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 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."
"The solution is stable."
"The most valuable features are the antivirus as a whole, the anti-malware, and all of the protection features that scan our enterprise devices."
"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."
"Meraki features and cloud-based functionality are advanced and easy to manage centrally."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a nine out of ten...Cisco's support is better nowadays."
"The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are."
"The security and access control features."
"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 can have a full overview and a quick overview of all the DNS requests. For us, it's quite important."
"Some clients only want DNS security, while others want more of the advanced features that it has available."
"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."
"In terms of functionality, Forcepoint is the best web proxy available."
"The initial setup is easy. It's not difficult."
"I like the product's scalability and stability."
"The customization and control of URL filtering and the integration with other Forcepoint solutions are great features."
"I have found the simplicity of the solution valuable. The dashboard and reports are good as well."
"It has protected clients against cyberattacks."
"Most valuable features are content filtering and monitoring."
"Ease of updating the latest hotfixes and patches on the appliance."
"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"
"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."
"Lookout was moving into the SSE space. And so their work on SecureWeb Gateway and SD-WAN is still sort of evolving."
"There are a couple of different pieces that have different portals. I know they're working on getting them all into one portal, but that's probably the biggest thing that needs improvement right now. It's not a single pane of glass yet."
"Network connectivity was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, but we were able to get the right help from Cisco."
"Security, overall, can always be improved."
"The pricing could be improved."
"Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place."
"The rule-making process for blocking sites or for blocking characteristics can use some simplification."
"There are cheaper solutions in the market"
"The design of the screens could be improved. Sometimes you're trying to look for information, for what you think is critical that should be on that first screen of the dashboard so that you can quickly take screenshots to have people help out, but you have to hop between screens to find little pieces of evidence."
"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."
"I would suggest focusing on improving the GUI's stability, especially when implementing new filters or patches."
"I have been in contact with technical support several times, and I am not happy with them."
"The technical support team's response time could be improved."
"We have a lot of false positives, which is one area that can be improved."
"A feature we wish to see addressed in the next release of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway involves its administration."
"Improve detailed guidelines to deploy the transparent proxy to Firefox users."
"Sometimes attacks or a new ransomware gets through."
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Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Secure Web Gateways (SWG) with 108 reviews while Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is ranked 5th 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 Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange, 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.