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Cisco Secure Access vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Mar 9, 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 Access Service Edge (SASE)
10th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (10th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (3rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (11th)
Cisco Secure Access
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
18th
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
113
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

As of April 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.6%, up from 1.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Secure Access is 3.0%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 10.3%, up from 9.0% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

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
Aruna Udawatte - PeerSpot reviewer
Maintaining top security with comprehensive updates and support
The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access is the level of security it provides. Cisco's dedication to the security industry is evident with how it remains up-to-date on current situations and recent attacks. Updates are frequent, and firmware upgrades are delivered promptly. It is very easy to stay updated, which is crucial for maintaining security.
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 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."
"Because of iboss, I did not have to assign web filtering tasks to my techs on a daily basis."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"Iboss is a solution that prevents advanced persistent threats, and has a zero tolerance for attacks."
"From a use-case scenario, what I like the most is the plug-in. I like the fact that we can do the filtering of these devices offsite independent of the network they are connected to, and we do not have to have traffic coming back inside our network."
"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."
"iboss is pretty scalable. They provide good support. The case managers you work with to coordinate what you need are pretty good."
"I would rate the scalability a ten out of ten."
"The main feature of interest to me and the customers is DNS security and Integrated Secure Web Control (ISWC)."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Secure Access is the level of security it provides."
"I rate the stability of Cisco Secure Access as ten out of ten."
"I use this solution for securing security controls like Secure Security Control (SSC) for local Internet breakouts."
"The most valuable feature is the authentication feature."
"Cisco Umbrella is such a solution and can be implemented very fast and easy. All that we must do is redirect the DNS registers in their routers, or the active directory service of the enterprise that are going to use in Umbrella services. If you buy the service now, in two hours you are protected by the service because it's very fast to put in service."
"DNS protection, domain blocking, SIP component, and the Cisco Umbrella roaming client are the valuable features of Cisco Umbrella."
"The agent that gets installed on the endpoints or on people's laptops and devices is a Cisco AnyConnect Umbrella module. It's one of the most impressive things because you are able to protect your users anywhere they are."
"It makes it really easy to accomplish content filtering. We don't have to do a lot of customization. You just click the box for the content category and it's up to date."
"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."
"Web proxy adds an effective layer for security."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to block users from reaching places that they should not even try to reach has been a boon."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security."
 

Cons

"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"Their on-premise hardware's network interface is capped at one gigabit, which is sort of a problem. If you stand a filter up where all traffic flows through that, according to them, in order to go above a gigabit, you have to have multiple devices, which in today's IT seems a little bit silly. They could easily put in an SFP port into their device that could accommodate 10 gigs or at least offer a box."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"Our biggest problem with their service was it did not recognize the device and filtering did not always work correctly."
"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."
"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."
"Having been associated with Cisco for more than fifteen to twenty years, I find it increasingly difficult to get tech support these days. Although Cisco is reliable, the process to raise a support ticket has become more complex, requiring specific user accounts and access to specialized platforms."
"I received support from the team for Cisco Secure Access related to web services. There were occasional delays of up to two working days."
"The main issue with pricing is that it is higher compared to other competitors, making it challenging to work with customers unless they specifically request Cisco."
"Cisco is not well accepted in the market since they are somewhat behind their competitors."
"It is expensive."
"There is a need for improved global coverage since the service relies on the cloud provider's data centers."
"If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it... Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well."
"The prices need to go lower. The price of technology is just crazy."
"User interface could be a little smoother and more intuitive."
"Their support should be improved. It is necessary that the support is efficient. It is not really easy to get a resolution for an issue from Cisco support. They should be faster and more efficient."
"It should have a real-time malware classification engine. It should check the malware on the website. It would be good if it had a real-time malware check for the websites because currently, it just compares the DNS queries of the blacklist. It should also have malware control over file execution and the types of files that the users are allowed to download."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"In the future, they should combine some of the Cisco AMP features that they already have, for anti-malware purposes."
"It needs better integration with external threat feeds to improve scoring."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"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."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"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."
Information not available
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"The price could be lower."
"The price should be slightly lower than the current price because if you look at the whole solution, it is simply a threat intelligence solution to block blacklisted things. The price should be lower looking at the features provided by the solution. The price isn't too high either, but it could be lower."
"The price could be lower."
"I am not sure, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think it's $1.00 or so per device/month."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"Pricing depends on the automation requirements of the organization."
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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
17%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Construction Company
11%
Financial Services Firm
9%
Educational Organization
26%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
 

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 experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Secure Access?
Cisco is known for being a premium product, and its pricing reflects this. Although competitive, a more flexible pric...
What is your primary use case for Cisco Secure Access?
Our primary use case for Cisco Secure Access ( /products/cisco-secure-access-reviews ) is seamless connectivity for u...
What advice do you have for others considering Cisco Secure Access?
In terms of overall rating, I give Cisco Secure Access a nine. I would definitely recommend it to other users.
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.
1. IBM 2. Microsoft 3. Amazon 4. Google 5. Apple 6. Cisco Systems 7. Oracle 8. Intel 9. HP Inc. 10. Dell Technologies 11. Verizon Communications 12. AT&T 13. Comcast 14. T-Mobile 15. Sprint 16. Vodafone 17. Orange 18. BT Group 19. Deutsche Telekom 20. Telefonica 21. Nokia 22. Ericsson 23. Samsung Electronics 24. Sony 25. Panasonic 26. LG Electronics 27. Siemens 28. General Electric 29. Ford Motor Company 30. General Motors 31. Toyota Motor Corporation 32. Volkswagen Group
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 Cisco Secure Access vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: March 2025.
844,944 professionals have used our research since 2012.