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Bitsight vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

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

Categories and Ranking

Bitsight
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.4
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
IT Vendor Risk Management (3rd), Attack Surface Management (ASM) (5th)
Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Security Software solutions, they serve different purposes. Bitsight is designed for IT Vendor Risk Management and holds a mindshare of 6.1%, down 10.9% compared to last year.
Cisco Umbrella, on the other hand, focuses on Domain Name System (DNS) Security, holds 18.1% mindshare, down 25.5% since last year.
IT Vendor Risk Management Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Bitsight6.1%
OneTrust GRC8.9%
RSA Archer7.2%
Other77.8%
IT Vendor Risk Management
Domain Name System (DNS) Security Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella18.1%
Palo Alto Networks DNS Security8.7%
Infoblox Advanced DNS Protection8.4%
Other64.8%
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

SA
Senior AIML Engineer at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Continuous monitoring has strengthened external security and improved customer trust
There are areas for improvement; we do notice sometimes finding vulnerabilities which gives us visibility to find them quickly. However, there could be a mechanism they can build on top of that for validation as they identify the issues. What will the real risk be for that identifiable issue? Sometimes it could be open because of the traffic; how they detected it could be seen as vulnerable, but upon testing, it might not be a real issue. It could be a false positive because there could be a honeypot that we built. My thinking is about validation, so if they can build that validation part before they expose the risk to the specific asset, that would help. Additionally, based on their reporting, they could also build risk scores and prioritization, which would also aid us. I would suggest adding dashboards and custom reporting, which could help us by enabling rich custom reports with filters. That is especially for leadership because they will not look at each technical area, but overall they would be looking at the risk score and what the assets or critical exposure areas are. Customizable reporting based on requirements would be valuable. I chose 9 out of 10 because the reporting and dashboards would be the first thing I would consider for improvement, and then the second is about the validation part, which could probably improve to 10 out of 10. I cannot think of too much for additional improvements. Maybe some good automation with the API solutions that could be integrated with the CI/CD pipeline or DevOps tools we are running would also be automated and tested.
BB
Senior Network Engineer at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
Ensures comprehensive protection with seamless threat logging and efficient policy management
My favorite feature of Cisco Umbrella is probably just the DNS and the fact that when a security threat happens, all of that gets logged in their Umbrella portal, and it's very easy to find who's been accessing the site and how many people have accessed it, so that we can go to them and make sure they're not compromised. The features of Cisco Umbrella benefit my company by providing less time to search for things through logs, to look for what we need. It's just one place to go, and we just search for it, and we find it really fast. The fact that there's a virtual database that has all that information is great on our portal.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution is user-friendly."
"If you are exactly looking for external attack surface monitoring, and you are exploring options, then Bitsight is a very good option that you can explore."
"My advice to others looking into using Bitsight is that it provides a lot of information that was not available before, and it is especially good in recon as it can identify many things about an organization that have never been found earlier, making it a valuable tool."
"The product helps us identify the vulnerabilities of internet-facing applications."
"Offers open ports from an external point of view."
"I prefer BitSight due to its patch management capabilities. The score is a valuable feature. I have contacted the customer support through e-mail and their response rate is fast. I rate the solution a nine out of ten."
"Bitsight gives me a holistic view of my entire security posture, which is something any organization would want to have after getting a tool such as Bitsight."
"The best thing about BitSight is the comprehensive list of risk vectors, covering compromised systems, diligence failures, and behavioral anomalies."
"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."
"The biggest return on investment when using Cisco Umbrella for me is the ease of use of the fact that we've deployed this with our Cisco VPN Secure Client, so every computer has the Umbrella module in it."
"Its simplicity is most valuable; I can install it and get it up and running, and it can be pervasive across my business within a business day."
"Application performance has greatly improved and there are less operational issues. Productivity has been going up because we have less operational issues. Also, we have happy customers."
"I have found the malware protection feature valuable. It is helpful and deliverable and is able to protect my entire organization from getting compromised. It also prevents us from visiting any malicious sites which are not visible to the users."
"It has improved our company a lot because we now see where the users are going and prevent them from going to malicious websites."
"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."
"Reports provide insight into internet usage and information helpful in creating QoS rules."
 

Cons

"We found that some of the findings are clear false positives, but they still report that, and based on that, the rating goes down until we rectify them."
"At the moment, when the vulnerability score decreases, it remains the same for quite a while, even though issues are resolved in 24 hours."
"There has been quite a bit of data discrepancy in BitSight."
"Its factor analysis feature could be better."
"Data enrichment is the major issue."
"Since if the number of findings increases for a particular month, your overall risk score decreases, which can become a challenge for a team working on this particular issue."
"There are areas for improvement; we do notice sometimes finding vulnerabilities which gives us visibility to find them quickly. However, there could be a mechanism they can build on top of that for validation as they identify the issues."
"The solution’s benchmarking should be improved."
"I would like for their support to be faster."
"The channel of support needs improvement. It is not under normal Cisco support, and I cannot simply call for support."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"I would like to see DLP integration in the next release of this solution."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"Having ready-to-go templates with best practices is definitely something that would be an improvement. Deployment, from day one, is something that definitely needs to be improved for Cisco customers."
"Hopefully, it works with the Canvas and starts feeding results into the AI canvas. That would be excellent."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution's price is average."
"The product has a reasonable price."
"Cisco Umbrella is expensive and could be cheaper."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"The licensing and pricing structure of Cisco Umbrella is in line with standard systems on the market, and we have no specific requirements in this area. Overall, we have found it to be an acceptable pricing model for our organization."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"The product is pricey compared to Cisco Firepower."
"Cisco solutions are generally perceived to be rather expensive. We have constant internal discussions as to whether we should offer lower-priced security solutions from some of the competitors."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
6%
Computer Software Company
15%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Non Profit
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business4
Large Enterprise7
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with BitSight?
There was one case scenario where a lot of parked domains were observed for a particular organization that we were monitoring via Bitsight. Bitsight flagged a missing web application header althoug...
What advice do you have for others considering BitSight?
If you are exactly looking for external attack surface monitoring, and you are exploring options, then Bitsight is a very good option that you can explore. I have not worked upon any other solution...
What is your primary use case for BitSight?
I was primarily using Bitsight for attack surface monitoring and external attack surface monitoring use case. I was monitoring all the alerts and the risk score that Bitsight provides. We mainly fo...
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Umbrella?
The pricing for Cisco Umbrella is fair compared to other platforms out there for DNS security. We acquired it as a bundle with other Cisco purchases.
 

Also Known As

No data available
OpenDNS
 

Interactive Demo

Demo not available
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Cabela's, Belgium Center for Cybersecurity, Fordham University, RBC, Max Life Insurance, Schneider Electric
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 SecurityScorecard, OneTrust, BitSight and others in IT Vendor Risk Management. Updated: May 2026.
892,776 professionals have used our research since 2012.