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Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 28, 2025

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)
5th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
19
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (3rd), Web Content Filtering (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (7th), ZTNA as a Service (7th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (8th)
Check Point Harmony SASE (f...
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
7th
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
62
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (16th), Anti-Malware Tools (7th), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (7th), ZTNA as a Service (5th), ZTNA (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (7th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
123
Ranking in other categories
Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of March 2026, in the Secure Web Gateways (SWG) category, the mindshare of iboss is 2.5%, up from 1.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) is 4.1%, up from 2.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 12.8%, down from 19.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cisco Umbrella12.8%
iboss2.5%
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81)4.1%
Other80.6%
Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
 

Featured Reviews

reviewer2701851 - PeerSpot reviewer
Managing Director
Enhances web security with a single pane of glass and flexible deployment
I don't see any need for improvement; one of the really good things about iboss as a company is that they listen to customer feedback. I have suggested enhancements, and they are responsive, making changes for the better, and they do a lot of testing. To improve iboss, although we haven't used it, we considered the VPN solution that comes with the highest tier licensing, which includes DLP and various other add-ons. We prefer using another product which automatically logs you back onto your network when turning on your PC. With iboss, the connection is manual, which doesn't meet our needs. Additionally, sizing can be tricky because, although the initial recommendations may seem adequate, actual usage may require more gateways than anticipated.
Nasseer Qureshi - PeerSpot reviewer
Pre Sales Consultant at Redington Group
Delivers seamless and secure remote access while enhancing security posture
Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) offers strong features, but there are areas that could be improved. One area for improvement is integration with third-party identity providers. It works with standard SAML and SSO, but we would prefer deeper integrations with solutions such as Ping for more advanced identity-based policies. Additionally, a mobile-specific client or lightweight agent would be helpful for securing access from smartphones, especially in BYOD environments. We would appreciate more granular reporting and analytics, including better drill-down capabilities to investigate specific users or app activity. The logs are comprehensive, but filtering them can sometimes feel messy. The user interface on the management portal could be more intuitive, especially when managing multiple sites or remote offices. Some of the policy configuration steps are nested and could be streamlined.
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

"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."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"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."
"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."
"iboss is among the few products providing inline filtering where no application is needed on the device. It operates on the network side and is not device-based. This feature was one of the main reasons why we stayed with them for so long."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The scalability is good, and I'd give it an eight out of ten."
"Review of exported and imported packages and protection and content filtering have been useful."
"HTTPS decryption is a valuable service and not always found in cloud-based secure web gateways."
"Using the preboot VPN option, we can reset a user who is working remotely that has forgotten their Windows login credentials."
"The integration that this solution has with the different routers or perimeter equipment is exceptional."
"The solution offers both client and clientless versions for good remote access."
"Its software solution also ensures connectivity and protects against NSF filtering."
"Scaling Perimeter 81 was easy to do."
"We immediately block impersonating users from accessing services over Cisco Umbrella-controlled devices."
"The feature that we find most valuable is to be able to filter out those web requests that you don't want."
"It has certainly saved us time. If we go and look at what's rejected on the requests from the hospital itself, it has saved about 5% or 6% time."
"The most valuable feature of this solution is its reliability."
"With the Experience Insights feature of Cisco Secure Access, we've seen impacts on the management of user connectivity by allowing us to deliver safe connectivity."
"It has the ability to quickly block new threats."
"Cisco Umbrella scales incredibly with the growing needs of my organization."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to filter malware sites that could infect clients or allow them to download infected files."
 

Cons

"Sometimes the agent stops working in iboss, and we have to reinstall the agent."
"To scale up, a new iboss Node Blade Chassis must be purchased."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"If they could implement an extra security layer preventing access to iboss from the open internet, it would be great."
"One thing I would like to see differently with their Zero Trust platform is that some of the AI aspects related to high-risk activities have more false positives."
"Sometimes, obviously, there are bugs."
"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 reporting feature needs improvement."
"In order to have to bypass the login using the website, a good feature for Perimeter 81 to have is a login instance in the Perimeter 81 application. I'm using a Mac and we don't have that functionality."
"Harmony lacks this ability when anything more than a vanilla access policy is used (we use layers and source user objects in our policy which make this impossible according to Check Point)."
"They should work towards the WAN intergration."
"Currently, I am not able to define a different country or location, which can result in negative experiences as the tool is being recognized by websites and this can make it difficult to access them or force me to disable the program temporarily."
"An improvement could be made in terms of achieving better coverage in such complicated regions as the Asia Pacific, China, and Russia."
"If I were to be nitpicky, I would ask that Perimeter 81 offer the option for us to change the color of the graphical user interface, like maybe pink or green or so on."
"Although the interface is user-friendly, further simplification and customization options tailored for non-technical users would benefit smaller firms without dedicated IT teams. Intuitive dashboards and guided setups can help in reducing the learning curve."
"The Point locations need to improve the latency and speed."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"Something on our end that might make it better is alerting going to our ticketing system. It's not something that we have discussed, but that would be a proactive option for us to provide a learning experience for the staff."
"Its DNS service does not support IPv6 query."
"I'd like to see improvement in its overall integration with all the other platforms. There's some integration between Umbrella and Meraki, but an overall Cisco problem is that there are so many different tools, and finding easy, seamless ways of connecting everything together is always a challenge."
"It would be better if there was a little bit of flexibility for organizations that don't have SD One in their environment. Because of the complexity of the environment, it's not easy to actually turn on the feature of the secure internet gateway for our users. We have not been able to explore that option yet."
"Cisco Umbrella could be improved by making the policies more granular, as in some cases, it's difficult to find the correct link to open a specific site securely."
"Cisco Umbrella hasn't integrated customized reporting yet. With Cisco Secure Endpoint Hub, I can see a report on user downloads and set it up to constantly get an email alert. Based on my understanding, Cisco Umbrella can't do that. You can set it up with third parties, but it would be better if that were built into the platform."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"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."
"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 expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We had the cost of purchasing a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs. However, the following year, the cost of just licensing was similar to what was paid the previous year for a new appliance along with the implementation and licensing costs."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The solution is priced appropriately considering its uses. For an essential license, a user pays only 30 USD per month. For an enterprise version, the prices can be negotiated with the company."
"The product is neither cheap nor expensive."
"Regarding pricing, I can say that the more the number of users, the less they have to pay."
"The cost of the solution's licenses depends on the particular use cases."
"The product is reasonably priced."
"The pricing is good, especially when you compare it to other firewall or UTM solutions from FortiGate or SonicWall, where you would have to invest about four hundred thousand rupees for 100 users over a three-year period."
"I would rate Harmony Connect's pricing at six out of ten. It wasn't particularly expensive, but it wasn't super cheap either."
"I consider the product to be a medium-priced solution. There are no additional costs attached to the tool."
"The price is quite good."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"In terms of licensing, we're not able to be extremely clear with the customer because it's based on their reporting. It's not based on the actual traffic. If they say they have 50 users but they have 80, we'll just buy for 50 users. That's something where we'd like to have more flexibility."
"You get what you pay for."
"Cisco Umbrella is not a cheap product. However, it's not a matter of the cost; it's more a matter of the value of security. It is easy to measure this value when you have a security incident. I think the price is a good trade-off for a product that can help you avoid security threats."
"Its price for us is quite expensive because it's a subscription, and we just use it for the DNS log. So, for us, it's quite expensive."
"Cisco is expensive. For example, we are looking at Nexus Dashboard, and it's costing about 250,000 euros. I ask, "What do I get from it?" I'm still not convinced that we have to spend on it, so pricing is a problem."
"It needs a better price point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Comms Service Provider
6%
Computer Software Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Manufacturing Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Comms Service Provider
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business6
Midsize Enterprise6
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business53
Midsize Enterprise20
Large Enterprise13
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with iboss?
For zero trust implementation, we encountered complexity issues, especially with a large infrastructure company Exxon...
What is your primary use case for iboss?
Previously when I used iboss, we did the POC for iboss for ExxonMobil. Four or five people wanted to move from our ol...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for iboss?
Regarding pricing, setup costs, and licensing, iboss is not cheap, and that's my only concern. There are cheaper alte...
What do you like most about Harmony Connect?
The product's initial setup phase is very simple.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Harmony Connect?
I am not aware of the pricing, setup cost, and licensing, but I would say the setup cost is our resource, and we have...
What needs improvement with Harmony Connect?
When I'm raising a ticket for Check Point Harmony SASE (formerly Perimeter 81), it's a bit technical for non-technica...
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 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 bu...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
Check Point Quantum SASE
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.
Aqua Security, Cognito, Multipoint, Kustomer, Postman, Meredith
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 SASE (formerly Perimeter 81) vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: March 2026.
884,797 professionals have used our research since 2012.