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Cisco Secure Client (including AnyConnect) vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Secure Client (includ...
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
5th
Average Rating
8.6
Number of Reviews
69
Ranking in other categories
SSL VPN (3rd), Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (7th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Cisco Security Portfolio
2nd
Average Rating
8.8
Number of Reviews
109
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (1st), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (2nd), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st)
 

Featured Reviews

Akos Szirmai - PeerSpot reviewer
Dec 15, 2023
Versatile and accessible across different devices
Cisco AnyConnect is valuable for our organization as it secures remote access to resources, enabling colleagues to work from anywhere. Its importance grew during the shift to more remote work, like during COVID As an end user, what I like most about Cisco AnyConnect VPN is its reliability and…
CZ
Oct 2, 2023
Flexible and Reduces Trouble Tickets
It helps us lead processes and blocks malicious DNS queries daily, which is very beneficial. We've seen a reduction of about eight hundred trouble tickets compared to the previous year. The customers are having a better overall experience as less bandwidth is being taken up by DNS acres. We're not having to constantly police that part of our network. It's a little bit of a better process and a better experience for our customers. We use the Easy Connect product, which works well. The solution enables you to extend data protection to devices and remote users or distribute the locations. However, most of our use for the product is at the DNS level for our entire network and not really at the device level. We do have another added layer from a different company for the device security component. The solution is pretty flexible. With the reduction of trouble tickets, it would be reasonable to say the solution has saved us money on security operations. Umbrella discovers new vulnerabilities every year. That's absolutely important to us. As our technology changes, the way we're attacked changes and will continue to change. It's important for us to be made aware of new threats and protect against them.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The solution provides seamless connectivity to the VPN without delay."
"The solution is secure and has a lot of benefits."
"Configuration policy, posture assessment, and other things can be done in great detail."
"Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is good for securing our connection. It is very easy to use, I click to use it and it works."
"It's fairly easy to set up."
"The most valuable features of the Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is the reliability and scalability."
"The setup is quick and easy on the client-side."
"For our company's needs, AnyConnect is sufficient and very easy to use."
"When we have laptops that leave the building, they could connect to public WiFi before they establish a VPN connection back into the company. For that duration or that period of time when they're not docked in the network or on a VPN, they effectively don't have that full layer of security that I provide inside the building. This tool stands in during that period of time, and we extend the security settings through their basic firewall or their cloud-based firewall at that time. So, we do content filtering and control access, but they also are looking at new domains, IP addresses, and bad requests. They're blocking them on my behalf when a laptop is not sitting behind our security appliances."
"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."
"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."
"The most valuable feature is that it secures our network against blacklisted or malicious websites."
"Provides dependable DNS monitoring of external devices."
"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. It is pretty simple and straightforward to install and configure. Its remit is reasonably clearly defined. When you look at solutions like Darktrace and Carbon Black, the mission objective isn't as clearly defined. Cisco Umbrella, Sophos Central, or some of the other solutions have a more standardized approach to antivirus, which includes enhanced response from the machine learning or deep learning perspective."
"The most valuable feature is the ability to filter malware sites that could infect clients or allow them to download infected files."
"It provides centralized, device-agnostic management of the Internet experience."
 

Cons

"Whenever there's a drop in internet or a connection fluctuation, it gets disconnected automatically."
"Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client is a stable solution. However, there have been times it has not worked and I needed to call our IT department. It could be more stable."
"The solution's performance and stability are average."
"I would like to see improvements in regards to the connectivity speed."
"Improvements could be made in terms of pricing and ease of setup."
"The logout should be automized and it should have a reminder that you have logged in into a private network."
"We were going to use the Cisco AnyConnect with hardware tokens. However, right now, it's very complicated in terms of delivering the hardware token to the customer. That's why we are looking for a software token right now."
"Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client could improve by adding faster connectivity."
"The solution could be faster as the process is very slow."
"If the security issues are taken care of it would be better."
"I would like to see Cisco enable us to get objects from the internet. I would also like to be able to choose groups."
"Its on-prem rollout is quite challenging. It needs better coordination with the Internet Service Provider. It is a cloud-based solution, and any endpoint that connects to it has to go through all the gateway ISPs, but some of the ISPs block HTTPS-based DNS. That's where the challenge occurs with Umbrella."
"Actually, we recently switched over to Zscaler because it has more features and it's more scalable than Cisco Umbrella."
"This solution does not give us full, 360-degree protection."
"There is room for improvement in the dashboard. It could stand to be a bit more detailed. I would also like to be able to customize the dashboard to focus more on what is important for my company."
"I would like for their support to be faster."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not a free solution and the user needs to buy license."
"The licensing costs are reasonable."
"We are in the North African region, and Cisco products are expensive for us. On a scale from one to ten with one being very affordable and ten being expensive, I'd rate the price at eight."
"We have yearly licensing and it's very affordable."
"I would rate the pricing for the license of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client around four to five out of ten. It's not the cheapest option, but it's also not overly expensive."
"My company has a three-year or a four-year license. In scenarios attached to a solution where the product may be reaching an end-of-support or end-of-life phase, Cisco provides OS support in such environments."
"The price is okay."
"I am using a paid version of Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client."
"You can request an evaluation license​."
"Cisco should make the solution cheaper."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"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."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"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."
"The price of Cisco Umbrella is a little higher than similar solutions, like Gateway."
"The price is quite good."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
45%
Computer Software Company
18%
Government
5%
Financial Services Firm
5%
Educational Organization
20%
Computer Software Company
20%
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 Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
The tool is user-friendly, robust and easy to use in any environment.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
My company has a three-year or a four-year license. In scenarios attached to a solution where the product may be reaching an end-of-support or end-of-life phase, Cisco provides OS support in such e...
What needs improvement with Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client?
The security of the product has certain shortcomings, making it an area where improvements are required.
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 do you like most about Cisco Umbrella?
Cisco Umbrella is easy to monitor, manage, and deploy.
 

Also Known As

Cisco AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client
OpenDNS
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

MST, Molina Healthcare, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, Arup, New South Wales Rural FireService
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 Client (including AnyConnect) vs. Cisco Umbrella and other solutions. Updated: August 2024.
801,634 professionals have used our research since 2012.