We compared Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway and Cisco Umbrella across several parameters based on our users' reviews. After reading the collected data, you can find our conclusion below:
Features: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway provides category-based site blocking, making it easy to block specific types of websites. It also offers well-integrated web security, ensuring a seamless experience for users. Cisco Umbrella is highly regarded for its seamless integration with existing infrastructure, extensive range of security features, and ability to centrally manage security.
Room for Improvement: The Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway could improve in terms of accessibility, website classification, latency, and endpoint management. Cisco Umbrella could enhance security by adding a transferring proxy feature and improving its Linux agent for Linux-based companies.
Ease of Deployment: The setup process for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is seen as complicated and time-consuming, requiring in-house expertise or vendor assistance. Customers have praised Cisco Umbrella's support, describing it as excellent and superior to the customer service of other vendors.
Service and Support: Forcepoint's customer service received mixed reviews, with some customers complaining about response time and issue resolution. Customers have praised Cisco Umbrella's support, describing it as excellent and superior to the customer service of other vendors.
Pricing: Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is considered reasonably priced but on the higher end. Some users mentioned extra expenses for reporting. The cost of Cisco Umbrella differs based on the specific needs and approach of the customer, with flexible pricing and transparent charges. It is seen as both reasonable and competitive by some, but a few perceive it as costly.
ROI: Forcepoint's ROI has been compared to an insurance policy. Users say they gain peace of mind from knowing that their security needs are covered. Cisco Umbrella has proven to be a valuable investment by addressing maintenance concerns, reducing expenses associated with hardware updates, and effectively thwarting threats.
Comparison Results: Users appreciate Cisco Umbrella for its easy setup, extensive security features, and ability to centrally manage security. Forcepoint offers more granular control and integration with other security products. Cisco Umbrella could improve its Linux agent, while Forcepoint could improve its accessibility, website classification, and support.
"The solution is stable."
"The protection offered by the product is the most valuable feature. It detects vulnerabilities or traps on our users' phones and then prompts them to clean up their devices. Tools we used previously would only discover, which required us to gather information on the backend, so Lookout is a welcome upgrade."
"On the outside, the main differentiation is because Lookout ingest. They have ingested basically all of the apps for the last ten years and all the versions of all the apps, and we have that in a corporate database that allows us to do very large-scale machine learning and analysis on that data set. That's not something that any of the competitors really have the capability to do because they don't have access to the data set. A lot of the apps you can no longer get them because that version of the app is five or six years old, and it just doesn't exist anywhere anymore, except within our infrastructure. So, the ability to have that very rich dataset and learn from that dataset is a real differentiator."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"Umbrella enables customers to be secure. We are happy with this and this is the most important benefit for customers."
"Any time someone went off the network, the AnyConnect client had the Umbrella agent built in, and it would realize when their computer connected that they were not on the corporate network. It would monitor and they would have pretty close to the same rules that they had to follow when they were in the office, regarding what kind of website browsing they could do."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"It has excellent resilience in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for my organization is very important because we are a banking organization. We need this security to protect the personal information of our clients. This is very important for our security."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to block users from reaching places that they should not even try to reach has been a boon."
"The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on."
"We use Cisco Umbrella for DNS filtering and as a secure gateway."
"Most valuable features are content filtering and monitoring."
"The customization and control of URL filtering and the integration with other Forcepoint solutions are great features."
"Real-time analytics."
"It has got a really good URL categorization database. It is simple to set up. It is also easy to use and quite intuitive. It has got a nice utility for troubleshooting."
"It has protected clients against cyberattacks."
"It’s pretty stable after you get up and running."
"The initial setup is not complex."
"There is some sandboxing available, which is quite useful."
"From the analysis that we've done, they do seem to be maybe a step behind in trying to enter the market with a new solution. But when they do pick up, they do come out with some good products."
"The stability depends on the service from where you access it. Because sometimes, the place you are in, you have Gateway. You don't have Gateway. The gateway is overutilized. At the end, you need to go through their gateways. And this is the key point here. You have a tracking point. If it's not well orchestrated, and it scales up as you add more to the existing team, you will suffer"
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"We just submitted an enhancement request reflecting the main area we want to see improvement in; the APIs. Currently, we're able to build dashboards, but it's somewhat backward because we use our MDM API to create them. Lookout should provide API to customers so we can query our data and use it in our cloud, and this is the only outstanding area for improvement with the product right now."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate."
"I would like them to make some videos, practical videos, the kind with steps that people can use to learn and deploy"
"It's easier for us to have support features with companies who are Cisco representatives, but sometimes, it's hard for us to get the help we need without having to use our contacts within Cisco."
"The firewall capabilities could be better. Cisco is starting to introduce some layer 7 capabilities now, but there's still some room to grow. They should continue with the development of Umbrella so that it is a full-blown cloud-managed firewall solution."
"They need to improve analytics so they report on more of the specifics of user activity."
"Support for multiple domains is important to us."
"They can maybe simplify the configuration. For example, sometimes, the proxy part is quite difficult, and that's why we didn't deploy that."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"Sometimes attacks or a new ransomware gets through."
"What's missing in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is a specific level of micro-control on protocols or devices, for example, where you can control a particular user or user device."
"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."
"The solution should be better able to support itself and operate faster. Sometimes the technical support team takes too long to respond."
"Database synchronization failures"
"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 availability of clusters is limited, and the product is very unstable. The development team is slow as well."
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Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 108 reviews while Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is ranked 6th in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 47 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway writes "Simple to set up, reliable, and offers great reporting". Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and FortiSASE , whereas Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Symantec Proxy, Fortinet FortiProxy, Fortinet FortiGate SWG and Cisco Web Security Appliance. See our Cisco Umbrella vs. Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway report.
See our list of best Secure Web Gateways (SWG) vendors and best Internet Security vendors.
We monitor all Secure Web Gateways (SWG) reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.