Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway Reviews

We primarily use the product for web filtering and enhancing our organization's web security posture.

The web filtering feature, despite its challenges, has been somewhat effective.

The product could improve its automation capabilities, improve integration with virtualization, and enhance its web filtering specifics. Additionally, it could benefit from adopting proprietary ASICs to improve performance and throughput.

Future releases should include features found in FortiGate and Palo Alto, such as improved SD-WAN management, better monitoring of rules and interfaces, live traffic monitoring, and more user-friendly troubleshooting methodologies.

I have been using Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway for three to four years.

The platform is fairly stable but has limitations in terms of performance and throughput.

The product is not as scalable as FortiGate and Palo Alto.

The initial setup was not complex; following the guide allowed a smooth configuration process.

Forcepoint's pricing is moderate. However, transitioning to solutions like Palo Alto or FortiGate, despite potentially higher initial costs, could offer better long-term value due to their advanced features and performance.

We evaluated other technologies including Palo Alto and FortiGate.

The product is relatively easy to configure if you follow the guide, but it lacks throughput and performance compared to competitors. In our experience, the technical support has been underutilized.

The solution needs better SD-WAN management, improved monitoring, and more effective troubleshooting tools like Palo Alto and FortiGate.

I rate it an eight out of ten.

It is used for security purposes, CASB, and application controls.

I like the product's scalability and stability.

I want improvements in the application control. Also, the solution should have a secure channel because of malware.

I want technical support to be improved so that they can be faster and more knowledgeable.

I have been using Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway since 2016. Though I want to move to the cloud, I currently use an on-prem version.

It is a stable product.

It is a scalable solution. Around 1,50,000 users are using the solution in my company. We do have plans to increase the number of users in our company.

I have used Forcepoint's technical support, and I feel that it is average.

The initial setup was complex. The time taken for deployment was a year.

The deployment process involved the making of software-based applications. Then, we install it.

For the deployment and maintenance, we need five to seven people, including engineers and managers.

The implementation was done in-house.

I recommend the solution for small-scale businesses using a cloud-based version. For large-scale businesses, it is not fine.

Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

On-premises

I've done a few deployments with roaming user filtering and with central management consoles on the content creation and on different critical locations.

The DLP database from Forcepoint is also very good.

It's got a very reliable orientation.

It is a scalable solution. We can use it for global-level customers and for separate locations.

This is a highly detailed product with very good key features. When it comes to optimization, it's similar to Blue Coat. It has a very stable architecture.

It's very feature-rich when it comes to visibility and reporting. The reporting module is very handy. We can schedule reports and generate investigations. 

The initial setup is easy.

I'd like to see the solution improve the banded optimization to offer more bandwidth control, similar to what is on offer with Blue Coat. For example, it would be useful if we could arrange the restriction of certain uploads for particular applications.

It would be great if they had classic customization features. I have quite good experience in Check Point solutions, so I experienced how application protocol features help when we want to deploy bandwidth content filtering. I expect to have the same or close to the same level of customization in Forcepoint.

My bread and butter is Forcepoint DLP. I've worked for about seven years with Forcepoint solutions. However, I've worked with the Secure Web Gateway for five years and have deployed it for customers as well.

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches, and it doesn't crash or freeze. 

It has good architecture. It has an architecture where I have the policy brokers, policy severs, and content creation, as well as an integrated reporting module with a reporting database. I have a team building products with me, including OEM software. When it comes to Forcepoint, it's a very reliable solution.

Many of our customers have between 400 and 800 users. 

I've contacted support many times. 

I cannot say they are excellent support. That said, quite often, I get some good support. Still, I cannot recommend them highly. Luckily, I can manage myself just fine. Now that we are in an apex region, I hope that we will get a good level of support for the application.

Neutral

I am also familiar with Blue Coat

The initial setup is not overly difficult. 

The time it takes to deploy the product depends. If I have all the items I need in my hand, it doesn't take that much time. However, compared to other products, it takes a little while time since you need to get it on the client's field servers for reporting, and you need to have some access with admin privileges. 

I'm able to deploy the solution for my clients. 

I don't deal with licensing and have no visibility on the exact pricing. 

I'm a partner. My company is a system integrator, and I am a consultant. We deploy this solution for clients and have handled five or six high-end deployments so far. 

I'd recommend the solution to others if the requirements make sense and it works in the company environment. 

I would rate the solution seven out of ten. It's very reliable. It just needs more features.

On-premises

Basically, we are the system integrators. We apply it to clients for use cases such as productivity increases. For example, if they want to block Facebook and those kinds of social networking sites, it will help stop users from off-work distractions. They also are now catering to the use case of remote working to control access off-site. That involves cloud solutions.

The reporting part of it is pretty awesome. With the reporting, you can drill down effectively. It gives us a lot of power to really look into what we are looking for. That is one very crucial feature. In the remote filtering part, the agent that they have on Forcepoint is pretty light. That also is a very, very good feature that we look into and sell.

The setup is simple.

It’s pretty stable after you get up and running.

The solution scales well.

Right now, Forcepoint is in very, very good shape. They are developing and evolving very fast. There is not any particular enhancement necessary.

We have had latency issues.

The cloud portal that they have should be more flexible, and we should have a practice portal. For example, if we want to implement something specific, we can’t practice making sure it will be right before going ahead and doing it live.

I’ve been using the solution for eleven years now. It’s been more than a decade. I’ve used it for a while.

Sometimes we do face issues with hiccups in latency. There could be hiccups in, for example, the user setup or the user education part, however, after that, it's okay. It’s not very often we have any issues.

The solution is 100% scalable. It’s not a problem at all. It scales well whether you are on the cloud or on-premises.

We’ve been in touch with technical support. That's nearly our daily task. The tech support is also very good. We are based out of India, so sometimes, being in the India region, we face an issue with timing as we have to deal with time zones. However, they are improving this.

Positive

I am also now starting to work on the McAfee Web Gateway and we are also working with Cisco. I am not particularly dealing with it. Forcepoint has still proven to be the best for me.

The initial setup is very straightforward and simple. It’s not overly complex or challenging.

In terms of maintenance, there is none at all, actually. If you implement it correctly in the initial phase, it requires very little interaction throughout.

I don’t deal with any aspects surrounding the costs or licensing. I don’t know what the exact price is.

On the DLP, we are on version 8.9.1, and on the Web Gateway, we are on version 8.5.4. We are using both on-premises and cloud deployments.

We are integrators. I am mainly dealing in Forcepoint, including Forcepoint Web Gateway, Forcepoint DLP, and a little bit of Forcepoint Email as well.

The presales part of the onboarding process has to be very, very proper. Whatever requirements the users are looking for, that should be put on paper, however. Otherwise, if they're expecting something else and the solution is providing something else, this sometimes creates an issue at a later date. Clients need to know what they are getting into.

I’d rate the solution eight out of ten.

Public Cloud

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

The automation lifecycle, integration, and export functionality could all be improved.

I've been using Secure Web Gateway for over three years.

Secure Web Gateway is a stable solution.

This solution is scalable.

Forcepoint's technical support is good, but in the future, I'd like them to provide more tutorial documentation.

The initial setup was simple.

I would rate this solution eight out of ten.

Hybrid Cloud

The use case is that they don't want a proxy on-premises. They want everything to be on the cloud, with all processing happening before it reaches the firewall. Typically, in a traditional scenario, when I try to access a website like gmail.com, the request goes through the firewall. The router, and is cached, with multiple security measures applied on-premises. Forcepoint handles all these processes on the backend, so the customer doesn't need to worry about on-premises infrastructure. 

Everything is handled on the backend side. Users don't need to have any proxy on-premises. The solution handles all the dirty or initial traffic from their network, managing it on the backend itself.

The technical support needs to be improved.

It simplifies security by enabling partners to implement it straightforwardly. DLP is essential and requires capable engineers for effective deployment. Currently, opportunities may involve high implementation costs, handled either by distributors or directly by Forcepoint.

I have been using Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway as a reseller. We are selling Forcepoint V5000 appliances.

Stability depends upon connectivity. If your connectivity is good, you get the best stability.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

You need to add the number of users and configure them. 5000 users are using this solution. It is suitable for enterprise customers.

I rate the solution’s scalability an eight out of ten.

Forcepoint offers two levels of support: standard support and premium support. With standard support, you can open a ticket, but you may need to wait up to 24 hours for a response, and sometimes the engineers might not be available promptly. Premium support, which comes at a higher price, promises quicker response times. There is a lack of qualified engineers and partners to implement the Secure Web Gateway.

Neutral

The initial setup is difficult. Integrating it involves connecting with multiple parameters such as data servers, file servers, and email management systems. This integration process can be pretty complex and challenging.

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway can typically be installed within one day for a hundred users. However, for larger deployments, such as 1,000 or 5,000 users, the installation process may require at least a month.

The product has average pricing.

I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.

If you want to deploy Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway on-premises, you'll need a server, a switch, and a firewall, among other components. This setup involves significant initial investment, which affects ROI and total cost of ownership. While a proxy can handle some aspects, it doesn't provide the comprehensive security features that Forcepoint offers.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

I have found the simplicity of the solution valuable. The dashboard and reports are good as well.

Our experience thus far with Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway has not been good. The availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well.

There have been a lot of changes in the network at Forcepoint, and we've had downtimes of almost three hours. This happened six times from August to December.

When Forcepoint moves user traffic to another cluster during maintenance, the transaction is not smooth for end users. They lose access to the internet.

In the Middle East, the ISPs block the IPs of Forcepoint, and the Forcepoint compliance team has been unable to resolve these issues.

Forcepoint should focus on understanding how Zscaler works.

In the next release, they should provide an inbuilt, full-fledged DLP CASB feature.

Forcepoint should also work on improving their communication regarding maintenance.

I've been working with this solution for the past seven months.

We have experienced several problems with stability, so I would rate the solution at four out of ten for stability.

I would rate Forcepoint's scalability at seven out of ten. 

We have 75,000 end users and around 300 IT specialists who use this solution.

Technical support staff take a long time to understand and resolve issues. You will need to implement a workaround yourself as technical support may take six months to resolve an issue. This can be the case even when the ticket is escalated. Therefore, I would rate technical support at four on a scale from one to ten.

Neutral

The initial setup can be complex depending on the location. For instance, in the Middle East, we have to use our direct endpoint client. In Europe, we use the proxy endpoint client.

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

I would not recommend Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway because of all the issues and give it an overall rating of five out of ten.

Public Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS)

The most valuable feature for me in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is URL filtering, though all other features of the product are okay as well.

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.

I've been dealing with Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway for about two years now. My company doesn't use the product. It's the customers who use Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway.

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a scalable product.

We had to contact Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway technical support because some of the features didn't work, but it took them a long time to respond. Sometimes, even if you call support many times, they will not respond. In the end, they weren't able to solve our issues. We solved the issues ourselves.

The initial setup for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway isn't easy. When you compare it to Fortinet, it's very complicated.

For example, for Fortinet FortiProxy, you don't need to install the database or SQL, and there's no need to prepare a server. You also don't need to do a lot of authentication because it's only one appliance, so it will work via proxy, then you can do the installation.

For Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway, you need two servers: one for installing the management software and the second server for SQL, and only then can you control the appliance.

The initial setup for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is complicated, especially when compared to Fortinet FortiProxy.

In terms of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway pricing, I'm not part of the sales team. I'm on the technical team, so I don't have information on the price.

I work for an IT company that provides solutions to customers such as Fortinet, Palo Alto, Forcepoint, and GoSecure. In terms of Forcepoint, my company focuses on web security, particularly Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway.

My company has enterprise customers who use the product.

The number of users of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway varies. One customer has around six hundred users. Another customer has three hundred users then there's a customer in the banking industry that has a thousand users.

My advice to others looking into implementing Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is to prepare a lab and create scenarios in the lab before going to the customers.

My rating for the solution is seven out of ten.

On-premises

It protects against data leaks and offers us application security.

The solution is a combination of Gatsby web security and the LP. That is why we are pushing Forcepoint ONE. Forcepoint ONE is a product itself that Forcepoint has been recently pushing to the customers.

The product is simple.

It's stable and reliable.

They will require a combination of other brands and other products that actually caters to the data leak portion. Forcepoint ONE, for example, covers for the data leak itself, however, it's just data leaks. In order to have comprehensive security protection for your data, you will need other products, like data encryption. You will need privileged access management and endpoint security to make the Forcepoint product more robust. 

The initial setup can be complex.

I've used the solution for about three years. The company I work for has been working with it for about five years.

The solution is stable.

If you are looking for just data leaks and web security, the product itself should suffice, however, if you want to make your solution or your cyber portion more robust, then you will require other products to be embedded as well to work hand in hand, for your information to be more secure.

Being the distributor for Forcepoint, we have our own engineers to cover from day zero to day two in terms of engineering support for deployment and forming payments and also for troubleshooting. We do leverage Forcepoint, however, we have our own in-house engineers to assist Forcepoint to cover the clinical aspect.

In terms of the policy, the initial setup can be complex.

The solution is simple, however, the complexity comes when you are writing the policy for the data leak part. Even web security is all policy. You would need to translate your business requirements into cyber security requirements so that basically whatever policy that is being in place, covers your business requirements for your cyber footprint.

We help our customers or partners deploy the solution.

We are the authorized distributor for Forcepoint in Asia-Pacific.

Currently, we are pushing Forcepoint ONE into the market.

The thing to consider at the outset is, basically, what they want to protect. Are you protecting internal factors or are you looking at protecting from external factors? Forcepoint DLP covers the internal factor, meaning that you do not want your data to be compromised from internal leaks, and not external. If you're looking to protect against external anomalies, then basically it's Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway that you should be looking at.

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We are the implementation partner for Forcepoint, and then we configure and integrate Forcepoint into the customer enrollment.

We personally use cloud Websecurity and cloud Email security of Forcepoint.

The initial setup is easy. It's not difficult. 

They have well-integrated web security. They have the enterprise DLP included in the cloud as well.

Technical support has been okay.

The Bitglass part, right now, we are trying to learn it, and then trying to acquire skillsets around it. 

For cloud web security, there are definitely areas where it requires improvement, Policy changes take 20 to 30 minutes for enforcement.

Granular control based on applications can be further enhanced.

I've been dealing with the solution for six or seven years and Websense for the last 15 years.

It is stable. That said, at times we do get complaints from customers. Some of the government and banking sites not being accessible via cloud proxy. At times it is required to bypass them or route it through different data centers. Though Forcepoint has no say in some websites restricting the access if they can out with a solution to detect and bypass or redirect the traffic through a working data center it will add further value. 

We are integrators. We are supporting from 1,000 systems to somewhere around a 10,000 to 20,000 user base.

We have used technical support in the past. There are two aspects. How quickly they respond is one aspect. Then, whatever the answer that they provide, is it of any use. In terms of the response, it varies. Sometimes they will be able to solve it, and then sometimes it may have to be internally taken up to the next level.

Neutral

The initial setup is very simple and not overly difficult. 

I cannot speak to the exact pricing of the solution.

We are integrators. While we typically do cloud deployments off-late, for on-premises, we have deployed Hybrid and on-premises Websecurity deployments.

I'd advise users, if they want to make use of it, to learn the technology and then the approach the product is trying to take. I'd advise users only proceed once they understand it. That way, they'll be in a good position to manage it. As with any technology, learn the basics and building blocks of it.

I'd rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Public Cloud