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Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL] vs Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway 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
6.7
Number of Reviews
28
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (6th), Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Blue Coat ProxySG [EOL]
Average Rating
8.0
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
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 (4th)
 

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.
SS
Information Security Engineer at M.Tech
Granular control over website access has lead to decreased bandwidth and increased performance
If you have previously worked on the product then it is quite simple. However, if you are new to it then the implementation is a little bit tricky. On the Cloud Proxy, the deployment takes less than one day. If you are using the ProxySG or the on-premises solution, it will take one to two weeks depending on the policy configuration, the size of the organization, and what kinds of policies are needed. The number of staff you need to maintain the solution depends on the size of the organization, and how many changes occur on a daily basis. If you have one thousand employees then you need at least one employee to look after it.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"I recommend iboss for organizations looking for strong cloud-based web security and centralized access control."
"It was a very easy product to install. It can be deployed very fast."
"Overall, the major benefit from Browser Isolation is improved security without compromising employee productivity."
"It's a great solution for high load enterprise infrastructure to protect company networks from web threats."
"Since the implementation of this solution, the bandwidth has decreased and the performance in terms of Internet access has increased."
"We were able to monitor users' social media behavior and control certain activities to be allowed on the social media, which helped to prevent data loss and other activities that could result in a negative impact to the organization."
"It features intuitive proxy policy deployment using a VPN."
"Proxy Solution and ADN and their integration capability with Blue Coat director are positive features."
"Customer Service: Blue Touch support is top notch and very responsive when I opened service requests."
"Proxy Solution and ADN, specifically its integration capability with Blue Coat Director to apply seamless policy across all of Blue Coat, along with intuitive proxy policy deployment using VPN and the ability to forward-chain your proxy, make it overall a good solution though growth requires automation support."
"The functionality of this solution is one of the best, and it is leading the market."
"Real-time analytics."
"For the most part, the solution, when set up correctly, works fine."
"Most valuable features were content filtering and monitoring."
"The most valuable feature of Forcepoint Web Security is creating the easy to install further policies that are deployed through the Forcepoint security manual at some stage. Just drag and drop and the policies are there."
"They have well-integrated web security and have the enterprise DLP included in the cloud as well."
"There is some sandboxing available, which is quite useful."
"The tool's most valuable features are content filtering and URL filtering."
"When evaluating this solution to others it is one of the best."
 

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."
"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."
"iboss could improve by making alert noises lower, adding clearer setup steps, and speeding up support response times."
"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."
"The endpoint-type solution is an area that needs some improvement."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Sometimes when you call in support, you get someone who is just following a sheet. It feels like a runaround. You feel that you are running into that support wall."
"It would be great if the product had inbuilt queuing for Quality of Service."
"It lacks deployment over multiple platforms and integration with SDN architecture."
"They need to improve the intellectual analysis for APT vectors from web."
"Blue Coat advertises the ProxySG as a WAF, but it really isn’t."
"We cannot automate the product since the IP address can only be assigned after acquisition of the serial number."
"The GUI works, but could be better."
"There were benefits but the evolution is slow, hence wanting to move on with the product."
"We have had latency issues."
"We have had issues with downtime, where the service was out one time for 48 hours and nobody knew what was happening."
"I have been in contact with technical support several times, and I am not happy with them."
"The availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well."
"A room for improvement in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the support it offers; it's very bad."
"An area for improvement would be the classification of websites - it can take a long time for new websites to be classified."
"There were several issues with the product. Version 8.4 can only be managed with a CLI, they removed the nice GUI interface from version 8.1; the load-balancing needs massive improvements and the incident lists do not sync between appliances, so they need to be manually edited for each one."
"A feature we wish to see addressed in the next release of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway involves its administration."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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 probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"Additional features, such as Flash Proxies, have their own licensing fees that depend on what the requirements are."
"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 cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."
"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 solution's price is good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
7%
No data available
Outsourcing Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Construction Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise8
Large Enterprise16
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
iboss could be improved by making the dashboard more user-friendly, providing more detailed real-time alerts, and imp...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
iboss is primarily used for cloud security, helping to protect users when they access websites and cloud applications...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
The pricing and licensing for iboss were reasonable for the security features. The setup costs were manageable, thoug...
Ask a question
Earn 20 points
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...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
Global Technology and Material Manufacturer
Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Fortinet, Zscaler and others in Secure Web Gateways (SWG). Updated: October 2026.
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