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Lightspeed Filter Reviews & Insights

Score9.5 out of 10

18 Reviews and Ratings

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Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Lightspeed Filter are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Seamless Integration: Users appreciate the seamless integration of Relay, allowing for easy monitoring of websites and identification of blocked sites both on and off campus. This feature has been mentioned by a significant number of reviewers.

Web Filtering Capability: The web filtering capability of Relay is highly valued by users, who find it effective in filtering content on Chromebooks. Many reviewers have praised this feature for its effectiveness in ensuring a safe online environment for K-12 students.

Reporting and Audit Abilities: The reporting and audit abilities of Lightspeed are seen as valuable in monitoring internet usage and identifying trends that require intervention. Numerous users have highlighted the usefulness of the reporting functionality in easily identifying inappropriate content and taking necessary actions.

Reviews

6 Reviews

Lightspeed Filter--in my opinion, An Unreliable Technology

Rating: 0 out of 10

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I am a teacher and use Lightspeed Filter Systems to monitor my students and keep them engaged when they are on their chromebooks. I have scheduled my five classes so that Lightspeed Filter monitors students while they are in my class on a daily basis. I have also developed a block list. While I am teaching, I keep an eye on my students' devices by using Lightspeed Filter periodically and especially when they are working independently.

Pros

  • It allows you to freeze a student's computer temporarily from using their computer.

Cons

  • 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.
VU
Verified User
Employee (1001-5000 employees)
Vetted Review

Lightspeed Filter, an excellent option to protect us from inappropriate content and ensure that our network remains secure.

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

At our organization, we implement Lightspeed Filter to provide an additional layer of security for our network.Lightspeed Filter allows us to work more efficiently and faster, helps us manage bandwidth usage and speeds up Internet access. This is a secure platform, designed to protect our networks, in my personal use, I like to use it to block inappropriate content and monitor my children's activities when they are on the computer.

Pros

  • 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.

Cons

  • Limited customization options.
  • Integration options with other external platforms.
  • Integration options with LMS platforms.

Likelihood to Recommend

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.
DL
Damith Low
Software Engineer in Information Technology at AI Singapore (51-200 employees)
Vetted Review
Lightspeed Filter
2 years of experience
View profile

Lightspeed Relay has streamlined our filtering needs

Rating: 9 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We moved to their cloud-based platform to move away from an appliance and support our student devices both in school and at home. It provides additional safety features which have prevented some student harm from occurring as well. We have found that moving to Relay has reduced our overall budget for filtering by purchasing at the time of acquisition for the life of the device. There is no longer a need for a separate agent to allow for off-premise filtering. We do still use their appliance-based filter for guest traffic internally.

Pros

  • Student safety
  • Offsite filtering
  • Ease of management and reporting

Cons

  • Expanded reporting capability
  • More granular data

Likelihood to Recommend

Perfect fit for all educational settings. Provides a super simple setup and for Chromebooks, it has been a lifesaver. Having one pane of glass to manage all aspects of student online activity in addition to providing a safety monitoring solution built in to alert us of any bullying, self-harm, inappropriate behavior is something other vendors charge an additional cost for.
JK
Joseph Kuzo
Director of Information Technology in Information Technology at Quakertown Community School District (501-1000 employees)
Vetted Review
Lightspeed Filter
9 years of experience
View profile

Lightspeed Filter Review

Rating: 8 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

The Lightspeed filter is being used across our entire district for web filtering. We use it to separately control filtering for staff and students on both our wired and wireless networks. It handles filtering out unwanted sites and content. It also includes a free safety check filter that alerts us of site and searches identifying self-harm and violence.

Pros

  • Filters out content that we do not want students or staff accessing.
  • It allows us to filter by OU, so we can create different levels of filtering for staff and students.
  • Includes a virtual appliance that we can use to filter guest devices and iPads on our wireless network.

Cons

  • It sometimes takes longer than expected for new filtering rules to apply.
  • Sometimes a site is blocked due to sub-sites or links, but it does not easily identify the source of the block if it is buried in the site.
  • They have several reports included, but it would be nice to create custom reports.

Likelihood to Recommend

I would highly recommend Lightspeed for web and content filtering on a network. It definitely does a better job avoiding false positives than our previous filter. The interface is fairly straightforward and easy to navigate. The included Safety Check notifications for self-harm and violence provide a good summary and the notifications link back to the browsing history to provide context.
VU
Verified User
Director in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
Vetted Review
Lightspeed Filter
3 years of experience

Lightspeed is the best K12 Solution for Content Filtering

Rating: 10 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use lightspeed across our entire district for 100% filtering. It allows us to be CIPA compliant along with maintaining a good security standpoint for malicious websites. It solved the issue of off-network filtering which was a big need for us with remote learning.

Pros

  • Easy to deploy
  • Easy to manage
  • Support is excellent

Cons

  • Minor feature needs in the dashboard. I have made recommendations.
  • Issues are very minor.

Likelihood to Recommend

Lightspeed solved several pain points for us when it comes to K12 Content Filtering. We needed an easy-to-manage platform that offered easy reporting, as well as off-site filtering. We need a cloud solution with minimal equipment for our data center. We needed reliable support. All of these goals were accomplished with lightspeed. We are very happy with this product.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)
Vetted Review
Lightspeed Filter
2 years of experience

Lightspeed is great for Chromebooks, but not everything else

Rating: 5 out of 10
Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Lightspeed is used on all devices at our organization. We use it mainly for filtering and tracking internet usage. Web filtering is required for K-12 schools to allow additional funding through Erate services. Internet safety for students is a #1 priority for out school. This helps protect students on and off site no matter where they are using the internet on our school devices.

Pros

  • Traffic Logging
  • Alerts
  • Filtering by groups
  • Reporting

Cons

  • MAC OSX Client Compatibility and reliability.
  • Windows Client Compatibility and reliability.
  • Contract and Terms
  • Pricing

Likelihood to Recommend

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.
Jonathan Butler
Systems Administrator at Randolph Central School Corporation (201-500 employees)
Vetted Review
Lightspeed Filter
10 years of experience