more complicated than other products. Sometimes issues come up that you can't solve without the support team. For example, you should write the root password to fix the issue. In the next release of the product, it would be good if it had an easy-to-use interface. Troubleshooting issues in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway should be less complicated as well."
"The product needs to have more mobility."
"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."
"A feature we wish to see addressed in the next release of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway involves its administration."
"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."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"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."
"The latest deployment was a fairly smooth transition, but previous upgrades and hardware replacements have been very painful."
"I think the worst thing that we're experiencing is very poor and inadequate technical support."
"It's not user-friendly, and we end up making too many phone calls to get things fixed."
"AI-driven security could be helpful, yet how effective it will be remains unclear."
"The interface could be made more user-friendly."
"It needs to be easier to set up rules for what sites it should allow or not allow us in certain areas of our computer for programs. It would also be nice really nice to have it give you better information about what it's finding. A lot of the alerts we get are very difficult to understand what it's actually telling you. It's too generic."
"Depending on the severity of the issue, I think they can be a bit slow - a few days for the low severity cases, but for the severe cases normally they contact you back in a couple of hours."
"The cost has risen and it is more expensive than it used to be."
"But that it causes catastrophic issues is unacceptable."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"Licensing is flexible. License pricing information is based on the customer, their environment, and on the future approach."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"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 cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"The price of this solution is reasonable."
"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."
"Symantec Secure Web Gateway is less expensive than one of its competitors."
"There is an additional charge for advanced security features."
"Pricing and licensing is stunted and licensing is expensive. We have many customers who are now thinking about other solutions due to the cost."
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Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Comms Service Provider
10%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
21%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Transportation Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business11
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise10
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business5
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise4
 

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...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
I believe that pricing is on par with peers. Symantec and other vendors offer discounts when cutting a deal with a cu...
What needs improvement with Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
AI-driven security could be helpful, yet how effective it will be remains unclear. I plan to evaluate whatever new fe...
What is your primary use case for Symantec Secure Web Gateway?
I find the product to be very straightforward. I just install it and forget it as it continuously monitors traffic. I...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
Symantec Complete Website Security
 

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
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Symantec Secure Web Gateway and other solutions. Updated: August 2026.
908,834 professionals have used our research since 2012.