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Check Point Harmony Browse vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
12th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (4th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (12th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (11th)
Check Point Harmony Browse
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
16th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.5
Number of Reviews
22
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Browsers (4th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
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

As of February 2025, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.9%, up from 1.8% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Harmony Browse is 0.5%, up from 0.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 18.6%, down from 22.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
Shrinkhala Jain - PeerSpot reviewer
Easy to install with excellent features and boosts productivity
Check Point Harmony Browse has increased the efficiency and proficiency of work output in our organization. It has also resulted in boosting productivity and more compliance in the organizational system. Now, our people are more confident while operating systems and browsing as there is no fear in terms of data leakage on data loss. This is a savior for the entire IT system, and our workforce is feeling more empowered and strengthened thanks to the introduction of this software in the organization. The software is easy to install and deploy across any business environment and it is becoming a game changer for us.
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.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"Valuable features: Within the filter: Controls (Web categories, applications, and Allow/Block list) and Network (local Subnets). Within the reporter: Logs (Event Log) and Reports."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Technical support is pretty sharp and very responsive."
"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"It analyzes and verifies in detail how secure or insecure a file, document, or object is that is being downloaded."
"Its content filtering is great."
"The installation process is simple. Once initiated, the process is quite straightforward and seamless, making it easy to complete."
"This tool installs a very small agent in browsers. It does not cause performance problems on the host computer, which makes it less annoying for users."
"This solution has multiple protections that are generally very simple to configure and work quickly with little intrusiveness for the user."
"The downloaded protection as it scans and emulates the files on a browser level is great."
"This solution has improved my organization by providing enhanced web security."
"All the features of Harmony Browse improve the security of an organization."
"The user interface is great. It's very easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs."
"The most valuable features for us include tenant lock, content filtering, and DLP solutions, looking for PII and information being exfiltrated."
"I also think that the dashboard view is really helpful. Whenever sites get blocked, we get the details and the users who are connecting to them."
"It has excellent resilience in cybersecurity. Cybersecurity for my organization is very important because we are a banking organization. We need this security to protect the personal information of our clients. This is very important for our security."
"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."
"Some clients only want DNS security, while others want more of the advanced features that it has available."
"It's very stable, reliable and does its job."
"I like the DNS layer security."
 

Cons

"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"Its pricing could be better."
"I am currently doing a PoC of the zero trust aspect of it. Compared to other similar solutions, it is hard to get around each feature. It takes a while to get used to it."
"The only thing they should add or improve is the reporting series."
"URL filtering could be better."
"security solution for users Devices and Access" What is our primary use case? The application is good as its lightweight and its functions are really similar to a browser extension. It offers real-time protection for internet users by addressing active concerns. Moreover, it incorporates a reputation feature to ensure swift access to websites within a second. The effectiveness of Harmony Browse’s capabilities is really an advantage. What is most valuable? The installation process is simple. Once initiated, the process is quite straightforward and seamless, making it easy to complete. What needs improvement? Regarding the Harmony Browse, I call it "Kuna" which is accurate. The quantum product serves as my primary focus due to its project cost, and I aim to introduce support in this area. This is because firewall implementation holds significant importance for organizations. I want to improve more on the quantum losses. There's a concept I'd like to include in Harmony Browse, known as automatic catching. This mechanism comes into play when an individual closes their browser while possessing sensitive information, like monetary data. To counteract potential risks, we employ a browser cache-clearing process to minimize the cache's accumulation. This action ensures that malicious entities can't exploit the cached data for attacks. To enhance this further, there's potential for the implementation of a self-cleaning technology. For instance, when a user exits the browser, an automatic action could be initiated to clear the browser cache, serving as an additional layer of security. This can be helpful if added."
"By default, on Harmony Browse there is no URL group which is commonly blocked worldwide."
"More focus and emphasis is required on customization and real-time notification and alert system."
"It seems to us that the performance in some opportunities of Check Point Infinity and the administration web portal is slow."
"Support must be faster in solving problems."
"One of the new features I would like to see is the possibility that these tools can be brought to mobile devices such as tablets and cell phones in iOS or Android applications."
"The price could be better. The price is definitely a bit high, but we have to pay a premium for Cisco products."
"Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place."
"It had the ability to do a lot of app control. So, every single app that went through that portal was registered, but there is a general issue with the whole app control. As soon as you add a mobile phone to your network, all of the apps get registered through the system, and you can approve, reject, or just let them go through. When I looked at it, it was impossible to manage app control. There was just so much data. I didn't apply that service because I just didn't have the time to manage it. It would be good if there was a way to categorize applications."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"Security, overall, can always be improved."
"It would be good if the more complex versions of Umbrella are simplified so that we can offer them in a more standardized way. We, as a telco, do not operate the same as a traditional integration partner would, who can sell all its services. We try to have a standardized approach as much as we can so that we can sell the solution with as many services added to it as possible. If you look at the structure of businesses in Switzerland, 95% of them have 10 persons or less, and they do not have a security specialist. Therefore, the higher the automated and standardized features, the better it is for them."
"Missing a real data leakage prevention solution."
"It has happened in the past that Cisco Umbrella has denied us access to secure websites."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The price is not very expensive for our organisation, but for others, it might be a little expensive."
"The product has a reasonable pricing."
"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."
"Our licensing fees are on a yearly basis."
"Pricing and licensing of Cisco Umbrella is a bit confusing because you have to separate the DNS solution and the full-feature solution. Cisco in Portugal helped us understand which one was the right one for us."
"The price could be lower."
"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."
"It needs a better price point."
"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."
"The price could be lower."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
29%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Security Firm
6%
Educational Organization
25%
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

What do you like most about iboss?
Content filtering is the most useful feature of iboss.
What needs improvement with iboss?
I have the same complaint about them that I have about other software companies. Sometimes when you call in support, ...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
We are a PreK-12 public school district, and we use iboss to filter internet content for our students at home and sta...
What is your primary use case for Check Point Harmony Browse?
When you purchase Check Point Harmony Browse, you can access this feature. For example, if an employee works from hom...
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. Zs...
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-nat...
What do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
No data available
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

More than 4,000 global enterprises trust the iboss Cloud Platform to support their modern workforces, including a large number of Fortune 50 companies.
Information Not Available
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 Check Point Harmony Browse vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
838,713 professionals have used our research since 2012.