Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Azure DNS vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jan 12, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
7.8
Azure DNS offers an 8% ROI with cost efficiency, reduced OpEx, pay-as-you-go pricing, and reliable functionality.
Sentiment score
7.5
Cisco Umbrella improves ROI through enhanced security, operational efficiency, cost savings, and increased satisfaction, driving continued license renewals.
The ROI is always high because Azure DNS setup is essential and does not incur high charges.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
7.8
Azure DNS support is generally positive, with varying response times and quality based on the support plan and region.
Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella's customer service is praised for efficiency, professionalism, and excellent technical support, with some room for response improvement.
Technical support is minimally required for DNS-related tasks if you have previous experience.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.4
Azure DNS is praised for its scalability, ease of setup, and reliability, making it ideal for diverse business needs.
Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella offers seamless scalability and integration, supporting various organizational sizes and global user bases without infrastructure challenges.
Cisco Umbrella is scalable for our company.
It is a scalable solution but requires improvement in specific areas.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
Azure DNS is praised for its stability and robust performance, with minor installation challenges noted by fewer users.
Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for strong stability, exceptional uptime, and minimal issues, earning high ratings from satisfied users.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
 

Room For Improvement

Azure DNS needs improvements in registration, support, security, scalability, pricing clarity, documentation, integration, performance, and multi-cloud functionality.
Users seek improvements for Cisco Umbrella in integration, analytics, security features, user interface, IPv6 support, licensing, and compatibility.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
 

Setup Cost

Azure DNS offers cost-effective, usage-based pricing with seamless Azure integration, including free query allowances and charges for extra usage.
Cisco Umbrella pricing is seen as mixed, offering flexible plans but sometimes considered costly compared to competitors.
Azure DNS charges based on the number of zones enabled, offering some free queries monthly, which keeps costs low.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
 

Valuable Features

Azure DNS provides easy installation, security, integration, robust performance, and flexible domain management with a user-friendly interface.
Cisco Umbrella provides DNS-based network security, blocking threats, enhancing productivity, and offering seamless integration and comprehensive threat protection.
Azure DNS provides end-to-end P2P connectivity and enhances security, making it more secure and reliable.
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
The firewall and integration capability with other security solutions are valuable for effective security management.
 

Categories and Ranking

Azure DNS
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
32
Ranking in other categories
Managed DNS (4th)
Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

Azure DNS and Cisco Umbrella aren’t in the same category and serve different purposes. Azure DNS is designed for Managed DNS and holds a mindshare of 19.6%, down 23.4% compared to last year.
Cisco Umbrella, on the other hand, focuses on Domain Name System (DNS) Security, holds 22.8% mindshare, down 29.6% since last year.
Managed DNS
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

Tushar-Patil - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers good performance and helps its users with disaster recovery
Azure DNS has improved our company's domain management and resolution reliability since it provides most of the solutions, especially whatever is required in our organization. My experience of integrating Azure DNS into our company's existing cloud services was easy. For the security and privacy aspect, my company mostly relies on Microsoft. I don't have the expertise to comment on whether Azure DNS has influenced our company's operations from a security and privacy perspective. Azure DNS is a really good product when it comes to scalability and performance for our company's workload. Azure DNS has helped my company with the disaster recovery phase. The product uses cloud features, and since my company has separate regions, we have a backup tool or a backup deduplication technology. The implementation of Azure DNS in our environment benefits the entire organization, but four to five people have access to the solution. I rate the overall product a nine to ten out of ten.
Alessandro Braga - PeerSpot reviewer
Has comprehensive reporting and scales easily
The reports and notifications are the most useful part of the platform. As soon as you deploy the security layers, the reporting is very comprehensive. It helps you to have, at a glance, a clear view of what's going on. The integration between Cisco Secure solutions is pretty good. We have been able to deliver the solution in a few days. The integration of Umbrella and Meraki is literally one click away from the customer. One of the reasons why we chose Umbrella was its capability to perform end-to-end detection of malware and web traffic. In the last two years, we have been covered, detection has been faster, and we have been able to contain some potential threats along the way. We use the Umbrella stack from DNS protection to web and content protection. Our workforce is made up of 150 Macs; thus, we use Mac as a client. We have some PCs and integration with the network in our co-working spaces. Utilizing Cisco Secure has helped us save time. Being a nimble organization, we don't have IT staff who are fully dedicated to security. The maintenance is also not very time-consuming. In terms of the amount of time saved, it would be half an FTE a year, given the fact that we are informed and notified when threats arise. In terms of operating expenditures, we have been able to negotiate a better cyber insurance rate with our insurance company due to the fact that we are covered by Umbrella. Another benefit of using Cisco Umbrella is application scanning. We have been able to understand how many other applications we were consuming in the cloud, address them, and save money. Without Cisco Umbrella, we would not have realized that we had so many cloud applications in the company. We have been able to close at least four or five applications that were duplicates of others that we were already using in the company. We have realized approximately 10,000 to 12,000 euros a year of immediate savings in an organization of 150 people, which is quite significant.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Managed DNS solutions are best for your needs.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Government
7%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Azure DNS or Amazon Route 53?
Azure DNS is a hosting service of DNS domains. It has excellent operating time and performance, resulting in fast resolution. We like the ability to view everything in the Azure portal - this makes...
What do you like most about Azure DNS?
The tool is easy to manage and use.
What needs improvement with Azure DNS?
I did not see any improvements required. It functions as a standard DNS, which is very important, and it does not need separate improvements.
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Zscaler?
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 functi...
Which is the better security solution - Cisco Umbrella or Microsoft Cloud App Security?
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 intelli...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

No data available
OpenDNS
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

M-Files
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Quad9 DNS and others in Managed DNS. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.