GoGuardian Admin vs. Smoothwall SWG

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

Smoothwall SWG is very suitable in companies where there is a lot of staff and power to distribute the bandwidth by areas and give priority to the staff that requires better service. It's also well suited for business that require protection of their data and services as it is constantly monitoring the network and does not let them enter dangerous sites.

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

• Real-time IP filtering is very favorable. That helps limit and restrict prohibited content.
• Elaboration of personalized reports of the activities or pages that users visit to make new blocking rules to the pages most visited by users that may damage the functioning of the servers.

Incentivized

• With the new Minnesota state laws regarding student data privacy - it made it somewhat challenging for us to continue utilizing GoGuardian Admin. However, they provided some updates to their software to address these issues.
• GoGuardian Admin recently put out an option to checkbox COPPA/CIPA compliance verifications for web filtering. It seems that this still needs some work, as several educational websites we utilize are coming up as "uncategorized" - and then are being falsely flagged and declining access.

Incentivized

• It is necessary for them to have more material or a community that can help expand knowledge about this software so users can use 100% of their tools.

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

Smoothwall SWG has many tools similar to pfSense but in my opinion I like the graphical environment of smoothwall swg more. It is more didactic and simple to use for new users. Also pfSense lacks the tools for monitoring in real time and the elaboration of reports that helps to perform statistics on sites visited.

Incentivized

• GG Admin has made it easy to justify the use of Chromebooks in our district.
• GG Admin has alerted us to times where students might be in a dangerous/unwanted situation.
• GG Admin has helped us locate quite a few lost or stolen devices over the years.

Incentivized

• This software helps a lot and is very economical, since it is free and it can be installed in equipment with low performance. That is of importance to companies with little budget or who are just starting out in the market.

Incentivized