# Lightspeed Filter Reviews 2026. Verified Reviews, Pros & Cons | Capterra > Is Lightspeed Filter the right Network Security solution for you? Explore 36 verified user reviews from people in industries like yours to make a confident choice. Source: https://www.capterra.com/p/199404/Relay-Web-Filter/reviews --- Lightspeed Filter 4.6 (36) [View alternatives](https://www.capterra.com/p/199404/Relay-Web-Filter/alternatives/) Provider data verified by our Software Research team, and reviews moderated by our Reviews Verification team. [Learn more](https://www.capterra.com/our-story/) * * * Last updated March 13th, 2026 # Reviews of Lightspeed Filter Ease of use 4.5 Customer Service 4.7 ## Pros and Cons in Reviews JG Joel G IT DirectorEducation Management, 1,001 - 5,000 employeesUsed the software for: 1-2 years. “The learning curve is very minimal for this software and it makes keeping staff/students safe on the web much easier than the traditional systems.“ June 24, 2022 JF Jeffrey F CTOEducation Management, 5,001 - 10,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “Admin interface can be a bit slow with larger searches/queries.“ June 14, 2022 MJ Milora J Technology AssociateInformation Technology and Services, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: 6-12 months. “Having the ability to do this by grade levels has been useful as elementary need stricter guidelines than the upper grades.“ April 29, 2022 BB Brock B IT DirectorEducation Management, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “The way you have to do rules between google enviroment and ad enviroments isnt intuitive.“ July 29, 2022 JS John S Director of ITEducation Management, 11 - 50 employeesUsed the software for: Less than 6 months. “The integration with Google allowed us to import our students pretty easily.“ July 29, 2022 TF Tavis F Director of TechnologyEducation Management, 51 - 200 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “The navigation between different user groups for setting permissions and restrictions is slow and not very intuitive.“ March 29, 2022 CB Christine B Network Administrator Education Management, 201 - 500 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “The benefits are safe browsing for students and staff. “ June 27, 2022 MP Manvel P Systems AdministratorPrimary/Secondary Education, 501 - 1,000 employeesUsed the software for: More than 2 years. “We 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.“ July 27, 2020 ## Showing most helpful reviews Showing 1-25 of 36 Reviews Sort by: Most Helpful Rating Company Size Reviewer's Role Length of Use Frequency of Use VR Verified Reviewer Network Manager Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Growing filtering solution for K-12 Education" April 23, 2023 4.0 Pros 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. Cons Deployment 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. Review Source AL Arnie L. Director of Digital and Virtual Learning E-Learning Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed for mid sized diverse user districts" March 30, 2022 4.0 Lightspeed allows easy integration with our digital catalog and gives most teachers user level control of their student's digital experience. Pros Lightspeed 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. Cons The 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. Alternatives considered [NetSuite](https://www.capterra.com/p/135757/NetSuite/)[Hapara](https://www.capterra.com/p/203552/Hapara/) 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 Review Source TS Tyler S. District Network Administrator Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Main" April 29, 2022 5.0 Pros The filtering reports, and being able to share reports with admin staff Cons The bugs, sometimes it seems kind of buggy. Review Source JS John S. Director of IT Education Management Used the software for: Less than 6 months ### "Lightspeed" July 29, 2022 4.0 Overall a positive experience. Every product in this space seems to have drawbacks but overall Lightspeed has been good. Pros For 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. Cons There 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. Alternatives considered [GoGuardian](https://www.capterra.com/p/181311/GoGuardian/) Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter A combination of pricing and the least number of foreseeable downsides, in addition to feedback around the internet. Review Source CB Christine B. Network Administrator Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Happy with Lightspeed Filter!" June 27, 2022 5.0 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. Pros As 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. Cons My 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. Review Source JC Jim C. Technology Director Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great product" June 24, 2022 5.0 We love it and just sign another contract for another three years Pros Love how well everything just works we tried the competitors and we’re not impressed Cons Already stated I just wish that there was a way in the email alert there was a little bit more information Alternatives considered [GoGuardian](https://www.capterra.com/p/181311/GoGuardian/) Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter Price, ease-of-use and instability Switched from [SecurlyMDM](https://www.capterra.com/p/207806/SecurlyMDM/) We’re not happy Review Source TM Terri M. Director and Network Administrator Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Tried many, settled on one geared to educational settings" June 10, 2022 5.0 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. Pros First off, Lightspeed is geared to education. They understand our needs. Cons Clean 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. Review Source RD Ryan D. Technology Specialist Primary/Secondary Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed Filter" June 27, 2022 4.0 Overall, Lightspeed has been a great product for us. We utilized the Classroom option as well, great for monitoring the students when distance learning. Pros Product is very easy to use and deploy in a Google Chromebook environment. Great for seeing information and view history. Cons Adding 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. Alternatives considered [Deep Freeze](https://www.capterra.com/p/32308/Deep-Freeze/) Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter Cost and ease of use. Review Source MJ Milora J. Technology Associate Information Technology and Services Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Lightspeed in K-12 environment" April 29, 2022 5.0 Being able to access the student usage and limit website options has been extremely helpful for us. Having the ability to do this by grade levels has been useful as elementary need stricter guidelines than the upper grades. Pros The ease of use of the dashboard is wonderful. You can access the many areas easily to do anything that you need to within the system. Cons It has been difficult to find some functions within the software that we do not use often. We have had some questions on setting up certain controls. Review Source EW Elsa W. Technology Specialist Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "The importance of safety in a learning environment" March 29, 2022 5.0 I have had really good experience with LS Pros LS once implemented works great to monitor students while on the web. Cons LS has a wonderful professional staff that will help you when things go wrong or things don't seem to work. Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter I switched from another filter product. Review Source JF Jeffrey F. CTO Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "It Just Works!" June 14, 2022 5.0 Excellent experience. Responsive to inquiries and needs. Pros Lightspeed deployment was straighforward and supported the cariety of devices on our network. The filter is reliable and performance is very good. Cons Admin interface can be a bit slow with larger searches/queries. Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter Price and features made for the best offering. Review Source RP Robert P. Innovation Specialost E-Learning Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Gets the jobdone" July 27, 2020 5.0 Setup and configuration were a breeze. Pros Setting at home filters that run by time OR location, no special browser needed, robust blacklist and whitelist features. Cons No YouTube category filtering for iOS. Relies on the Relay app to be installed (we've had to prevent users from uninstalling apps). Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter Less friction with current environment. Review Source MP Manvel P. Systems Administrator Primary/Secondary Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed Relay Review" July 27, 2020 4.0 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. Pros The 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. Cons We 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. Alternatives considered [iboss](https://www.capterra.com/p/187135/iboss/) Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter Ease of use and setup. Review Source SG Sarah G. Systems Analyst Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great Management Product" April 29, 2022 5.0 Very good, used daily. Updated great and we really appreciated the new features that launched this year. Pros I 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. Cons I 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. Review Source MS Marty S. Chief Technology Officer Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed Relay" May 5, 2022 5.0 Pros 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. Cons The 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 Review Source TF Tavis F. Director of Technology Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Great Filter and Excellent Student Safety Features" March 29, 2022 4.0 Overall, it is a very good product and works well in our K-12 environment. Pros The Safety Alerts for at risk searches and online behavior has been very helpful. It is nice that it integrates with the Google Administration Suite. Cons The 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. Review Source BB Brock B. IT Director Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed in k12 enviroments" July 29, 2022 4.0 Its a really great filter you can trust with some backend room to grow. Pros I 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. Cons The 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. Review Source MB Mike B. IT Technician Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed filter is a good filter to use in education" March 29, 2022 4.0 Overall they are a good company to work with and they provide a good services. Pros There are many features that are helpful for filtering staff and students. Great hybrid implementation for both on site and off site users. Cons Some of the features are not user friendly. Review Source MM Maria M. Director of Technology Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Easy to use " July 27, 2020 4.0 Overall we are very happy with the product. Relay support team is very supportive. Pros Relay 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. Cons We 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. Review Source JP John P. IT Support Education Management Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Great dashboard and tracking features" April 29, 2022 4.0 We have found that we enjoy the product. It is very intuitive and we find that we now have greater control and visibility over what our users are doing online. Pros The best features have been the activity tracking by user or device serial. We use this on a daily basis. Results are easy to export and distribute to those who need them. Cons Some of the automated reporting links go to an invalid URL. Some of our users have hyphens or an apostrophe in their name and the reporting system cannot handle them. Review Source SH Stacey H. Network Specalist Primary/Secondary Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Website use" March 29, 2022 4.0 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. Pros I 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. Cons On 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. Review Source VR Verified Reviewer Director of Family Ministries Religious Institutions Used the software for: 6-12 months ### "Easy, Intuitive, and Effective Filtering Software" August 7, 2022 5.0 Overall, Lightspeed Filter has met our expectations, kept our students safe, and allowed us to monitor and direct their internet usage easily and effectively. Pros The web backend of the product is well organized, and it is easy to add additional content/sites to black and white lists, assign different restrictions to different classes, and monitor potential in appropriate searches. We have also really appreciated the included filter sets; the default settings have worked for almost all of our classroom environments. Cons The way that Lightspeed filter interfaces with Lighspeed Classroom Management, and other Lightspeed Products, is confusing, and a single portal that allows you to administer all the products simultaneously would be a significant improvement. Review Source KM Kevin M. Technology Coordinator Primary/Secondary Education Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Lightspeed Is a Great Company" August 6, 2020 5.0 Pros 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. Cons There 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. Review Source SR Sonia R. Principal Education Management Used the software for: 1-2 years ### "Lightspeed brings out the light of things" August 1, 2022 5.0 An excellent way to keep students on track. Pros My teachers like the fact that they were able to monitor students' computer access, helping them have better Classroom management Cons The teachers really did not have anything negative about this software just the fact that we were unable to use it with our surface pros. Reason for choosing Lightspeed Filter It was our Diosecen's leaders that wanted it. Review Source BG Brad G. IT Director Education Management Used the software for: 2+ years ### "Relay for Chromebooks" July 29, 2020 5.0 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. Pros The 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. Cons We 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. Review Source Similar Products Featured