Key Considerations When Choosing a SWG Solution

With sophisticated online threats, increasingly complex compliance requirements, and the spread of hybrid workforces, Secure Web Gateways (SWGs) have become a crucial part of modern cybersecurity. However, secure web gateway selection and finding the right solution for your organization can be a confusing and time-consuming decision.

Below are 5 key considerations when choosing a SWG solution to help improve your process. First, let’s gain an understanding of the technology itself.

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Understanding Secure Web Gateways

A SWG is a network security technology positioned between users and the internet to monitor and filter traffic for online threats. SWG deployment enables the implementation of security policies to provide a safe browsing experience for users. SWG policy management also typically extends beyond security – allowing organizations to limit online access for other reasons, such as enhancing productivity.

SWGs provide key functionality to protect your network against phishing, web-based malware, data breaches, and other online threats. These include:

Traffic Inspection: SWG solutions inspect web traffic (URLs, applications, downloads, etc.) in both directions, examining it for policy violations and malicious content.

Policy Enforcement: SWG policies are a predefined set of rules for when to block web traffic. This can be achieved using a range of security measures, including URL filtering, malware protection, and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) techniques.

SWG Threat Protection: Identifies and implements security controls to block threats and minimize the risk of malicious traffic entering your network. SWG threat protection can incorporate various technologies such as signature or behavior-based detection methods, and sandboxing.

SWG Compliance and Reporting: Data collection and monitoring capabilities that help IT teams understand web traffic and threats, while also proving regulatory compliance.

SWGs are often compared to other security technologies such as firewalls and Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs). However, SWGs focus only on web traffic. A firewall secures a network boundary and monitors all traffic. CASBs focus on cloud traffic, providing secure access to SaaS applications.

SWG deployment is often combined with Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASBs), Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), and Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) as part of a broader Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) framework. SWG SASE integration provides comprehensive security and networking capabilities, protecting an organization’s entire digital infrastructure regardless of environment or location.

Whether you are looking for a standalone SWG deployment or an SWG SASE integration, we’ve compiled a list of 5 key considerations when choosing a SWG solution.

Choosing Between Deployment Architectures

There are three main types of SWG deployment that each have their own pros and cons in terms of security policies, performance, and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO):

On-Premises: Greater control over SWG policy management by deploying the solution locally. This offers SWG compliance benefits as data is inspected on-premises. These deployments can also provide better SWG performance for on-site users with lower latency due to local traffic inspection. This type of architecture generally has a higher SWG TCO because of the need for dedicated hardware.

Cloud-Based: Offers simpler deployment and SWG scalability through a cloud-based architecture that is typically hosted by a third-party vendor. With no hardware to install and automatic updates, cloud-based solutions provide lower SWG TCO and higher flexibility. Additionally, you can improve SWG policy management by enforcing consistent security controls across different environments. However, there can be SWG compliance problems depending on data sovereignty rules and SWG performance issues due to congestion routing traffic to the cloud-based service.

Hybrid: Integrates on-premises and cloud-based solutions to gain the benefits of both SWG deployment architectures. For example, with a hybrid solution you can use on-premises tools to adhere to specific SWG compliance requirements and a cloud-based platform for other web traffic. This offers scalability and reduced SWG TCO, while still adhering to any regulatory requirements.

Security and Threat Protection

Perhaps the most important SWG solution consideration is the security it provides. Look for solutions that offer real-time traffic inspection and response features for a range of different threats, including emerging cybersecurity risks. SWGs can enforce various security controls, including:

- URL Filtering: Blocking access by comparing website URLs to a database of banned URLs. These could be banned due to threat intelligence data or for reasons outside of security (e.g., inappropriate content or distractions). Look for solutions that offer granular and flexible URL policy generation and management.

HTTPS Inspection: An SWG threat protection technique that decrypts and inspects traffic sent over HTTPS connections. With malware often delivered over HTTPS, SWG solutions now need to inspect encrypted traffic to ensure threats don’t bypass filtering controls.

Application Control: Monitors how users interact with applications to filter traffic and prevent unsafe use. For example, SWG application control could prevent users from sharing sensitive data with unsanctioned applications. This SWG feature is also regularly used to limit access to non-work applications and improve productivity.

Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Refers to a range of techniques for protecting sensitive business data. SWGs inspect traffic and enforce DLP policies to reduce the risk of data being intercepted or significant data breaches.

Sandboxing: Using an isolated, virtual environment for suspicious executables to test for malicious content in a safe environment. Whether an SWG implements sandboxing safeguards depends on its threat identification and protection methods.

SWG threat protection can follow two main strategies: signature or behavior-based. Signature detection techniques compare web traffic to known threats. However, this limits SWG threat protection to previously seen attack patterns. It offers no protection against zero day threats.

In contrast, behavioral analysis techniques use AI and ML to model typical traffic content and usage patterns in order to develop an understanding of standard business operations. With a framework defining “normal” operations, behavioral detection techniques can investigate future activity and make risk-based assessments to identify suspicious traffic. This approach helps organizations quickly respond to new threats, including zero-day exploits.

Policy Management and Reporting

Policy management defines how organizations can develop and enforce SWG security policies. Consider SWG solutions that offer granular and customizable policy controls such that you can tailor protections to your specific needs. This includes developing rules based on a variety of factors, including user, role, device, location, and application.

Comprehensive enforcement of security policies requires reporting capabilities and visibility across all web traffic. This provides a detailed and constantly updated record of web traffic across an organization. With data fueling advanced web traffic monitoring, you can enhance SWG threat protection analysis, validate SWG policies, and seamlessly track audit logs to prove SWG compliance.

Performance and User Experience

Security is likely the key consideration when choosing a SWG solution. However, SWG performance and user experience are also huge factors that determine the success of the technology’s implementation.

If a SWG solution causes a significant drop in user experience, it is unlikely to achieve the widespread adoption needed for comprehensive protection. Slow SWG performance and high network latency will lead users to bypass this security technology and increase the risk you are exposed to. When comparing solutions, SWG performance and user experience have to be key considerations.

Integration with Broader Security Frameworks

SWG solutions play an essential part in modern enterprise security postures. However, standalone SWG products pose challenges, requiring integration with many other security tools, complicating operations, and introducing the risk of siloed solutions. It is much easier to implement SWGs within a broader security framework such as SASE.

SWG SASE integration provides a unified, comprehensive security architecture with consistent policies and simplified web filtering. The SWG can provide granular web access for every user regardless of location or device, and SASE’s other technologies can layer on additional security controls for seamless and continuous protection.

Top 5 SWG Solutions for 2025

The key considerations when choosing a SWG solution, as detailed above, help provide a set of criteria for comparing solutions. To kickstart your research into different vendors, we’ve compiled a quick list of the top 5 SWG solutions for 2025. All of these SWG deployments are part of a broader SSE or SASE architecture.

Check Point: Part of the vendor’s Harmony SASE product, Check Point offers a hybrid SWG that combines exceptional security features and low-latency performance with simplified operations and compliance.

Forcepoint: Delivered as a cloud-based SSE solution, the Forcepoint One platform provides real-time safeguards for employees using the internet, including Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) and a series of pre-defined security policies to simplify implementation.

Palo Alto: Offers extensive SWG protection as part of Prisma Access SASE security stack, including advanced URL filtering, SaaS security, Domain Name System (DNS) security, RBI, and behavior monitoring.

Cisco: Combining URL and application-level controls with antivirus and sandboxing capabilities, Cisco Umbrella SSE’s SWG deployment provides enhanced safeguards and visibility.

NetSkope: Cloud-based solution with granular SWG policy management that takes into account contextual information and offers additional modules for advanced analytics.

Maximize Security with Check Point’s Hybrid SWG Solution

Harmony SASE from Check Point offers the best possible protection against online threats alongside easy SWG policy management and low-latency SWG performance. Learn more about the benefits of a best-in-class hybrid SWG solution by booking a demo or downloading our recent solution brief.