BlueCat Integrity vs IBM NS1 Connect comparison

BlueCat and IBM are both solutions in the Managed DNS category. BlueCat is ranked #5 with an average rating of 8.9, while IBM is ranked #12. BlueCat holds a 4.8% mindshare in MDP, compared to IBM’s 2.8% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of BlueCat users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of IBM users who would recommend it.

BlueCat Integrity

Read 22 BlueCat Integrity reviews

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807 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

IBM NS1 Connect

Read 11 IBM NS1 Connect reviews

2,459 Views
1,242 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

BlueCat Integrity

IBM NS1 Connect

Comparison Buyer's Guide

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Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 4, 2024

BlueCat Integrity and IBM NS1 Connect compete in the DNS, DHCP, and IPAM solutions category. BlueCat Integrity is noted for its robust stability and comprehensive management, giving it an edge in infrastructure reliability, while IBM NS1 Connect's API-first approach offers superior automation and real-time telemetry.

Features: BlueCat Integrity provides a stable and user-friendly platform with robust automation and advanced DNS functionalities, known for its Linux-based reliability. It supports comprehensive DNS, DHCP, and IPAM integration, delivering a flexible single pane of glass view. IBM NS1 Connect emphasizes infrastructure automation and real-time telemetry. Its strengths include DNS management, geo-load balancing, and latency detection, providing significant automation benefits and performance insights.

Room for Improvement: BlueCat Integrity needs improved automation with newer IPv6 technologies, enhanced reporting formats, and built-in tools for bulk operations. It also faces challenges in high availability across different subnets and complex configuration management. IBM NS1 Connect's monitoring reliability requires enhancement due to false positives. There is demand for a more robust API and a better UI for detailed searches and reporting.

Ease of Deployment and Customer Service: BlueCat Integrity accommodates on-premises, hybrid, and cloud setups, with highly-rated customer service and fast support. Some users report occasional slow technical support response times. IBM NS1 Connect is primarily cloud-focused, ideal for enterprises preferring cloud deployments. Its technical support is knowledgeable but can experience delayed response times, contrasting with BlueCat's more responsive service model.

Pricing and ROI: BlueCat Integrity is more expensive yet offers substantial ROI through reduced downtime, improved IT productivity, and automation-led cost savings. It balances its higher cost with essential features and superior service. IBM NS1 Connect's pricing is competitive, reducing total ownership costs while delivering valuable functionalities. Users appreciate its aggressive pricing strategy compared to other options in the market.

To learn more, read our detailed BlueCat Integrity vs. IBM NS1 Connect Report (Updated: October 2024).

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Integrity vs. IBM NS1 Connect

October 2024

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Categories and Ranking

BlueCat Integrity

Ranking in Managed DNS

5th

Average Rating

8.8

Reviews Sentiment

7.3

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IP Address Management (IPAM) Tools (1st), DDI (1st)

IBM NS1 Connect

Ranking in Managed DNS

12th

Average Rating

9.6

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

No ranking in other categories

Mindshare comparison

As of November 2024, in the Managed DNS category, the mindshare of BlueCat Integrity is 4.8%, up from 0.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of IBM NS1 Connect is 2.8%, down from 3.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Managed DNS

Featured Reviews

Ian Slade

Sr. Manager Network Engineering and Architecture at SAIC

Apr 30, 2024

It improves our security by providing a single source of IP address usage and contact information

As a defense contractor, we must meet many compliance standards regarding logging, configuration, and administrative access. BlueCat is one of the few products that combines all the compliance components in a secure, reliable solution. Integrity requires some technological expertise and a full-time employee to run the system. It is one of several technologies that my group manages, but maintenance requires minimal effort. Upgrading and deploying the solution is a bigger task, but it is easy to maintain once it is running. BlueCat Integrity offers a single pane of glass view for our IP address space. From the GUI interface, you can see all the IP addresses and roll them up to the colored views of usage and availability. That capability is critical because we have multiple groups that are off on their own in a cloud environment. We can avoid IP address overlap by checking that as we add different projects. While I've worked at this company, we've had more than 50 acquisitions. As we acquire these companies, some IP addresses may overlap. We can integrate those, see the spaces, and adjust.

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Michael Wills

Senior Network Systems Engineer at McKesson

Jun 8, 2022

Balances cost and functionality, speeds up provisioning, and reduces the DNS maintenance work drastically

The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS. It is great as an API-first platform for DNS and application traffic management. It is very simple to use. It allows us to rapidly provision and deprovision things. We are all around happy with the solution. From a metrics standpoint, the solution that we came from had no metrics. So, it has been great. Their service team is excellent in taking the time to provide reports for both growth and strategic planning. It has been great.

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Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the key features enabling us to operate at our current scale is robust automation."

"The most valuable features of BlueCat Integrity are the user-friendly UI and the permission management."

"The most valuable piece, which has been a lifesaver, would be the BlueCat DNS resolver. BlueCat Cloud DNS resolver is a tool that takes a look into your cloud's DNS and then reports back everything it finds into BlueCat's DNS Edge solution. The Edge solution has a bunch of nice rules that you can configure to route the DNS traffic. That automation alone is a lifesaver for me for the day-to-day churn of the DNS components that change on an hourly, daily basis."

"The most valuable aspect is its user-friendly interface. It is straightforward to use."

"One of the better things about Integrity is that the underlying code it uses is an ISC DNS and DHCP. It's not like some of the other vendors that have created their own version of DNS."

"Since implementing BlueCat, we have experienced fewer problems, anomalies, and strange issues."

"BlueCat saved us money in terms of a life-and-death scenario and the stress factors that surround that in a healthcare environment. We generally don't have downtime in our DATP environments anymore. The clinics and the hospitals can continue to operate and not be in that position to be down."

"The most valuable feature of BlueCat Integrity is decentralized management, which enables real-time visibility and control over the entire IP address space, DNS, and DHCP from a single console."

More BlueCat Integrity pros

"The Filter Chain is one of the most valuable features, for geo-load balancing and geo-fencing. The Filter Chain is the most useful because it allows us to do several things. With geo-fencing we can redirect a particular user to a particular answer. That's very valuable for us. Filter Chains with monitoring is our strategy to provide redundancy."

"The provisioning is great. They have an API service that is simple to use and very quick. The changes that we make are replicated worldwide in a matter of usually milliseconds, sometimes seconds. They are done very rapidly. That's something that's obviously priceless when we're dealing with things like DNS."

"We leverage two things from Managed DNS that we couldn't do with any other solution. One is their filter chain technology, which allows us to shift some of the intelligence we need for the traffic steering to the DNS. The second one is data sources, which enables us to manipulate multiple records simultaneously using NS1's internal message DOS. In our case, we are trying to direct the traffic in over 150,000 different NS1 records to an arbitrary set of repeating responses."

"Their Pulsar filters allow us to collect RUM metrics from our users so that we can determine the best paths for our users to take. That has been very useful in providing the best user experience, and for responding to and recovering from downtime of our multiple CDNs."

"Monitoring is really important for us. We really care about reliability, and we want to make sure that we can remove some points of presence in our sector and in our edge network really fast when we experience any problems. So, monitoring that NS1 provides for DNS is really important for us."

"One of the features that is non-standard and that is very useful is the filtered DNS. We have set up our external VPN, which is what all our employees connect through, to use this feature. It's geolocation-aware. In that way, for India we set it up so that these are the servers that should be supporting things, and in the UK these servers, in the U.S. these servers, and in Sweden these ones."

"Everything we download into our observability platform so that we can also track any changes in traffic behavior or things like that is also something that we use quite a lot. I'd say traffic management, the speed of updates, and observability are the top three things that we use."

"For starters, it integrates with Terraform and a lot of our infrastructure is effectively built out using Terraform. That makes all this stuff extremely easy... when we deploy, all the entries are created and configuration is done."

More IBM NS1 Connect pros

Cons

"I would like the GUI to be similar to AWS and Azure, where we can simply click on an item to expand it and see all the information on one page, without having to click to the next page."

"The UI is outdated and needs a modern refresh."

"The DNS and DHCP servers for guests are separated from the main organization. A lot of times, it doesn't allow you to choose a default IP space. When I log in to the GUI, it doesn't default to where I want it to be. So far, I haven't been able to find out how to change or specify that so that it defaults to a particular space, such as the main org. If I'm looking for the IP space for guests, I need to toggle and go to the guest site. Most of the time, I want the IP space for the org to be my main space, but it doesn't give me the ability to do that, or I haven't been able to find that over the last two years."

"Usability needs to be better."

"The user interface could be improved, as the implementation of BlueCat can be complicated and requires personnel with expertise in DNS, DHCP, and IP management."

"However, it does not offer robust support for high availability failover with different subnets, especially if the servers are located in different data centers and belong to distinct IP networks."

"While knowledge is a factor, both technical support and training need a significant overhaul."

"The integration has room for improvement."

More BlueCat Integrity cons

"We use the geo load balancing functionality and there are a couple of things that are helpful there. But the language itself is something we had to get used to a little bit. Some of my folks made a few mistakes in rolling out the Filter Chain...The Filter Chain setup is a bit hard to grasp at first. It would also be nice to have a way to simulate changes in addition to staging."

"We use our client in our infrastructure to communicate with NS1. This client is a bit complex in the way that it is set up. NS1 has their own client solution that you can deploy into your platform to do this, but even that is a bit complex. So, I would like a very simple, thin, light API agent that we can deploy into our platform to communicate with NS1. That would be welcome."

"The reporting metrics are great from an API standpoint, but it would be a little bit nicer if there was some type of dashboard around that. There should also be some type of reporting that's more executive-level focused."

"We care about monitoring and telemetry work, and NS1 provides a pretty good system for monitoring. We can monitor our endpoints and points of presence around the world. If there are any issues, we can easily remove them from our network, but this area needs some improvement because it is not always reliable in NS1. In the past, we had a number of false-positive cases when the monitoring system told us about some problems in our infrastructure that were not true. NS1 is improving the system, and we are constantly talking about this with them. I know that they are releasing a new version of their monitoring system, which is really important for us, but this is a different area where we would expect them to improve."

"We would really like them to become a DNS registrar."

"I would love to see improvement in the testing capabilities they provide. They have a simulate-filter feature so that you can simulate how your traffic would flow, based on their Filter Chains. I believe that was shut off for quite some time. Having that as a way to test our load-balanced CDN structure would be fantastic."

"I would like to see the UI updated to allow me to do finer searches. I would also like to have the ability to get reports that can sort based on various metrics. For example, I would like to be able to say, "Show me the top 10 records by total queries" in an easy-to-digest format."

"The Filter Chain simulation is really good in the UI, but it would be nice to have something similar in the API so that we could simulate and test things before we deploy them."

More IBM NS1 Connect cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I am not sure about the exact pricing, but I believe their cost is lower compared to Infoblox."

"BlueCat Integrity's pricing is reasonable within the market."

"Overall, I would say that it is priced fairly, though perhaps a bit on the high side."

"BlueCat Integrity is affordable."

"While BlueCat falls on the expensive side, its exceptional customer service and consistent quality justify the cost."

"Overall, it's a decent price for the product. There are other vendors that have support models and costs that are, sometimes, double what Bluecat charges."

"BlueCat Integrity is a little expensive, but it's worth the price because it offers the flexibility and features we need in our space. We have more than 25,000 employees, and it makes sense for a network of our size. It's required for us to be compliant in the defense industry. Given the restrictions we face, we must be able to easily show that we've complied with all the regulations."

"We paid around $5,000 per year for SolarWinds, and now we pay around $20,000 per year for BlueCat, but we have less downtime and fewer issues with DNS and DHCP."

More BlueCat Integrity pricing and cost advice

"From a cost standpoint, it's certainly not the most expensive out there, and it's also not the cheapest, but it does well to balance the cost and the functionality/reliability."

"Everything can always be cheaper, but as it is today the pricing is fair."

"We pay about $30,000 a month. We used to pay about $20,000 with Dyn every month, for lower volume than we're doing right now, but it had none of the features that we have available with NS1, so it was worth it for us. It seems competitive for us, given that we're doing 4.5 billion requests."

"NS1's pricing is much more aggressive than its competitors in the market and you get more value out of what you pay for it."

"The cost of this product is one of the reasons that we chose it."

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Computer Software Company

17%

Financial Services Firm

11%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Healthcare Company

Computer Software Company

14%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Comms Service Provider

10%

University

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about BlueCat Adaptive DNS?

This inherent stability, derived from its Linux-based architecture, provides a well-established and reliable platform.

See all answers

What needs improvement with BlueCat Adaptive DNS?

We're still reviewing our architecture and design. We are having some challenges when it's integrated into our VMware environment. We've fixed a lot of those issues. That said, we're still going th...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for BlueCat Adaptive DNS?

We use BlueCat appliances and the Integrity platform for our DACP environment. That's on the internal side. All of our DACP for hospitals throughout the country are managed by BlueCat. The external...

See all answers

What do you like most about NS1 Managed DNS?

For starters, Managed DNS from NS1 is an easy way to get the job done. Whether you're a novice or a pro, Managed DNS Providers provide all of the tools necessary for efficient and reliable DNS mana...

See all answers

Comparisons

Infoblox DDI vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 49% of the time

Infoblox IPAM vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 23% of the time

SolarWinds IPAM vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 8% of the time

Cloudflare vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 6% of the time

Micetro vs BlueCat Integrity

Compared 4% of the time

More BlueCat Integrity Competitors

Cloudflare vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 41% of the time

Akamai Edge DNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 20% of the time

Amazon Route 53 vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 19% of the time

Neustar UltraDNS vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 7% of the time

Cisco Umbrella vs IBM NS1 Connect

Compared 5% of the time

More IBM NS1 Connect Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Integrity

November 2024

Download BlueCat Integrity product report

Buyer's Guide

IBM NS1 Connect

October 2024

Download IBM NS1 Connect product report

Also Known As

BlueCat Adaptive DNS, BlueCat Automation Manager, BlueCat DDI

NS1 Managed DNS, NS1

Learn More

BlueCat

IBM

Overview

BlueCat Integrity is a comprehensive DNS security solution that provides visibility and control over all DNS traffic on your network. It offers real-time threat detection and response, as well as policy enforcement to ensure compliance with security standards. With its advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, Integrity enables you to identify and mitigate security risks before they can cause damage. It also integrates with other security tools to provide a complete security ecosystem. Whether you're a small business or a large enterprise, BlueCat Integrity can help you protect your network from DNS-based attacks and ensure the integrity of your DNS infrastructure.

Why

In a 24/7 world, customers demand applications, websites, and content that load instantly and are always on. When those connections are unreliable or slow, businesses don’t meet customer expectations, causing customers to leave. When that occurs, revenue may suffer.

What

IBM NS1 Connect delivers the high-performance, reliable, secure network connectivity that businesses need to meet increasingly sophisticated customer expectations. Leveraging a global network with a 100% uptime SLA, IBM has the capacity and scale to meet the needs of any business. IBM NS1 Connect takes performance to the next level, powering the sophisticated needs of enterprises with complex network infrastructures.

How

IBM NS1 Connect provides network connectivity solutions that give networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect also enables IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

Details

IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service that provides authoritative, premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience. Revenue-generating applications require authoritative DNS resolution to keep critical applications and websites online. Unless your DNS infrastructure is always-on and resilient, network reliability and user experience will suffer, your network reliability may suffer, resulting in poor user experiences if revenue-generating critical applications and websites are not online. IBM NS1 Connect’s always-on, API-first architecture provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world with premium DNS and advanced, customizable traffic steering. It also enables your IT teams to efficiently monitor networks, deploy changes and conduct routine maintenance.

IBM NS1 Connect uses the Domain Name System (DNS) to ensure that websites and applications are:

Online, all the time: Global network with 100% uptime SLA and DDoS protection
Fast: Top tier response and propagation times, custom traffic steering to optimize connections
Cheaper to run: Far less expensive than self-hosting
Automation friendly: API-first platform with Ansible/Terraform integrations and support for Pliant rapid network automation
Easier to troubleshoot: Unique DNS data insights offering

Designed for enterprises looking to optimize their DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect is a managed service delivering authoritative DNS and advanced traffic steering that improves application performance and network resilience and provides fast, secure connections to users anywhere in the world. NS1 Connect streamlines DNS management by automating both simple and complex DNS configuration tasks via API and preconfigured integrations, so you can spend more time on higher-value work.

IBM NS1 Connect is delivered through our unified delivery platform. The cloud-based platform gives networking teams the visibility, control and automation needed to help ensure your business stays online by steering traffic to the ideal network connections for any given moment. IBM NS1 Connect solutions also enable IT teams to identify network performance anomalies through deep insights into DNS data flows, allowing them to identify configuration problems or network issues that affect performance so they can quickly resolve them.

For enterprises looking to further optimize DNS performance, IBM NS1 Connect offers rich DNS data analytics to streamline the identification of the root cause of anomalies within traffic.

IBM NS1 Connect Features

Global anycast DNS network: Enjoy fast connections to consumers around the globe through an anycast network with 26 points of presence (PoPs).
100% uptime SLA on DNS resolution: Maximize uptime and revenue generation with resilient, always-on, authoritative DNS.
API-first architecture: Integrate and automate workflows with NS1 Connect's well-documented API; every line of code starts as an API call, all functionality is available through the API.
Real-time user monitoring (RUM)-based traffic steering: Uses real-time intelligence on network performance and availability to direct DNS connections to the best available application resource; the widest range of filter options and data sources in the industry, not data that is extrapolated from sampling; the most flexible, granular controls for your network.
Built-in resilience: Add a single-tenant, redundant DNS layer and manage it from a single control plane as your primary DNS.
Managed DNS for China: Improve performance for the Chinese mainland by segmenting traffic with NS1 Connect’s Managed DNS for China.
DNS insights: Get a better understanding of DNS traffic patterns by mining your DNS data to identify security issues, misconfigurations and performance issues.
DDoS protection: Cap your query-based spending with protection against unexpected surges in traffic from distributed denial-of-service attacks.
Uptime monitor: Quickly identify issues and automatically adjust DNS traffic steering configurations with native health check alerts.
DevOps tool integrations: Preconfigured integrations with leading DevOps tools including Ansible and Terraform to help automate routine maintenance, manage data sources and feeds.
Propagation speed: fastest propagation in the industry, measured in seconds not minutes; worldwide propagation in under five seconds.
Independence: neutral arbiter between infrastructure services (CDNs, clouds).

IBM NS1 Connect helps enterprises modernize and optimize networking infrastructure to provide customers with faster connections to websites, applications, services and content.

Sample Customers

Computer Sciences Corporation

Avast Software, Bloomberg L.P., BBC, Carfax, CNBC LLC, Deloitte Consulting LLP, Disney Streaming, Dropbox, EBAY Inc, Gannett Media Corp, Salesforce, Wayfair, Workday

Buyer's Guide

BlueCat Integrity vs. IBM NS1 Connect

October 2024

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