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Cisco SecureX [EOL] vs Cisco Umbrella comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Cisco SecureX [EOL]
Average Rating
9.0
Reviews Sentiment
8.2
Number of Reviews
13
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
123
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)
 

Featured Reviews

Dene Lewis - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Technical Strategy and Direction CAE Technology Services Ltd at CAE Technology Services Limited
A scalable SaaS based platform that helps with cyber threat intelligence and automated hunting
I would rate Cisco SecureX a ten out of ten. I find the product to be a fantastic platform. If you are eligible, start using it straight away. The best way to evaluate it is to start using it and see where it fits within your organization. I think it helps our customers really deliver their SecOps goals, and I see it as a core foundation of CAE's own security strategy going forward. Our partnership with Cisco is one that was built on trust over a long period of time. This has enabled us to work together to be able to provide the solutions that our customers need to drive their organizations forward. The value we add as a reseller is being able to work closer with our customers, understand them, and get intimate with their organizations. That enables us to offer them the right solutions that will help them achieve their goals.
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

"The automation and orchestration tools are the most valuable features."
"It has evolved a lot, just that monitoring piece to the current Orchestrator piece. The additional analytics are there. They now have something called Insight, which can basically take data from Microsoft Azure AD and Intune to give us information about our endpoints. This is detailed information about the endpoints, from Secure Endpoint and all these different products. So, it is just constantly evolving. Every time that it evolves, we have more information with more visibility. There are more features that we have that just make everything so much easier, and it is in one place. I don't have to keep going back and forth. I don't have to go to Secure Endpoint and ISE to get the data. I don't have to go to Intune on Microsoft to get the information. It is all in one place."
"The ability to create firewalls online has been most valuable including the ability to create rules."
"Using SecureX, a tool provided by Cisco, we can easily integrate it with many of our other Cisco products such as Cisco ISE and many networking devices."
"SecureX takes all the separate pieces of security within your company, adds in intelligence from different sites and services on the internet, and makes them work together."
"The most beneficial feature of Cisco SecureX for cybersecurity efforts is its integration with other Cisco solutions and the environment. This sets it apart, as its APIs and overall integration capabilities are very strong. Additionally, its detection capabilities are commendable."
"Integrates well with our existing security infrastructure."
"Our customers find the product's third-party integrations valuable. Our customers are also impressed with the tool's capability to pick up third-party threat feeds and use that as part of the decision-making process."
"It offers good visibility for the Administrator. The administrator has full visibility of what is blocked or has the knowledge of where users go when they are surfing the internet."
"Cisco Umbrella is the first layer of security that protects me while surfing the net, identifying untrusted websites to prevent access."
"The most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security."
"By using Cisco Umbrella, you are sure of inspecting all the traffic. Whenever the user machine is connected to your network, it is inspected. That's the best thing. It means you are sure that nothing is being exported or imported without your choice. That is the best feature."
"The DNS data exfiltration and the blocking of DNS tunneling are the most effective features for threat prevention in our company."
"It will protect, give you more robustness, and faster responses, compared to any firewalls or any of the proxy web servers."
"The user interface is great. It's very easy to tailor to our client's environment and needs."
"I like that it integrates with the infrastructure. I also like the kind of data and intelligence that's built-in. It helps create innovative reports for security."
 

Cons

"what's missing right now is the multi-tenant capability."
"The playbooks provided with the product are great, although I would appreciate having more playbooks available. Threats are constantly evolving, so having access to updated playbooks is crucial."
"One of the improvements the product needs is more integration with collaboration platforms."
"The documentation can be improved and the on-prem integration. The set of applications that it was integrated with wasn't comprehensive."
"They could put in more third-party [integrations]... also more playbooks, out-of-the-box, for automation [would be helpful]."
"I'm not sure that I would call it a bug, but sometimes the solution is a little slow."
"Remediation stuff could be integrated into the product's automation."
"Enhancing automation capabilities could further improve the product."
"With any Cisco product, it's the licensing side of things that needs improvement."
"Its reliability and the response time of the support team can be better."
"The rule-making process for blocking sites or for blocking characteristics can use some simplification."
"The pricing is a bit high. Being outside of the USA, we have issues with the exchange rate."
"The main issue that we have is with the final steps or the full integration and getting rid of Zscaler. The company still has to fall back to Zscaler when something in Umbrella is not working as expected, such as when we enable SSL inspection. When something is not working 100%, the company is falling back to Zscaler."
"Lower costs including licensing, support, and renewals would be beneficial."
"If I want to see which users access a website, I need an Active Directory registered on Umbrella's cloud."
"If the security issues are taken care of it would be better."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Cisco SecureX is more expensive than Trend Micro. However, considering the integration capabilities with other solutions and the quality of technical support, I believe there's justification for the price difference."
"It comes free with all Cisco products. So, it is a good price."
"The pricing is competitive, especially for education institutions. Licensing can be a little bit difficult to navigate, especially with resellers with Cisco, but for us it has been pretty easy."
"The pricing is the best part of this solution. It is free if you buy Umbrella or Duo Security. It is also a good solution."
"It is free. It can't get any better than that."
"The product is absolutely free to any customer. As such, the only thing one must keep in mind is that as long as he already has one Cisco security product, irregardless of what that product is, SecureX is available for free."
"You can spend less money for another solution, but if you really want to have a good solution you have to pay. We are happy that we are getting such a good solution for what we are spending."
"It would be nice if they had a different pricing model. Most of our budget for projects goes towards Cisco."
"We have a security Enterprise Agreement with Cisco, so the pricing is good."
"The pricing is great and very competitive with the rest of the market."
"When talking about Cisco solutions in general there pricing model is horrible. For example, you can sell a Meraki-based solution, but if the customer starts shopping around, someone is going to have access to the pricing at a level that you cannot compete because they do not have uniform pricing. Not everybody gets fair pricing. Unless you are one of the real major corporations selling the solution your ability to compete is impossible. Cisco will acknowledge the situation and assure you next time it will be in your favor but it never becomes favorable for you. Cisco is not very good in this regard. However, Umbrella is good."
"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."
"There is a subscription cost."
"The solution’s pricing is reasonable."
"Licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis."
"It needs a better price point."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
21%
Marketing Services Firm
10%
Government
9%
University
7%
Computer Software Company
13%
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 Business4
Midsize Enterprise7
Large Enterprise3
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business50
Midsize Enterprise30
Large Enterprise51
 

Questions from the Community

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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 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 bundle with other Cisco purchases.
 

Also Known As

Kenna.AppSec, Kenna.VI
OpenDNS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

NHS, Rackspace, UNC Pembroke, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Missing Piece
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 and others in Cisco Security Portfolio. Updated: February 2026.
883,448 professionals have used our research since 2012.