Barracuda Web Security Gateway vs. Lightspeed Filter

Barracuda Web Security Gateway is a secure solution. This solution offers advanced filtering for web content, application control, access control, network monitoring, and user authentication to control network access. It is easy to use, helps prevent access to harmful content. Therefore, I highly recommend the Barracuda Web Security Gateway to enhance your network security, secure remote administration, and approve and control application usage.

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

• It can integrate with active directory to place restrictions based on a specific user or group if required - or alternatively to allow a user/group to access more on the web if needed.
• The application blocking features have been especially useful in our enterprise, and there is a large number of applications & web applications available to block/allow as needed.

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

• There are 2 different policies; authenticated and unauthenticated. Sometimes the filter does not pick up the user that is logged in. When this happens, that user could potentially access sites that would normally be blocked.
• Sometimes blocking one thing could block something you need. We had an instance where we use remote software. We block BitTorrent but for some reason, the filter was seeing this remote software as BitTorrent traffic. I got support on the line and we were eventually able to figure out a solution.
• We put in certain applications. One of them is supposed to be blocked but a lot of the time it doesn't get blocked.

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.

There are a lot of settings you can adjust. The web log is easy to use. If a user is having issues accessing a website, you can go in and see what's being blocked and why. After that, you can make adjustments fairly easy. The GUI is easy to navigate and updating the software is a simple click of a button.

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.

Barracuda support is always available, 24/7. They are always friendly, supportive, and follow-up with anything they promise. Any ticket that is opened is touched constantly by the support team until it is remedied

Barracuda Web Filter is superior to the built-in content filters of any firewalls (even next gen) that we have encountered. It's a misconception that the built-in filtering on a SonicWALL or WatchGuard is enough. I don't believe that Barracuda has any direct competitors in this space that it's not head and shoulders above.

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

• We had several of our divisions that we thought needed to increase their internet bandwidth, due to decreased speed and productivity. After installing the Barracuda Web Security Gateway, we realized we had some abusive behavior going on with online activity. We set some controls and the bandwidth usage decreased by at least 30%, allowing us to maintain the current bandwidth and not spending more money.

• 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