Smoothwall, would you buy it?

[TechBod]

I have got a demo of Smoothwall coming soon to our site, the sales pitch is excellent and the product sounds like it will do exactly what we want.

 

What I am asking is am I making the right choice? is there anything better? if you are a user of Smoothwall user would you recommend it?

 

Thanks in advance

[abillybob]

For the right price yes. If I remember rightly it was fairly expensive when my old school bought it though I suppose it depends on how much you need your own internal filter. We'd be ok without it as we have county filtering so it wouldn't be the end of the world. Though it does have some very helpful uses like an SSL page etc for BYOD and iPads.

 

Thankfully we get it free from county and their service agreement with Smoothwall, otherwise we couldn't of afforded it and we'd of had to just stay with county's filter. Though we are a primary school.

[sparkeh]

Primary here, bought it, love it, wouldn't be without it.

[Oaktech]

I've heard lots of good things about it and we're running express it as a firewall/router but not filtering.

 

My preference is for appliances like next gen firewalls like the sophos UTM or PaloAlto, but i'm pretty sure i'm in the minority on this...

[mdench]

I think would cry if I didn't have it! Ours was up for renewal this year and we decided to have a look around at Cyberoam, Lightspeed, and.... something else that I have just forgotten the name of. We have the cyberoam unit in to demo and we have online demos of lightspeed and to be honest I couldn't find something else that matched in terms of functionality and features! Cyberoam was the closest we got in terms of Firewall and Filtering in one box but Smoothwall is soo much easier to use!

[sparkeh]

I've heard lots of good things about it and we're running express it as a firewall/router but not filtering.

 

My preference is for appliances like next gen firewalls like the sophos UTM or PaloAlto, but i'm pretty sure i'm in the minority on this...

We have the SW UTM appliance, and yes its awesome.

[smidsy]

Primary here, bought it, love it, wouldn't be without it.

 

Same here

[eyetea]

Got it here, does the job and nice to use

[sonofsanta]

Best web filtering I've ever seen, and still one of my favourite systems in school because it's so flexible. Can't think of anything I've ever been unable to do.

 

Support are ace, as well.

[elsiegee40]

Another smoothwall fan here. Not the cheapest, but almost certainly the best. It's biggest plus point is that the kids LOATHE it.

[john]

Best Webfiltering product I have ever used and I continue to be impressed by the team at Smoothwall so very much worth considering and working with them.

[andydis]

its worth noting it doesn't just web filter.

 

We use it here to help implement our BOYD strategy using its firewall , it can handle alot more than filtering.

[SHimmer45]

very good product, the interface is still its weakest link

however if you dont need to fiddle with the config too much this wont be much of an issue.

 

you get what you pay for

[Linfit]

We have had it for three years, renewal came due last month and I renewed without hesitation, one of the most useful and functional bits of kit we have.

It isn't the cheapest, but you get what you pay for, and its not an area where I would want to cut corners if I didn't have an upstream filter.

[halbaradkenafin]

I've only been using it for a few months (used Cachepilot or TinaPilot or whatever they are calling it now at last job) and I really like it, great interface for simple tasks like checking on web logs (including realtime view) and easy to quickly allow/block things. My major complaint though is that some things aren't quite where you expect them to be or called what you'd think they are. We had some fun finding various things and having to bounce between a few different sections to modify things, once you get the hang of why some things are where they are then it makes sense but that initial hunt is a little odd.

 

I'd still recommend it to anyone who can afford it.

[Sagima]

I have it and I would buy it again. Wish I could spend more time with it to learn everything it can do - really need to figure out reports.

[howartp]

What everyone else said...

 

Went through about 4 filter products in 8 years until Smoothwall came along courtesy of county. If we ever left county or they ever cancelled Smoothwall, I'd buy it outright in a blink of an eye.

[Tallwood_6]

I think its always worth having a scout around I know iboss has cropped up a few times which looks pretty good but that's without hands on.

Smoothwall is great in terms of functionality but it isnt without its flaws I.e. interface and workflow is a little all over the place, many of the recent patches have been buggy at least for us, support can sometimes be difficult to pin down and issues that go to second or third line which aren't high priority often only get attention once the hit the SLA and the price is high.

[maxoheg]

I would go with Bloxx. My old school used to use it and it performed very well. The smoothwall is vulnerable to many bypasses yet the Bloxx filter has these covered. The problem with the Bloxx is that you need 100+ devices to get an appliance.

[Tallwood_6]

I would go with Bloxx. My old school used to use it and it performed very well. The smoothwall is vulnerable to many bypasses yet the Bloxx filter has these covered. The problem with the Bloxx is that you need 100+ devices to get an appliance.

 

Vulnerable to what bypasses?

[Sylv3r]

We've been a longstanding Smoothwall customer for around 7 years now. We are extremely happy with the product, features and support we receive. If the price is the sticking point, I'd look to dig deep and find the difference from other competitor products personally.

[Cache]

I really like Smoothwall, we've had it in for 3/4 years now.

 

Our only sticking point now is becoming the price which I've been able to manage this year, next year I don't think I'll be able to though.

[Blue_Cookeh]

Smoothie was vastly too expensive for us, ended up getting Sophos UTM at a third of the price (suppliers also had a bit more wiggle room) and I wouldn't go back to anything else. Perhaps not as good at Content Filtering, but it does a decent enough job considering it does a boat load of other stuff extremely well.

[lmgtfy]

Smoothwall is great I would recommend it any day. Its quite an involved product in terms of getting it setup exactly how you want it, but the good thing is it can do pretty much everything and more that you want it to do.

 

We've had it for about 4 years now and in that time it has added so many new features.

[caffrey]

Been using it here for 5 years on a white box without any real issues, well until iPads and BYOD came along