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Cisco Secure Access pros and cons

Vendor: Cisco
4.3 out of 5
Badge Leader

Pros & Cons summary

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Prominent pros & cons

PROS

Cisco Secure Access significantly reduces mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR), enhancing resource efficiency.
Cisco Secure Access delivers robust protection against threats like phishing and ransomware, substantially improving organizational security posture.
Cisco Secure Access offers application-level access, eliminating VPN dependency and enabling continuous user authentication based on identity, device, and risk.
The stability and reliability of Cisco Secure Access are highly valued, with high performance and no reported downtime or crashes.
Cisco Secure Access integrates security features like DNS functionality, authentication, and zero-trust architecture, providing comprehensive security management.

CONS

Cisco Secure Access has a confusing licensing model, often making it challenging to understand what is needed in terms of purchase and resulting support.
Pricing is high, making Cisco Secure Access less accessible for mid-size or smaller businesses compared to competitors.
There are significant delays and complexities involved when seeking customer and technical support.
Stability and reliability issues occur, with some features yielding unpredictable performance and various software bugs reported.
Migration processes between platforms, like from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access, can encounter difficulties, adding to setup and integration challenges.
 

Cisco Secure Access Pros review quotes

reviewer2788500 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dec 16, 2025
From my experience, Cisco Secure Access is very stable and has not crashed.
JA
Head Of IT at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
It has not only been a better solution overall, but also been cost saving, which is unusual—too good to be true at one point, but it has delivered.
Abebe Gebrekirstos - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Design Specialist at TELUS Communications Inc.
Jun 2, 2026
I can provide more advanced security features for my customers because Cisco Secure Access is built in the cloud, I don't have to worry about managing the security enforcement or the behind-the-scenes operational aspect, and it has resiliency in multiple data centers so I get increased availability with multiple redundant tunnels across different data centers.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Access. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Brandon McPherson - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Service Delivery Engineer at Colossal, LLC
Mar 23, 2026
Cisco Secure Access has definitely helped our organization, cutting incident response time at least in half and giving us analytics that let us quickly identify devices and users so everything from headquarters contacting the base to the on-site tech removing a rogue device from the classroom network is much quicker.
William Zachary - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 1, 2026
The move from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access has been great, as Cisco Secure Access has more features available and provides a nice and easy migration from Umbrella to Cisco Secure Access.
AT
Cyber Security Manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
The biggest return on investment from Cisco Secure Access, from my perspective, is the end usability from a client perspective.
CC
Sr Sales Engineer at CrossConnect
Jun 3, 2026
It is a solid 10, does exactly what we need it to do in a way that is easy to manage and control, and gives us the information that we need to make sure our end users have a good experience wherever they are working.
Vasil Blagov - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Network at Duracell International, Inc.
Jun 9, 2025
The features of Cisco Secure Access that I most prefer are easy management or manageability, and overall security.
Bharath _Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Velocis Systems
Jan 9, 2026
The product is giving whatever you need from a customer point of view.
RB
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
Jun 12, 2026
In my opinion, Cisco Secure Access is a complete SSE solution.
 

Cisco Secure Access Cons review quotes

reviewer2788500 - PeerSpot reviewer
Network Operations Engineer at a media company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Dec 16, 2025
However, the cost of Cisco's products and licensing is high, and mid-size or smaller businesses typically cannot afford Cisco Secure Access.
JA
Head Of IT at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
Cisco Secure Access is stable and reliable if certain features are not used. Initially, SSL decryption was enabled, where certificates are decrypted, and when that was turned on, the performance was very unpredictable, plummeting significantly.
Abebe Gebrekirstos - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Design Specialist at TELUS Communications Inc.
Jun 2, 2026
The licensing is a bit expensive for some features of Cisco Secure Access compared to other competitors.
Learn what your peers think about Cisco Secure Access. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2026.
899,258 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Brandon McPherson - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Service Delivery Engineer at Colossal, LLC
Mar 23, 2026
We did run into an issue with URL filtering where it would not filter a site properly. It took months to resolve by Cisco, but that is the only hiccup I would say there has been.
William Zachary - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Network Administrator at a healthcare company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Jun 1, 2026
Most of the Cisco AI offerings are relatively new and do not have all the bells and whistles.
AT
Cyber Security Manager at a non-profit with 501-1,000 employees
Feb 11, 2026
To improve Cisco Secure Access, I believe there should be better clarity from Cisco regarding where organizations should focus their investments.
CC
Sr Sales Engineer at CrossConnect
Jun 3, 2026
The only bad experiences we have had were really sort of when the platform launched and I think even Cisco was still learning how to support it.
Vasil Blagov - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager, Network at Duracell International, Inc.
Jun 9, 2025
Cisco Secure Access can be improved with more integration; the more integrations, the better. There are always third-party products that you might have, such as Carbon Black.
Bharath _Kumar - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at Velocis Systems
Jan 9, 2026
TAC engineers just exit the call once their shift timing ends.
RB
Chief Technology Officer at Binary Global Limited
Jun 12, 2026
One big challenge which I see with Cisco is their MDR capabilities. They do not provide it as a service, which Palo Alto does provide.