GoGuardian Admin vs. Lightspeed Filter

GoGuardian is excellent for any district with a 1:1 Chromebook program. Our program would not be nearly as successful without it. GoGuardian does work with other devices (Windows, iPads) but I believe some features do not work as well in those setups. We haven't tried using it for anything other than Chromebooks and I am not aware of anyone using it for iPad/Windows or Macs.

Incentivized

Lightspeed web filtering using the Chromebook Relay agent is amazing and does a great job for a cloud filtering solution. The reports that are available are great and can be customized and retains data for 90 days. Reports are easily shared with staff and/or parents for transparency and disciplinary reasons. The agent for Lightspeed (Relay) does not work well with OSX and works okay in Windows, but doesn't allow you to access local IP addresses in the web browser. There needs to be a way to bypass filtering for local network access. This can make it unusable in some cases.

Incentivized

• The reporting Dashboard page gives you a great picture of what your users are doing on the internet.
• The Theft recovery piece works very well and helps recover devices that are missing in action.

Incentivized

• Reduces bandwidth consumption.
• Improves network performance.
• It is compatible with a variety of operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux.
• It can be implemented in both wired and wireless networks.
• It can be installed in minutes and you can configure its settings with a few clicks.
• Learning environments work.

Incentivized

• The system cannot inform our team about cyber bullying or harassment.
• Students can still play some games if those games are loaded to a Google Site.
• There are times when a Chromebook that hasn't been restarted in a while will not show up online. This is problematic as students do not restart as much as they should.

Incentivized

• Expanded reporting capability
• More granular data

Incentivized

Does what we need it to do and more in a very cost-effective manner. Relatively easy to use and great customer support. They are quick and clear and will walk you through things in real time.

Incentivized

GoGuardian support is the best in the business. Within seconds of the business day I can chat with a human being about any issue.

Incentivized

GoGuardian Admin has been leading the way in content filtering for both on and off site with an easy-to-use interface. At the time, it was one of the first to offer cloud-based off-site filtering for Chromebooks. They continue to grow and provide new features every year with great tutorials and updates.

Incentivized

The Lightspeed filter has done a much better job with false-positive flagging. We have reduced the number of reported false-positive blocks by about 20% with Lightspeed. The Lightspeed interface is more intuitive and easy to navigate and configure than iboss. The reporting with iboss was a little more extensive than the reporting with Lightspeed.

Incentivized

• It has allowed us to deploy thousands of devices for home and on-premises use successfully. Without this cloud filtering, we would be stuck.
• The theft recovery piece has allowed us to get our assets back from students that have left the district or that have misused them.

Incentivized

• All positive.
• Not a lot of management needed once deployed.

Incentivized