GoGuardian Admin vs. Lightspeed Filter

GoGuardian Admin took the pressure off of IT to deal with filtering and gave control to the building admin. No longer does IT have to check if the website is appropriate or if the building principal wants to allow it. They take care of it on their own! Put ownership of internet use back on the building admin instead of IT, since it was always a classroom management problem, not a technology problem.

Incentivized

Lightspeed Filter is software that helps us work more efficiently and quickly.This platform helps us protect our access to suspicious content, unsafe websites, etc. In addition, it is recommended to implement it because it helps reduce bandwidth consumption and improves network performance. It is very easy to use, works very well in learning environments, giving educators full control and a positive experience over students. Although it does not offer direct integrations with other LMS platforms, it is really good and affordable.

Incentivized

• Web Filtering
• Chromebook Livefeed/Monitoring
• GoGuardian Admin technical support is fantastic, and is always available
• Ease of creating individual policies based on Google Admin Console OU

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

• In my experience, it is not intuitive and not as flexible as GoGuardian.
• Worst of all, in my experience, there are ridiculous glitches. When I tried to update a block list that I created, I received a message that said "You can only edit lists that you created. Ask your co-teacher to update the list." Since I am the only teacher and there is no co-teacher, this message makes no sense to me.

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

It is unreliable and does not function as it is supposed to do so. As previously mentioned, there is a glitch when creating a block list.

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 is the industry leader in this space. We have been a client for six years and have never had an issue with the product or support. We've investigated other options, but have found the feature set, ease of use, and reliability is unmatched.

Incentivized

Lightspeed has a long solid reputation in the EDU market for web filtering. That being said, they have the largest database of the categorized websites at the administrator's disposal during the configuration and operation. Safety Check is AI-based and Securely uses a live in-person safety monitoring system. Securely can send local authorities to do a welfare check on students because of self-harm-related emergencies. Securly is priced a little cheaper but not too much. Linewiz will be our new system to test.

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

• The ROI we measure with the filter is in student productivity
• It has reduced the time students have been on non-education sites by approximately 10% over our former filter because it does a better job with site categories (i.e., education games vs games).
• The included Safety Check feature has helped us improve our response to mental health issues.

Incentivized