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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs Fortinet FortiProxy comparison

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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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
56
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd)
Fortinet FortiProxy
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
11th
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 June 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 3.4%, up from 2.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is 2.9%, down from 4.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiProxy is 2.3%, down from 5.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
iboss3.4%
Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway2.9%
Fortinet FortiProxy2.3%
Other91.4%
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 a tech services company with 11-50 employees
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

"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."
"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."
"From a corporate perspective, I understand that it's important to keep the company data safe."
"We chose iboss for both zero trust and proxy (SWG) because their SWG was superior."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"iboss is definitely very good in terms of service."
"I would say iboss is a very good product; its scalability is very good, and it's seamless for the user."
"I would rate the technical support of iboss a solid 10 without a shadow of a doubt."
"In terms of performance, Forcepoint stands out because it is more scalable than any other solution. It can extend to different types of boxes and integrate well with other platforms and vendors. And it doesn't need to have the same kind of box or throughput to have high availability."
"Forcepoint has still proven to be the best for me."
"They have well-integrated web security and have the enterprise DLP included in the cloud as well."
"The functions of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway are most valuable due to Forcepoint's long-standing presence in the Web Security business, as it was formerly called Websense, which was in the market for almost 15 years."
"The agent is acting as a HIPS, host intrusion prevention system, apart from providing trusted access to any external websites."
"SWG allows me to track internet usage patterns, helping optimize bandwidth and understand how much time each employee spends online."
"One of the main features I have found the solution to be efficient."
"In terms of functionality, Forcepoint is the best web proxy available."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiProxy are its simplicity and performance."
"The tool's most valuable feature is traffic inspections."
"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."
"It is a really stable solution."
"The App Control feature in the Fortinet FortiProxy Deep Packet Inspection (DPI): FortiProxy analyzes traffic at the application layer to detect applications even if they use non-standard ports or are encrypted."
"It helps to secure the networks at the DNA level and ensure proper identification and filtering of DNS traffic."
"We can use Fortinet FortiProxy configuration for your network."
"The solution's stability is good."
 

Cons

"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"File integrity monitoring would be very advantageous as an additional feature."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan."
"Customer Service: 2 out of 10 Technical Support: 6 out of 10"
"The solution should be better able to support itself and operate faster. Sometimes the technical support team takes too long to respond."
"We are using a V10000 G3 appliance. It is just a proxy. It is just HTTP, FTP, and HTTPS. Now, as our website has developed and we are using rich time-connectivity protocols, the proxy doesn't have the ability to work with these protocols. It would be nice if the UDP feature was there for it to filter UDP traffic. It needs firewall capabilities for UDP filtering. Its upgrades can be quite complex, and they don't always go as per the plan. Its reporting could be a bit more granular."
"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."
"For cloud web security, there are definitely areas where it requires improvement, Policy changes take 20 to 30 minutes for enforcement."
"We have a lot of false positives, which is one area that can be improved."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"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."
"For IT administrators and managers, the reporting features are the main issues that should be addressed in order to improve the performance, security, and effective utilization of the product."
"Integration with existing infrastructure was generally easy, especially if you had tools like LDAP. However, I had to go through a lot of documentation as it was my first time working with a proxy server. We did experience some issues with certain web applications not working properly after implementing Fortinet FortiProxy."
"Fortinet FortiProxy should integrate AI/ML technologies. Its pricing needs to be more flexible."
"Its power supply process for some of the proxies needs improvement."
"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."
"Fortinet FortiProxy should improve by adding more documentation and guides."
 

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."
"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."
"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 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."
"The pricing depends upon the number of users."
"The cost for Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway is lower than that for Zscaler and Netskope. It could be around $4 per user annually."
"Expensive, but with a good reseller you can get a very good price."
"It is quite expensive."
"The solution's price is good."
"The solution is priced a little high compare to similar solutions."
"The licensing is not expensive."
"Overall, I am not aware of the option to pay for one time use of Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway."
"Price-wise, Fortinet FortiProxy is moderate - not the highest among competitors, but not cheap either."
"The solution is neither too expensive nor very cheap."
"The tool's pricing is in the middle."
"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."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Construction Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Construction Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise8
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?
The problem our organization had is that iboss failed for the Mac devices. It is not able to give a successful agent ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We used iBoss mainly for Internet Access by having an Agent on Windows laptops Primarily because when we try to use i...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
I am not involved in pricing, but as per the information I have, during that time, the Blue Coat proxies we were usin...
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

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
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: June 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.