Cisco Umbrella vs Quad9 comparison

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11,403 views|7,592 comparisons
97% willing to recommend
Quad9 DNS Logo
626 views|648 comparisons
50% willing to recommend
Comparison Buyer's Guide
Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Cisco Umbrella and Quad9 based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out in this report how the two Internet Security solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI.
To learn more, read our detailed Cisco Umbrella vs. Quad9 Report (Updated: May 2024).
771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Featured Review
Quotes From Members
We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use.
Here are some excerpts of what they said:
Pros
"The weekly reportings are great. The investigation is super and the application management is equally great.""One of the great advantages of Umbrella DNS is that it's really simple to deploy. It's easy to install, the users do not notice that it's there, and it doesn't interfere with your work. The simplicity and transparency are great advantages of Cisco Umbrella.""Cisco Umbrella is a totally different solution. They are the first to come up with this idea of security. It's a totally new concept of security for everybody, for every time, real time, perfectionism.""The core business of Cisco Umbrella is non-malware. That's all it does: block the malware on the gateway.""Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules.""The most valuable feature is that it secures our network against blacklisted or malicious websites.""The initial setup is very easy and takes only a few minutes.""Umbrella, being one pane for managing, being all-encompassing, allows us to quickly go in, make a change, and it applies to either every location, if we want it to, or we can have policies in place that only apply to certain users or certain computers."

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"Setting up Quad9 is straightforward if you know what you're doing, and it's easy to use overall.""The most valuable feature of Quad9 is that it is a free solution."

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Cons
"There are a couple of interface issues. I know that they say that there are feature enhancements that are noted. For example, we've got the Cisco Meraki security appliances, and there, we geofence our company to where we're allowed to send and receive traffic. So, in our case, by default, we only allow traffic to six different countries, which allows us to effectively prevent traffic for the majority of bad players in the world, but they don't give you an easy way to do that in Cisco Umbrella. With Cisco Meraki, I can specify or pick the countries. I can say that I want to only allow traffic from these six countries, and I'm done. With Cisco Umbrella, I have to rely on the fact that they're going to prevent traffic to other countries. They're going to decide if it's good or bad.""The rule-making process for blocking sites or for blocking characteristics can use some simplification.""I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms. There's some integration between Umbrella and Meraki, but an overall Cisco problem is that there are so many different tools, and finding easy, seamless ways of connecting everything together is always a challenge.""The pricing could be improved.""Its on-prem rollout is quite challenging. It needs better coordination with the Internet Service Provider. It is a cloud-based solution, and any endpoint that connects to it has to go through all the gateway ISPs, but some of the ISPs block HTTPS-based DNS. That's where the challenge occurs with Umbrella.""I would like to see DLP integration in the next release of this solution.""Security, overall, can always be improved.""I would like to see more integration between Cisco Umbrella and Cisco DNA Center."

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"It used to work fine for all the devices, but it started to slow and become non-responsive. I would have to reload the page two or three times before all the pages loaded. With OpenDNS, I only need to load the page once.""Quad9 could improve by having more free features, such as custom DNS filtering."

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Pricing and Cost Advice
  • "​The pricing is fair."
  • "You can request an evaluation license​."
  • "It needs a better price point."
  • "The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
  • "The price could be lower."
  • "There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
  • "Our costs were negotiated, and they are okay."
  • "Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
  • More Cisco Umbrella Pricing and Cost Advice →

  • "The price of Quad9 is free."
  • More Quad9 Pricing and Cost Advice →

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    Questions from the Community
    Top Answer: Cisco Umbrella and Zscaler Internet Access are two broad-spectrum Internet security solutions that I have tried. Zscaler Internet Access is a good option for carrying out multiple security… more »
    Top Answer:Cisco Umbrella is an integral component of the Cisco SASE architecture. It integrates security in a single, cloud-native solution, unifying multiple features like DNS-layer security, threat… more »
    Top Answer:Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
    Top Answer:Cloudflare DNS is a very fast, very reliable public DNS resolver. It is an enterprise-grade authoritative DNS service that offers great redundancy and advanced security with built-in unmetered and… more »
    Top Answer:Setting up Quad9 is straightforward if you know what you're doing, and it's easy to use overall.
    Ranking
    1st
    out of 17 in Internet Security
    Views
    11,403
    Comparisons
    7,592
    Reviews
    48
    Average Words per Review
    922
    Rating
    8.9
    11th
    out of 17 in Internet Security
    Views
    626
    Comparisons
    648
    Reviews
    2
    Average Words per Review
    331
    Rating
    6.0
    Comparisons
    Also Known As
    OpenDNS
    Learn More
    Overview

    Cisco Umbrella offers flexible, cloud-delivered security according to users’ requirements Cisco Umbrella includes secure web gateway, firewall, and cloud access security broker (CASB) functionality all delivered from a single cloud security service. Cisco Umbrella’s protection is extended to devices, remote users, and distributed locations anywhere. As company employees work from many locations and devices, Cisco Umbrella is the easiest way to effectively protect users everywhere in minutes.

    Cisco Umbrella uses machine learning to search for, identify, and even predict malicious domains. By learning from internet activity patterns, this DNS-layer security solution can automatically identify attacker infrastructure being staged for the next threat. These domains are then proactively blocked, protecting networks from potential compromise. Cisco Umbrella analyzes terabytes of data in real time across all markets, geographies, and protocols.

    Cisco Umbrella works with leading IT companies to integrate its security enforcement and intelligence. Built with a bidirectional API, Cisco Umbrella makes it easy to extend protection from on-premises security appliances to cloud controlled devices and sites.

    Cisco Umbrella is suitable for small businesses without dedicated security professionals, as well as for multinational enterprises with complex environments.

    Why use Cisco Umbrella?

    • Simplify security management: Cisco Umbrella is the fastest and easiest way to protect all users within minutes and reduces the number of infections and alerts sent from other security products by stopping threats at the earliest point. With no hardware to install and no software to manually update, ongoing management is simple

    • Reliable reporting: Cisco Umbrella reports show activity for each device or network in the system. Users gain a more complete picture of the security risks facing their organization and can take action to remedy them.

    • Manage and control cloud apps: Umbrella provides visibility into sanctioned and unsanctioned cloud services in use across the enterprise. Users can uncover new services being used, see who is using them, identify potential risk, and block specific applications easily.

    Reviews from Real Users

    Cisco Umbrella stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Some of the major ones are its DNS-based protection, ability to protect users no matter where they are located, stability, and high performance.

    Daniel B., a network specialist at Syswind Kft, writes, “We primarily use the solution as cloud security for our branches. It protects us from direct internet outbreaks. It makes for good flexibility. The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple. Efficient protection on the DNS level and even higher. The sandboxing feature analyses and handles the complicated security risks.”

    Victor M., SOC & Security Services Director at BEST, notes, “It provides security for the remote workers and it helps to improve enterprise security in a very easy way. We mainly enjoy web software protection capabilities. It prevents the end-users from getting into bad sites or sites that potentially could have malware or could be phishing. It helps end-users avoid the wrong sites. The solution works very smoothly. The user interface is good.”

    OpenDNS is a part of Cisco providing a suite of consumer products aimed at making the internet faster, safer, and more reliable.

    Quad9 is a free, recursive DNS service that replaces your ISP's or company's default domain name server (DNS) settings. Quad9 blocks lookups of malicious host names from an up-to-date list of threats when your computer makes any internet transaction that uses the DNS.

    This blocking action protects your computer, mobile device, or IoT systems against a variety of risks, including malware, phishing, spyware, C2 command-and-control domains, exploit kit-compromised sites, and botnets. It can also boost performance while ensuring privacy.

    Quad9’s service uses threat intelligence from a variety of sources, including:

    • Cisco
    • F-Secure
    • Netlab
    • IBM X-Force
    • Anti-Phishing Working Group (APWG)

    Quad9 employs DNSSEC, which assures that the results supplied are accurate. It also filters out websites that have been categorized as hazardous using blacklists provided by various security suppliers.

    Quad9 supports DNS over TLS (DoT) and DNS over HTTPS (DoH). It’s been increasingly obvious in recent years that standard DNS has significant security flaws due to a lack of encryption. As a result, it is more susceptible to DNS hijacking. Quad9 users are effectively protected from cyber criminals as well as government censorship.

    The Quad9 service is run by the Quad9 Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Switzerland whose purpose is to make the internet a safer and more reliable place for everyone.

    Quad9 Features

    Quad9 has many valuable key features. Some of the most useful ones include:

    • Privacy: Quad9 is the custodian of a worldwide DNS infrastructure that allows people to communicate and participate in governance and civil society more easily. Quad9 protects their users' privacy by not collecting personal data; Quad9 protects their consumers' privacy by preventing connections between their devices and harmful Internet sites. Quad9 provides users with performance by placing servers in hundreds of communities all over the world to deliver service on a local level. Because of their non-commercial position, they are able to give equal emphasis to regions that are otherwise underserved.
    • Addresses: Quad9 offers a number of distinct recursive DNS service options. Each has its own IP address (or, in certain situations, hostname), which you may use to configure your devices.
    • Threat blocking: Both commercial and publically available threat intelligence feeds have been merged by Quad9. Each was picked based on its shown ability to identify threats and provide a comprehensive set of capabilities for detecting exploits, malware, ransomware, spyware, and other potentially hazardous websites. Quad9’s threat intelligence (TI) partners provide us with data on feeds that are rapidly updated and dispersed as new domain-based risks emerge, and these domains or hosts are updated in their lists.
    • Locations: Quad9 systems are available in more than 150 places in 90 countries, with significant expansion planned. Quad9's servers are primarily positioned at internet exchange points, which are the locations with the highest concentration of interconnections within a typical network region.
    Sample Customers
    Chart Industries, City of Aspen, Eastern Mountain Sports, FLEXcon, George Washington University, Jackson Municipal Airport Authority, Ohio Public Library Information Network, PTC, Richland Community College, Smart Motors, Tulane University, VeriClaim
    CISCO, Netlab, proofpoint
    Top Industries
    REVIEWERS
    Financial Services Firm14%
    Comms Service Provider11%
    Computer Software Company9%
    Educational Organization6%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Computer Software Company19%
    Educational Organization17%
    Financial Services Firm8%
    Manufacturing Company7%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Comms Service Provider18%
    Computer Software Company14%
    Media Company10%
    Government6%
    Company Size
    REVIEWERS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise23%
    Large Enterprise39%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business19%
    Midsize Enterprise27%
    Large Enterprise54%
    VISITORS READING REVIEWS
    Small Business38%
    Midsize Enterprise20%
    Large Enterprise42%
    Buyer's Guide
    Cisco Umbrella vs. Quad9
    May 2024
    Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Quad9 and other solutions. Updated: May 2024.
    771,157 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    Cisco Umbrella is ranked 1st in Internet Security with 108 reviews while Quad9 is ranked 11th in Internet Security with 2 reviews. Cisco Umbrella is rated 8.8, while Quad9 is rated 6.0. The top reviewer of Cisco Umbrella writes "Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Quad9 writes "It's easy to use and set up, but I've faced performance problems ". Cisco Umbrella is most compared with Zscaler Internet Access, Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps, Prisma Access by Palo Alto Networks, Palo Alto Networks DNS Security and Azure DNS, whereas Quad9 is most compared with Cloudflare DNS, Google Cloud DNS, Verisign Public DNS, Neustar UltraDNS and Hurricane Electric Free DNS. See our Cisco Umbrella vs. Quad9 report.

    See our list of best Internet Security vendors.

    We monitor all Internet Security reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.