Forcepoint Secure Web Gateway vs. Sophos Firewall

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

It is well-suited for small, medium, and large organizations looking for comprehensive cybersecurity protection. It will not only safeguard their network from cyberattacks but also provide them with many advanced features like deep packet inspection, centralized management, web filtering, application control, etc. in one place. It will help them optimize bandwidth and ensure continued connectivity.

Incentivized

• 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

• Web filtering. This allows us to monitor web usage and block certain categories from being access at the perimeter.
• Application Control. With application control we can block certain applications that get categorized from working accessing the Internet.
• Synchronized Security. When utilizing the Sophos Endpoint product you can use Synchronized Security to minimize Lateral Movement in a network. If a machine is shows a Red status you can auto-isolate it and it is unable to communicate with anything else on the network.

Incentivized

• 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

• If using Endpoint security and the Firewall it would be nice to have an easier back and forth between the portals rather than have two separate tabs open. Especially if using more than one in multiple locations.
• If dealing with different revisions options are moved around and sometimes in places that doesn't normally seem like they should be there.

Incentivized

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

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

Because this is a user-friendly interface, and anyone can use it there are multiple articles and guidelines available, it has advanced-level security features. they provide VPN solutions all the features are very practical, SSID MAC-based authentications web control, Firewall rules segregation of the rules and policies, On-premises Active directory single sign-on feature is also available.

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.

Incentivized

As we are all addicted to graphics-oriented interfaces for all our life products. Easy to manage and access as a good way of using anything

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

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

I was a big fan of Cisco ASA products, but when I saw all of the security feature differences between both firewalls, I moved to Sophos devices. Its sandbox, IPS, and many more features are really advanced. Cisco does not provide features like this.

Incentivized

• 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

• True UTM device.
• Very Active customer help for any help.
• Easy license and cost effective.
• Should [do] more work on logging and reporting.