Barracuda CloudGen Firewall vs. Securly Filter

The firewalls management is made easy through its very good management software. It has a lot of features such as VPN, ATP, IPS, Real-time log views, Active Directory integration, Virus Scanning of traffic / file downloads, High Availability Failover, Qos / Traffic Shaping, and a nice quick glance dashboard.

Incentivized

Securly Filter works great in schools with Managed devices, especially if you have a one to one take home program. If you don't have Managed devices, it's possible to work around or disable. If you're not in a school environment, it will still work, but it doesn't seem to be designed with work environments in mind.

Incentivized

• Increased level of network protection against threats.
• Visibility and control of applications that users access.
• URL Filtering to block unauthorized or prohibited websites on the internal corporate network.
• Protection against diverse malware at the edge of the network.
• Firewall redundancy with another backup appliance.

Incentivized

• Blocks objectionable content
• Customized profile management by OU.
• Logging

Incentivized

• Very complex and steep learning curve to get up to speed.
• Multiple ways to configure for the same service or feature. Takes time to determine "your" customized build.
• Interface can sometimes be clunky when trying to determine how it's organized or arranged. Again, steep learning curve.

• Delegated management is sometimes difficult to get working, requiring undocumented changes.
• Pricing has gone up for Chrome devices.
• Syncing is a manual process.

Incentivized

Love, Love, Love this product!!

Incentivized

Easy enough to use and configure using the management UI. Reporting from the web filter is a little clunky, and not very user friendly. To be perfectly honest, once it's set up and running, there isn't a lot to do from the day-to-day side of things, which is not a bad thing.

They are very quick to answer the phone and I think I haven’t waited more than 5 minutes in the queue and if you have to hang up they actually call you back when it’s your turn in line. They have a secure tunnel that you can open for them to get into your device and help you with basically anything. It’s pretty magical if you ask me.

Incentivized

I don't like giving a 10 since everyone always has room for improvement, and while Securly is doing an awesome job, there is still room for improvement across the board.

Incentivized

We used a much alder Cisco ASA router that was chocking our bandwidth and it couldn’t really be compared. It was clunky and horrible at best. Our WatchGuard was overly complicated and difficult to manage and required a version matching thick client installed locally to manage the firewall. The Barracuda solved a bunch of issues from both of these devices and allows me to really save time and money with its easy to configure the interface and inexpensive yet quality device and interface allow me to feel like I am getting a great value for my security.

Incentivized

Securly Filter integration with Google Workspace for education makes it an ideal pairing for K-12 institutions. It has a friendlier portal and more intuitive UI, particularly when retrieving activity logs. The policy customization is also far easier and responsive. That being said, it does not provide a full-fledged firewall like Untangle NG (nor many of the other useful features from NG, such as simple-to-deploy VPN).

Incentivized

• Really neutral given we came from the x series. The move to the x series was a huge positive in terms of time spent managing and the ability to get what needed to be done, well done. The move to the NG was just the next step.
• I will say the one thing, in terms of value, that is given is the firewall admin application. This one program saves a ton of time in configuration versus using the web-based configuration. You can only pick one, and for me, it's a no brainer - turn the web-based config off and use the app.

Incentivized

• Fulfills CIPA compliance for K-12

Incentivized