Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs FortiGuard Web Filtering Service

Likelihood to Recommend

We have both scenarios where we can describe that. For example, in the HQ, where we have about 3,000 users, Cisco IronPort Web Security Appliance is the ideal solution, because we can consolidate all the Internet access, policies, rules, etc. in the same box. However, if you have small offices with a few users, it's hard to justify one big and expensive box that could cost more than the whole office infrastructure.

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Eduardo Viero

IT Infrastructure Specialist

RANDON S.AAutomotive, 5001-10,000 employees

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I recommend FortiGuard [Web Filtering Service] for small and medium businesses. It is well suited if you need to block bad websites like pornography, so I especially recommend using it for schools. For example, you can implement a firewall between the public internet and your local network of computer labs, students, and staff.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Non-profit Organization Management Company, 501-1000 employees

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Pros

SMA gave us central control over multiple servers, simplifying management.
Performance of the Appliance VM exceeded that of our old physical appliance-based solution.
Convenient licensing for virtualized environments that allows easy scaling.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Libraries Company, 1001-5000 employees

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The logging provided in FortiGuard Web Filtering Services is fantastic. It allows you to capture all requisite information. I personally have my log view set to show address accessed, time browsed, user, machine, all IP addresses involved, computer name, site Category, and the action taken.
In 4 years I have had to report 6 incorrect website ratings. Every time I've reported an issue, there has been an update to the site listing by the next morning.
Creating separate rule sets is simple, allowing for easy management of different groups of users.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Hospitality Company, 501-1000 employees

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Cons

The default metrics on the dashboard visualization are not that useful. It is not much customizable too. Some of the dashboard features like load, volume, etc. can have a hide option.
The false negatives are more than false positives. A lot of the times, it verdicts the same email as malicious and non-malicious. This can be reduced.

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Kuntal Das

Security Analyst Graduate Intern

University of Colorado DenverHigher Education, 5001-10,000 employees

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Interface was not easy for some other users, but after they got it down, it worked well.
Took a little while to get help from support. Had to call the project manager to get help. But they took care of the issue after the fact.

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Tony Ortiz

Database Administrator

Northside ISDEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

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Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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General

Free Trial

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Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Starting Price

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Usability

Cisco Secure Web Appliance 9.0

Based on 1 answer

Because it's one of those products you almost don't realize it exists from the end user. From the administrator perspective, you can do everything on its web interface and it's very intuitive to manage, once you know the concepts behind identities, acls, etc. Also, once you build the control structure, I mean, you link 'local' groups with your own Active Directory groups, as we did here, you don't need to be managing those things on the appliance itself.

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Eduardo Viero

IT Infrastructure Specialist

RANDON S.AAutomotive, 5001-10,000 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Cisco Secure Web Appliance 6.4

Based on 4 answers

Our experience with Cisco's support was terrible. Other than the fact that they don't respond to service-related emails with urgency, they also keep on changing the policies that affected us. Recently, they came up with a new look for the same software, which was insanely slow. Renewal of keys for the old interface took months. Overall, the support was not very friendly from the users' point of view.

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Kuntal Das

Security Analyst Graduate Intern

University of Colorado DenverHigher Education, 5001-10,000 employees

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FortiGuard Web Filtering Service 6.0

Based on 2 answers

Took a little longer for support to get our problem solved, but when the upper tier tech support was involved, we got excellent customer support.

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Tony Ortiz

Database Administrator

Northside ISDEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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Alternatives Considered

At home I have a McAfee service that does similar tasks and helps manage the users of my internet. McAfee seems more user friendly and easier to set exceptions.

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Verified User

Professional in Corporate

Machinery Company, 10,001+ employees

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We selected FortiGuard Web Filtering because it came in the service bundle with our FortiGate unit. After testing the service for a couple of months, we disabled the web filtering that was running on our client machines and have not looked back. It's been easy to manage, effective, and fast. There isn't much more you can ask for from a filtering solution.

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Verified User

Engineer in Information Technology

Hospitality Company, 501-1000 employees

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Return on Investment

Security! Security! Security! We are financial company that work with very sensitive information. A lot of unsafe traffic was blocked on the Cisco IronPort WSA over years of using it. We did not earn on it but absolutely sure that we did not lose 'gazillion' of dollars being infected or scammed.
Easy to configure and use, no need to teach new personnel how work with this product (hopefully saving time = saving money).
Unfortunately the price of license subscription made financial managers push IT dept. to look for something cheaper.

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Valeryi Mezentsev

System Administrator

Van Ru Credit CorporationFinancial Services, 501-1000 employees

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The subscription is a bit expensive. However, taking its value into consideration makes it worthwhile.

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Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Non-profit Organization Management Company, 501-1000 employees

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Cisco Secure Web Appliance vs FortiGuard Web Filtering Service