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Forcepoint ONE vs Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 7, 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 Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
8th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (11th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (11th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (11th)
Forcepoint ONE
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
11th
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (24th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (20th)
Microsoft Defender for Clou...
Ranking in Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
4th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
37
Ranking in other categories
Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) (14th), Microsoft Security Suite (13th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2025, in the Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.8%, up from 1.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint ONE is 2.2%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is 10.6%, down from 14.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Edwin Eze-Osiago - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to deploy, stable, and scalable
Bitglass integration with some IDP providers needs improvement. Currently, the solution is not compatible with Azure AD for third-party authentication. The fraud proxy in the SmartEdge agent is not compatible with Forcepoint DLP or a web hybrid agent. I would like the developers to consolidate multiple agents across systems for better integration.
Jagadeesh Gunasekaran - PeerSpot reviewer
Saves us time, has good visibility, and a single dashboard
The solution is user-friendly and provides great visibility into threats. There are easy options available for specific workflow inspections. We can also get support by going through the Microsoft documentation, which is straightforward. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us prioritize threats across our enterprise. It covers us from a compliance perspective and protects our organization's data. Data protection is a very important aspect of any new organization, as we need to protect our data from both external attacks and insider threats. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us monitor for abnormal activity by insiders, which is one of the most important access points for attackers today. Additionally, the different cloud apps that Defender for Cloud Apps supports provide us with much more visibility into potential threats and activities on the internet. We have integrated Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps alerts with Sentinel. The integration is straightforward. We can find the configuration details on Microsoft's official documentation website. If we are familiar with how Microsoft products work, we will be able to follow the instructions clearly. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and Sentinel work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment. Our integrated Microsoft solutions provide comprehensive threat protection, covering most of the tactics and techniques relevant to the MITRE ATT&CK framework. Sentinel allows us to ingest data from our entire ecosystem. When implementing an SIEM solution, there are always prerequisites such as Active Directory logs, security logs, firewall logs, and DNS logs. These are important logs that need to be ingested into the environment. Sentinel has many third-party connectors available that make integrations straightforward. Microsoft provides the configuration details in the Sentinel platform. It is important to integrate all relevant log sources into the SIEM solution so that we can detect and be alerted to any type of threat factor, whether it is from an internal or external source. Integrating third-party solutions into the platform requires a separate configuration, but Microsoft provides the necessary information. However, we need to have the appropriate permissions to execute these setups. Sentinel provides a centralized dashboard that covers threat management and configuration. It gives us complete insight into what entities are accessing, as well as full details for investigation. We can see how the alerts and threats are relevant to suspicious activities, whether they are related to malicious IP addresses, suspicious ASHAs, or any other indicators of compromise. All of this relevant data can be seen in a single pane. Recently, Microsoft introduced a new investigation experience in a single pane. This means that we can now get a lot of details in a single pane, without having to go there and execute a query. There are a lot of new insights being developed in the Sentinel platform these days. It has software intelligence. They recently introduced Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence, which covers almost all IOCs. This protects organizational assets from threats and suspicious traffic associated with IOCs. If a match is found, alerts are generated. This is a very interesting feature. Another great feature is automation and logic apps. We can create a number of operations, such as posting in a team's channel if a severe incident occurs or sending an email notification. There are many operations available, so we can automate a lot of tasks. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps helps us stay compliant. It has predefined mechanisms in place to prevent attacks. For example, if an external user tries to access our SharePoint folders or files, an attack will be blocked. This is why it is important to give appropriate access to guest users. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps has many features and benefits. It provides a number of policies that can be configured to meet the specific needs of our security team. These policies can be used to customize cloud applications so that only authorized users can access them and perform operations that benefit the organization. In terms of safety and security, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is top-notch. Using the solution's automation features, we can suppress false positive alerts. We can also close alerts, lower their severity from "high" to "low" or "informational," or close them immediately with the appropriate commands. This will depend on the configuration automation rule and the perspective from which we are testing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps provides a single console. We are also provided with Microsoft templates to enable workbooks instantly. Alternatively, we can build our own customized workbooks to provide better insights and improve our SOC efficiency and overall performance. Consolidating all of our security data into one dashboard has saved our security operations team a significant amount of time. From an analyst's perspective, it is now much easier to correlate events, investigate alerts, and visualize specific entities. For example, an analyst can quickly see all of the alerts associated with a particular IP address, or they can view all of the activity for a specific entity over the past 24 hours or 7 days. This level of detail and insight would not be possible if our data were siloed in multiple dashboards. The single dashboard saves our operations approximately 20 hours per week by eliminating the need to access multiple consoles and tabs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps threat intelligence can help us prepare for potential threats before they happen. However, it depends on how we develop the policies for the database to block or ignore things in our environment.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"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."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"The most valuable features of Forcepoint include Zero Trust Network Access and remote user protection for private applications."
"We are able to verify what is getting saved out onto the cloud. It allows us to have some DLP rules, since we have to be HIPAA compliant. If some personal health information has been uploaded to Office 365, then we are able to detect that sort of thing and account for it. We have set up rules to prevent people from doing that."
"The solution is very good when it comes to securing us against data leakage, because of the other proxy. It also has API scanning or data at rest. It inspects data in motion, which is the proxy, and then it has the data at rest, which is the API scanning. We can inspect for anything we want: file fingerprinting, PHI-sensitive data, PCI-sensitive data. It does not matter. We can usually find it and block it in transit and do our remediation with it. It could either be block, encrypt, or allow and watermark the file to follow it and see where it goes. It allows for those different scenarios."
"The initial setup was straightforward, which was a huge win. That mostly goes to the fact that they are agentless. We didn't have to sit there deploying thousands of agents and all the things that go along with that type of deployment. We were up and running very quickly."
"The biggest thing that I like about this product is that it's easy to use and teach. When we have somebody new starting to work with the product, it's easy to teach them. It's also easy to use the product as it does so much."
"By default without a policy, Bitglass has the capability to notify the admin of multiple or simultaneous logins across a wide range of geographical regions."
"The core CASB solution is the most valuable part. It allows us to put policies in place around which devices can log into our cloud applications. We have a policy that states that only company devices can access these cloud applications."
"The platform's feature that has been most beneficial for our web security is its capability to replicate rules."
"I like the web GUI/the management interface. I also like the security of Microsoft. As compared to other manufacturers, it's less complex and easy to understand and work with."
"One of the most valuable features is auditing. Some of the other protection services have issues with auditing. Microsoft Defender for Cloud has an excellent auditing technique that helps us avoid the risk of filtering or information loss. You can use different tools to guarantee these things. It allows you to conduct an in-depth exploration of applications, users, and files that are harmful or suspicious. You can also enhance your security setup by creating personalized rules or policies that help you better control traffic in the cloud."
"The most valuable features of Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include live, up-to-date information, which provided real-time alerts, and the ability to delve into detailed metadata information."
"The feature that helps us in detecting the sensitive information being shared has been very useful. In addition, the feature that allows MCAS to apply policies with SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive is being used predominantly."
"Defender helps us control which applications are being used and gain more security insight into remote and hybrid users based on user identity and log in location. You can also integrate Defender for Cloud Apps with Defender for Endpoint to extend its capabilities."
"Everything from Microsoft is integrated. You receive regular reports on them all. You can push your reports, logs, and security alerts, which are all integrated. It is crucial that these solutions work natively together to deliver coordinated detection and response across our environment."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its monitoring."
"I like the alert policies because they are quite robust. It has some built-in templates that we can easily pick up. One of them is the alert for mass downloads, when a particular user is running a massive download on your SharePoint site."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"We encounter challenges in determining whether certain features for blocking certain file types or preventing automatic downloads are functioning correctly."
"The solution's integration with other products needs improvement."
"In our environment, when an Active Directory password changes, we tend to have some latency issues with access. It takes about 15 minutes before that password is accessible through Bitglass after the change. That would be the major thing I see as a negative."
"Areas for improvement for the platform include addressing scalability and architecture concerns, especially for large deployments involving more than 500 or 1,000 users."
"One area for improvement in Forcepoint ONE is that you'll need more training to install the solution yourself. I practiced in a laboratory and I needed more technical information to do the installation."
"There is room for improvement in making the reporting closer to real-time, ideally around five or ten minutes instead of half an hour. The interface could also be updated as it was quite dated."
"I wish they would advance more into the endpoint DLP solution. Currently they do not do anything around endpoint, they're still strictly cloud-based. The forward proxy is really the only thing they do. What I would like to see them do is to scan machines, workstations and servers, for information we might not want on those machines. That would be huge."
"Integration into different multi-factor authentication tools. On their page, they tout Duo, but I don't use Duo. I use another vendor. Not that they don't interact, but it takes a little bit more doing. Any amount of efficiencies here would help."
"They need to improve the attack surface reduction (ASR) rules. In the latest version, you can implement ASR rules, which are quite useful, but you have to enable those because if they're not enabled, they flag false positives. In the Defender portal, it logs a block for WMI processes and PowerShell. Apparently, it's because ASR rules are not configured. So, you generally have to enable them to exclude, for example, WMI queries or PowerShell because they have a habit of blocking your security scanners. It's a bit weird that they have to be enabled to be configured, and it's not the other way around."
"I would prefer to have filtering options incorporated within the policies, enabling the solution to perform tasks beyond mere blocking or allowing."
"A significant improvement I would like to see is the integration into a single pane of glass, which would allow me to view everything in one place rather than having to switch between different areas."
"Defender for Cloud Apps could come with more configured policies out of the box. Also, integration could be easier. Integration is moderately difficult because Microsoft hasn't developed a solution that unifies device onboarding and management. You have to use Intune to manage devices and Defender for Endpoint to enforce policies. They need to fix their integration, but I believe they will straighten it out by the end of the year."
"Currently, reporting is not very straightforward and it needs to be enhanced. Specific reports are not included and you need to run a query, drill down, and then export it and share it. I would love to have reports with more fine-tuning or granularity, and more predefined reports."
"The response time could be better. It will be helpful if the alerts are even more proactive and we can see more data. Currently, the data is a little bit weak. It is not complete. I can't just see it and completely know which user or which device it is. It takes some effort and time on my part to investigate and isolate a user. It would be great if it is more user-friendly or easy for people to understand."
"Defender for Cloud apps is primarily useful for Azure apps. It has limited capabilities for applications based on other cloud platforms."
"We are having trouble with our continuous reporting configuration and struggling with configuring the collector properly with our log parsing. We've also faced difficulties getting support for this issue. It's taken us months to figure this out after going through a couple of different support channels."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"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."
"The licensing cost for Forcepoint ONE would depend on the features, but the pricing is very competitive here in Brazil. The solution offers a good price, and I would rate it a three or a four in terms of pricing. I don't have information on whether there are additional costs apart from the standard licensing fees for Forcepoint ONE."
"The product is reasonably priced compared to other vendors. I rate the pricing a two or three."
"We have our pricing by user. We do our pricing agreements annually. There are also additional costs for maintenance."
"There is training involved. If you're going to add more people to it, such as cross train more of your group, there's a cost. Other than that, that's it. We have paid exactly what the invoices have said. We signed a three-year contract and not gone above it."
"Typically, the longer you price forward, the better off you're going to be. They have been very willing to work with us on pricing."
"When considering only the cost, the solution may appear to be costly; however, when evaluated in terms of commercial value, Bitglass is not expensive."
"The cost could be improved when you need to pay for anything. For example, refreshing files takes time to load, though it may be my Internet. To improve the refresh time, Microsoft says that we need to pay for a Premium license, and I don't like paying for things that help make a solution better."
"It is a little bit expensive. When you want to have the complete package with Office 365, Defender, and everything else, it is expensive."
"The pricing is fair."
"It has fair pricing. You pay for what you get. As far as I know, there are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fee."
"It has pretty good pricing."
"Microsoft offers bundle discounts and a pay-as-you-go option."
"This product is not expensive."
"The price could be better and should be reconsidered."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
What do you like most about Forcepoint ONE?
The platform's feature that has been most beneficial for our web security is its capability to replicate rules.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Forcepoint ONE?
The pricing is very good and cheaper than other solutions like Netskope and Forcepoint.
What needs improvement with Forcepoint ONE?
I have some requirements that the solution cannot currently fulfill. For example, I need control over access to web W...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-nat...
What do you like most about Microsoft Cloud App Security?
It does a great job of monitoring and maintaining a security baseline. For us, that is a key element. The notificatio...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Cloud App Security?
The pricing for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is acceptable. If a product is of high quality, it justifies the ex...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Bitglass
MS Cloud App Security, Microsoft Cloud App 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.
UNC-Charlotte
Customers for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps include Accenture, St. Luke’s University Health Network, Ansell, and Nakilat.
Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint ONE vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
842,388 professionals have used our research since 2012.