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Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Forcepoint SWG

    Score8 out of 10
    N/AThe Forcepoint ONE Secure Web Gateway (SWG) is one of the three foundational gateways of the Forcepoint ONE all-in-one cloud platform. Forcepoint ONE SWG monitors and controlsany interaction with any website, including blocking access to websites based on category and risk score, blocking download of malware, blocking upload of sensitive data to personal filesharing accounts, detecting shadow IT, and optionally providingRemote Browser Isolation (RBI) with Content Disarm andReconstruction (CDR).N/A

    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps

    Score7.8 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps (formerly Microsoft Cloud App Security) is a multimode cloud access security broker.N/A
    Pricing
    Forcepoint SWGMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Forcepoint SWGMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    YesNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Forcepoint SWGMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    Considered Both Products
    Forcepoint
    No answer on this topic
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    70%
    Would buy again
    7 Answers
    92%
    Would buy again
    11 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    8 Answers
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    12 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    10 Answers
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    12 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    86%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    6 Answers
    91%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    78%
    Implementation went as expected
    7 Answers
    91%
    Implementation went as expected
    10 Answers
    Best Alternatives
    Forcepoint SWGMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    Small Businesses
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Medium-sized Companies
    UniFi Cloud Gateways
    Score8.3 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    Enterprises
    Skyhigh Secure Web Gateway
    Score8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Forcepoint SWGMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (76 ratings)
    8.1
    (12 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (3 ratings)
    8.8
    (2 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    5.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Forcepoint SWGMicrosoft Defender for Cloud Apps
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Forcepoint
    Over the years, [in our experience], the maintenance of the Forcepoint Web Security solution proved to be more cumbersome and troublesome with each version upgrade. In addition, it did not transition well to support the large increase of remote workers. We also experienced weird incompatibilities with the client. We have since replaced this solution with Zscaler Internet Access, a cloud-based secure web gateway solution with a client that behaves as expected, is more flexible, and requires significantly less administration.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps is well suited when working with other Microsoft Applications. For example, if you are working with Microsoft Office 365 it works very well when implementing CASB features. It works when implementing monitoring or blocks on Sanctioned applications however customizing the message to users is not that great.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Forcepoint
    • It prevents users from accessing websites that may have recently been created for the purpose of distributing malware.
    • It prevents users from accidentally or intentionally accessing websites that are considered inappropriate for a work environment.
    • It allows us to create different policies for different teams in our organization.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • The integration to Microsoft Entra ID is seamless, which allows Conditional Access to redirect the session to Microsoft Defender for Cloud App for it to take actions (Block or Monitor).
    • Tracker users' activity is very good when troubleshooting or running an investigate.
    • Detecting risky users through tight integration with Microsoft Entra ID is a very good feature.
    • Detecting mass downloads and blocking the download of files from non-manage company devices is a very good feature as well.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Forcepoint
    • The user access logs contain a lot of useless information. I understand this is very hard to tackle as I've seen this across any product that logs web activity.
    • I would like to see more customization options of website block pages.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • It takes some time to scan and apply the policies when there is some sensitive information.
    • After it applies the policies, it works, but there is a delay.
    • It doesn't provide any way to scan Microsoft Teams when an external exchange of images is happening. You can always do the filtering on the documents during the chat, but if there is an image, then some kind of OCR capability is required to detect it. At present, there is no way [Microsoft Cloud App Security] can go and detect those kinds of images and alert us
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Forcepoint
    It is very stable, the organisation has "locked in" the product and has no plans to change or try another product. We have already renewed our 2019-2020 licenses. It is user friendly and people catch on easily when they first use it. The only downtime is when we install Microsoft updates! It has excellent reporting which help in determining how the organisation's Internet is used and also during both internal and external IT audits.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Forcepoint
    Despite the intimidating Linux CLI when you use the appliance for troubleshooting, the web security usability compensates as most of the Administration of the system is done there. It is GUI based and has an easy to use UI where one can navigate around rather easily like getting reports, checking alerts, looking the whole setup under deployment to check if all services are running in one place though there are other parts to the system.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    The interface is pretty simple and easy to use; however, you will need to do a lot of investigative research on your own to get comfortable with it. Originally, many of the Microsoft security tools had their own seperate consoles. Overtime, they have blended into one interface which is the ideal state. In some cases it is clear Microsoft had to pick which console a certain feature or setting was going to reside in and this leads to some confusion. For example, DLP is managed through Defender for Cloud Apps but you will also need to jump into Purview. For things like reverse proxy on your M365 tenant, you will need to go into Azure and setup conditional access rules. Not a big problem and I can understand why the settings are located where they are but for someone just starting out with Defender for Cloud Apps, it will take some time to figure out.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Forcepoint
    The is a quick first response to acknowledge your issue and the Engineers never take more than two hours to fix an issue and we hardly get issues looking at the fact that the system is pretty stable. There is also a robust Knowledge Base in the site for known problems.
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    Microsoft
    I have not utilized actual support but the Sales and Product teams have been super helpful in moving our implementation forward and showing us the best practices.
    Incentivized
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    Implementation Rating
    Forcepoint
    Research known issues with upgrading from the Support Knowledge base, this will enable you avoid road blocks along the way and reduce your dependence on Forcepoint Support
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Forcepoint
    To be honest, once using Forcepoint for our Web Security, I have not wanted to look anywhere else. The dashboard gives me quick insight of threats, productivity, and bandwidth usage. Again, this is a layer in my security and it fills many holes. I feel safe and I do like I can just let it do its thing
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    More flexible and more features with easy integration with cloud services like Microsoft Azure and other cloud services. Overall both gives similar features but we prefer Microsoft cloud app security due to its high threat detection rate. mostly we have been able to stop the threat in very very less time.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Forcepoint
    • Being a non-profit the cost is a bit higher than some competitors so our ROI takes a bit longer to recoup. I would really like to see better non-profit pricing.
    • The ease of doing a report on someone cuts down on the IT man-hours to do website tracking for managers as we can do it from a central point whereas in the past (prior to Forcepoint/Websense) we would have to ghost their machine to look for activity as well as their local servers.
    Incentivized
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    Microsoft
    • Cloud App Security saves us thousands of dollars finding and rectifying apps security issues
    • Identity Security Posture helps the organization identity stay in shape, saving thousands of dollars on security consultations
    • The cost of suffering a breach cannot be quantified, CAS helps minimize the chances of the attackers succeeding, with excellent historical logging for most operations
    Incentivized
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