No more typing reviews! Try our Samantha, our new voice AI agent.

Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Fortinet FortiProxy comparison

Why PeerSpot?
Sponsored
 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 4, 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 Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
6th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
24
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (6th), ZTNA as a Service (6th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
10th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (4th)
Fortinet FortiProxy
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
14th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.3
Number of Reviews
11
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.2%, up from 2.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 2.8%, down from 3.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiProxy is 2.1%, down from 4.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.2%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway2.8%
Fortinet FortiProxy2.1%
Other91.9%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

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.
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.
Emmanuel Dasho - PeerSpot reviewer
Cyber Security Engineer | Network/Security at GCET
Ease of configuration and seamless integration enhance operational efficiency
The App Control feature in the Fortinet FortiProx * Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): FortiProxy analyzes traffic at the application layer to detect applications even if they use non-standard ports or are encrypted. * Application Signatures: Uses FortiGuard’s application signature database (constantly updated) to recognize thousands of applications. * Policy Enforcement: You can create policies to Allow, Block, Monitor, or Shape (QoS) based on application type, category, or specific apps.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"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."
"As I mentioned, the return on investment is significant, as it saved our office locations' bandwidth because when you are working remotely at home, your internet traffic routes directly to iboss and will not go to your office building, saving bandwidth bottlenecks and ensuring that issues with our building internet circuits will not impact your internet connectivity because you are directly going to the iboss data center."
"Deploying iboss leads to good return on investment, estimated around 70% to 80%."
"First of all, the security policies are essential. I do not have to rely solely on Active Directory for our users."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss."
"The students were always protected, and the content filtering worked very well, seeming to work better than other products we had tried previously."
"The solution’s administration is easy."
"It's stable and reliable."
"We are happy with the solution for now."
"It has protected clients against cyberattacks."
"It is fairly easy to setup and use."
"Real-time analytics."
"Transparent Mode: Since we have multiple sites and roaming users, it has helped us in deploying the proxy to users without having to push any configurations to end users."
"Scalability-wise, it was pretty good, as we had deployments that were easily over 10,000 users and there were deployments that were 34,000 at that point, and they managed to get the product to that point on the scale pretty well."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiProxy are its simplicity and performance."
"The most valuable feature is intrusion prevention (IPS) and antivirus profiles. These features help control user activity, ensuring that they access only permitted websites and protects from downloading viruses."
"It is a really stable solution."
"The solution's stability is good."
"It seamlessly integrates with various security products, enhancing threat intelligence and improving indicators of compromise."
"It helps to secure the networks at the DNA level and ensure proper identification and filtering of DNS traffic."
"I liked the tool's ability to provide detailed access control. For example, we could allow users to watch YouTube videos but not post comments. This level of control wasn't available in FortiGate."
"We can use Fortinet FortiProxy configuration for your network."
 

Cons

"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 is stable, but due to growth, it can sometimes be less stable than wanted."
"For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company ExxonMobil."
"Our iboss subscription access should be more secure with an OTP or VPN etc. It is easy to gain access if, for example, hackers obtain my username and password."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"I appreciate that iboss's single pane of glass console gives centralized visibility into web traffic, user activity, security policies, and alerts from one dashboard, allowing us to quickly investigate incidents and monitor policy violations without switching between multiple tools, improving operational efficiency; however, the dashboard customization and reporting could be more flexible."
"Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern."
"AD authentication is buggy and not very effective."
"The deployment is a bit complex and it requires expertise to deploy, which is something that should be improved and made easier to do."
"The automation lifecycle, integration, and export functionality could all be improved."
"The product could improve its automation capabilities, improve integration with virtualization, and enhance its web filtering specifics."
"A room for improvement in Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is the support it offers; it's very bad."
"There should be more hardware models available and the application control could improve."
"Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway could be improved by offering a SaaS-based service, which is increasingly being adopted in the market. They need to enhance their CASB solutions since currently, the cloud index support is low compared to competitors."
"Enhancing the dashboard would provide better insights into users' usage patterns."
"Fortinet FortiProxy should integrate AI/ML technologies. Its pricing needs to be more flexible."
"The tool's most valuable feature is its granular access control. For example, users can browse the main site if you allow access to Amazon, but it stops them from visiting secondary Amazon websites without specific permission. This granular control is really helpful."
"The hardware version is stable, but the VM version is not stable and contains bugs that cause issues."
"Its web filtering capabilities could be improved."
"I see that the solution's interface is not in French...It would be good for our company if we could have the tool interface in French."
"Its power supply process for some of the proxies needs improvement."
"For me it may be the wildcards for URLs whitelist or blacklist, somehow the page loads."
"Fortinet FortiProxy should improve by adding more documentation and guides."
 

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."
"The price of this product should be reduced to make it more competitive."
"Compared to the other products in the market, Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway can be a cost-effective tool."
"Forcepoint's pricing is moderate."
"The licensing is not expensive."
"The solution's pricing is competitive."
"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."
"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"Overall, I am not aware of the option to pay for one time use of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway."
"The solution is neither too expensive nor very cheap."
"Price-wise, Fortinet FortiProxy is moderate - not the highest among competitors, but not cheap either."
"It is a cost-effective solution."
"It can be considered expensive, with a limited lifespan and support that eventually requires updating to newer solutions."
"It offers a more cost-effective solution than alternatives like FortiMail, FortiGate, and various Barracuda devices."
"The tool's pricing is in the middle."
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Secure Web Gateways (SWG) solutions are best for your needs.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
8%
Construction Company
7%
Outsourcing Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
9%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Government
8%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business13
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise11
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business23
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise29
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise3
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
I think iboss could be improved by making reporting and dashboard customization more flexible, and simplifying troubl...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
I use iboss as a cloud-based secure web gateway to provide secure internet access, web filtering, and protect remote ...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
My experience with iboss's pricing structure, setup cost, and licensing model has been positive, straightforward, and...
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...
What needs improvement with Fortinet FortiProxy?
For me it may be the wildcards for urls whitelist or blacklist, somehow the page loads. Aside from that there no other..
What advice do you have for others considering Fortinet FortiProxy?
My advice to others who are considering Fortinet FortiProxy is that it is seamless, easy to use, and quite straightfo...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Fortinet FortiProxy?
Fortinet FortiProxy is much cheaper compared to other products like Cisco, Palo Alto, and others. It is reasonably pr...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Forcepoint SWG, Websense Web Security, Forcepoint TRITON
FortiProxy
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Trusted by global enterprises and government agencies.
Adventist Health, Alphawest, Amadori, Anoka County, Compartamos Banco, Davies Turner, EverBank, iGATE, Karlstad Municipality, Lake Michigan Credit Union, Scavolini, Smurfit Kappa, Toyota
Information Not Available
Find out what your peers are saying about Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Fortinet FortiProxy and other solutions. Updated: September 2026.
915,287 professionals have used our research since 2012.