All Lightspeed Filter Reviews
1-25 of 36 Reviews
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Andrew R
Religious Institutions, 2 - 10 employees
Used less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
Reviewed September 2022
Easy, Intuitive, and Effective Filtering Software
Jared
Education Management, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed June 2022
Love this Product
We use this for all of our devices, from iPads and Chromebooks for the students to staff workstations and it all works flawlessly.
PROSThe product is very straightforward to use, implementation was easy and quick. Their support is absolutely fantastic.
CONSEverything that was a con has been fixed or the feature was added.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
We wanted a better and more customizable Youtube solution.
Arnie
E-Learning, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2022
Lightspeed for mid sized diverse user districts
Lightspeed allows easy integration with our digital catalog and gives most teachers user level control of their student's digital experience.
PROSLightspeed is easy to deploy across our medium sized network (15,000 devices). Training teachers and getting them up and running quickly made the product a solid choice for our 1000 teachers.
CONSThe end user experience for the teacher could be improved. Other products have features like desktop management that are cleaner and more visually useful for classroom teachers. Especially at the lower grades, I would expect a product with Lightspeed market share and reputation to have a more user friendly experience for the teacher. More grouping, drag and drop, visual cues would help elementary teachers want to use the product more. We find only our most comfortable users taking full advantage of the product. It should be accessible to all end users equally.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
They sold/encouraged/allowed a free trial and decisions were made based on the work that had gone into that set up. Our IT department learned a valuable lesson from that deployment
Rick
Information Technology and Services, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed April 2022
Web Filter
State mandates to use a filter soo no other real choice available
PROSLive alerts on web surfing activity for users
CONSSometimes the filter is TOO restricted and must add to a list to allow access
John
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for less than 6 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed July 2022
Lightspeed
Overall a positive experience. Every product in this space seems to have drawbacks but overall Lightspeed has been good.
PROSFor the most part works well as a K-12 web filter. There's a good amount of features. The integration with Google allowed us to import our students pretty easily. Deployment to Chromebooks was also pretty simple. Updating data is a little slow but this isn't unique to Lightspeed and works well enough. Pricing is pretty reasonable.
CONSThere are a few things I wish were implemented, like an easier way for staff to whitelist sites for students that they may need for class, without having to notify the administrators about it. The Smart Play feature is interesting but has too many false positives and false negatives (but it's a hard problem). I wish reports were a little more detailed, and could be exported or shared in more pretty formats.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
A combination of pricing and the least number of foreseeable downsides, in addition to feedback around the internet.
Anonymous
51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2023
Growing filtering solution for K-12 Education
I'm a fan of how Lightspeed can integrate into our existing directory structure. We are able to leverage the org structure from Google Workspace to filter our students and staff. They also are adding new features and functionality which means the product continues to add value beyond the initial purchase.
CONSDeployment can take some hoops to jump through in order to properly deploy the solution, however the documentation and implementation with 3rd party MDM solutions has been getting better and support is happy to help out and book time with you to make sure things are working properly.
Jim
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed June 2022
Great product
We love it and just sign another contract for another three years
PROSLove how well everything just works we tried the competitors and we’re not impressed
CONSAlready stated I just wish that there was a way in the email alert there was a little bit more information
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Price, ease-of-use and instability
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
We’re not happy
Manvel
Primary/Secondary Education, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2020
Lightspeed Relay Review
Relay has stood up well filtering our student Chromebooks when on-site and off-site. This was especially true during the 2020 pandemic that forced the closure of our schools.
PROSThe most useful features of Relay that I use every day are the reports that I have automatically sent to my inbox every morning. From them, I can quickly check for inappropriate content and re-assign the category if needed.
CONSWe had some difficulty initially with user name resolution with the complicated design we used. If simply deploying Relay "out-of-the-box" you should not run into the issues that we did.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Ease of use and setup.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
We made the switch to Lightspeed many years ago when our previous content filter solution was no longer effective.
Christine
Education Management, 201-500 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed June 2022
Happy with Lightspeed Filter!
The benefits are safe browsing for students and staff. I feel that the product blocks inappropriate websites and allows K-12 educational material providing a safe environment for students and educators to use the internet.
PROSAs an administrator I find it easy to use and very users friendly. I do find that many items need to be added the SSL exclusions list. I hope this gets resolved in the future.
CONSMy biggest gripe is the reporting. When I try to run a report for a user that is getting blocked from something it lags way behind and the customer is waiting too long to get a URL unblocked because I can't see the block occuring.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Madison-Oneida BOCES has used Lightspeed for approximately 9 years and the new improvements in the product since then has been substantial. I have personally worked with the product for six year's.
Terri
Education Management, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed June 2022
Tried many, settled on one geared to educational settings
We've gone from hardware on prem interface to the cloud (fortunately, just prior to the Pandemic of 2020) so due to their newly available redesign with a cloud option we were able to send every student home with a district provided and content filtered Chromebook on March 13, 2020. Student remained home until September 2020.
PROSFirst off, Lightspeed is geared to education. They understand our needs.
CONSClean up with internal structural changes in OU's is a little tricky but workable.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
In the end, after 15+ years of content filtering, we determined that the cloud based Active Directory and Google sync's Lightspeed could provide would be the solution we needed. That Lightspeed understands and offers a structure that works for our K-12 environment... was a pure plus.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
The educational "focus" of Lightspeed made it a no brainer.
Kevin
Primary/Secondary Education, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed August 2020
Lightspeed Is a Great Company
The support is exceptional for this company. It's chat based but they are extremely responsive and are able to assist remotely for quick fixes if issues arise. The product is easy to implement and robust in features. The granularity of reporting is just what we need to so we know the who, when, and what of our student internet access. I sleep easier knowing the lightspeed content filter is helping to protect our students.
CONSThere are many levels to this software and it can get quite complicated if you dive deep enough. Again, support is top notch so this is not really an issue.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
We needed a more effective and detailed solution.
Ryan
Primary/Secondary Education, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed June 2022
Lightspeed Filter
Overall, Lightspeed has been a great product for us. We utilized the Classroom option as well, great for monitoring the students when distance learning.
PROSProduct is very easy to use and deploy in a Google Chromebook environment. Great for seeing information and view history.
CONSAdding parents to the parent portal could be much easier. The CSV is great in bulk, but would be handy for the ability to add a parent email within the user. Also the way it currently is causes you to keep a running CSV any time changes are needed.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Cost and ease of use.
Maria
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2020
Easy to use
Overall we are very happy with the product. Relay support team is very supportive.
PROSRelay was pretty seamless to set up on our managed Chromebooks. The only small complication we had is that we are also running the Relay Rocket on campus, so on-campus filtering had to be tweaked a bit. Parents LOVE that their childrens' school-owned devices are being filtered while at home.
CONSWe really wanted to be able to use the DNS filter for BYOD on campus when we first implemented Relay, but it simply wasn't granular or customizable enough.I believe there is now a new feature in Relay Rocket that would allow us to do this.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
We already had the Rocket and I was happy doing business with Lightspeed, and we were satisfied with the cost.
Brad
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2020
Relay for Chromebooks
If you have chromebooks, then a product such as Relay is a must have. I literally do not know how we would manage our student's online activity without it.
PROSThe ease of pushing the Relay extension to our chromebooks has been the biggest benefit. Once we set up the configuration in our Google Admin our chromebooks automatically install the software and the students online activity can then be monitored and adjusted.
CONSWe created two buildings in the Relay system in order to customize settings based on grade level. However, the process of moving large numbers of students from one building to another is cumbersome.
Stacey
Primary/Secondary Education, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2022
Website use
Most of the problems I deal with are allowing access to websites or blocking. Also, white listing sites to allow programs to function correctly. Resyncing employee and student accounts with GG4L.
PROSI like the customer service in chat, they answer my question quickly, and if they can't they will escalate to the next level and that level response quickly.
CONSOn the site switching between the tiers of the hierarchy is a slow process. Also, it would be nice to be able to search for a blocked/allowed website, to find on what level in the hierarchy it was blocked/allowed.
Tammy
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed July 2020
Relay & Chromebooks
Relay improved so much that I implemented the software district wide. It works very well for us and allows me to easily manage sites for my users.
PROSWe went with Relay because we needed a software that could filter my Chromebooks, which it does very well!
CONSWith every new software title there is a learning curve. However, the tech support made the implementation as smooth as they could.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
They did not filter Chromebooks. I previously had used Lightspeed, but after 3 years of a different product we went back!
Brock
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed July 2022
Lightspeed in k12 enviroments
Its a really great filter you can trust with some backend room to grow.
PROSI like how easy it is to deploy to chrome devices for students and also the man-in-the-middle solution you offer for byod networks.
CONSThe reporting isnt great when trying to determine background sites blocking specific content on your webpages. The way you have to do rules between google enviroment and ad enviroments isnt intuitive.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
Lightspeed offered for tools on all fronts
Marty
Education Management, 1,001-5,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed May 2022
Lightspeed Relay
Lightspeed Relay is extremely easy to deploy and easy to manage. It provides great insight through the activity dashboard. Relay Classroom allows our teachers to easily manage their students and puts a lot of control in their hands.
CONSThe smart agent for Windows has caused us some trouble in the past. This has gotten somewhat better, but is nowhere as good as the Chrome extension.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Ease of use Classroom capabilities
Thomas
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed July 2020
Complete Package
Relay has allowed me to better protect my users and network from questionable content on the web.
PROSEverything about this software is wonderful. Ease of use, data collection, reporting, etc. I have used several types of filtering software in my career and this is the best by far. Being able to drill down from a user or from a site is simplistic and insightful.
CONSI have found no areas where I have had to call for support. No cons for this product from me.
Sarah
Education Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed April 2022
Great Management Product
Very good, used daily. Updated great and we really appreciated the new features that launched this year.
PROSI enjoy the product integration options. We have multiple ways of getting our data into Lightspeed. I would appreciate a direct API, but our current system is just fine.
CONSI do not like that as Admin I have to go through about 10 steps to help our teachers to view classroom rule settings when offering support.
Jeffrey
Education Management, 5,001-10,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed June 2022
It Just Works!
Excellent experience. Responsive to inquiries and needs.
PROSLightspeed deployment was straighforward and supported the cariety of devices on our network. The filter is reliable and performance is very good.
CONSAdmin interface can be a bit slow with larger searches/queries.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Price and features made for the best offering.
Reasons for switching to Lightspeed Filter
Wanted a cloud-based solution with K-12 specialization.
Nigel
Information Technology and Services, 1 employee
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed February 2020
It's a no brainer!
Lightspeed have been amazing and very proactive to introduce new features based on customer feedback. The product is very reliable and the flexibility of it being based in the cloud has enable a more proactive approach to keeping children safe online.
PROSRelay has been an amazing transformation from a locked down, unreliable on premise system that has now enabled more proactive monitoring on top of the filtering.
CONSThere's nothing not to like about it, everything you need is there.
Tavis
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed March 2022
Great Filter and Excellent Student Safety Features
Overall, it is a very good product and works well in our K-12 environment.
PROSThe Safety Alerts for at risk searches and online behavior has been very helpful. It is nice that it integrates with the Google Administration Suite.
CONSThe navigation between different user groups for setting permissions and restrictions is slow and not very intuitive.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
Price as right and the available features were good.
Mike
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed July 2020
Best in Class!
Reduces overall web traffic by filtering the majority of non-business related and unwanted bandwidth hogs such as ads, social media, and casual streaming. Helps us concentrate our usage to the task at hand.
PROSI love how the software continues to have features and security added with each update.
CONSThe only drawback is deployment of updated client app and/or extensions. Should automatically update when made available to all clients.
Robert
Education Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2022
Great web filter for education
Made it very easy to segment web content coming to our users, to manage appropriateness of what's available.
PROSMoving content among categories is relatively simple and quick.
CONSMost of the pains we experienced earlier have been addressed in newer versions.
Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter
We selected this product mostly because of the strong focus on the education environment.