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Cisco Umbrella vs Cisco Web Security Appliance comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Aug 6, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.8
Iboss customer service is praised for responsiveness, knowledge, efficiency, excellent support, proactive problem-solving, and dedicated account management.
Sentiment score
8.5
Cisco Umbrella's support is highly rated for professionalism and efficiency, with prompt issue resolution and comprehensive assistance appreciated.
No sentiment score available
They are very fast, responsive, and knowledgeable.
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
 

Room For Improvement

Sentiment score
4.8
IBoss users seek improved reporting, security features, cloud integration, higher network capacity, intuitive configurations, and more efficient customer support.
Sentiment score
5.2
Cisco Umbrella requires better integration, user interface, features, pricing transparency, and support for improved user experience and deployment.
No sentiment score available
It is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
iBoss provides scalable solutions for seamless bandwidth adjustment, supporting global expansion and efficient management of significant user loads.
Sentiment score
8.4
Cisco Umbrella efficiently scales for companies of all sizes, offering seamless deployment and flexible licensing for global users.
No sentiment score available
We have flexibility with our primary and backup nodes if there's a large amount of web traffic.
Cisco Umbrella is scalable for our company.
 

Setup Cost

Sentiment score
6.4
Iboss offers competitive, transparent pricing with a per-user model, simplifying cost forecasting and enhancing budget predictability for enterprises.
Sentiment score
6.1
Cisco Umbrella offers flexible pricing from $20 to $40 per license, balancing features and costs with scalable plans.
No sentiment score available
It offers the same features you would get from a vendor that charges 250,000 British pounds for a fraction of the price.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.2
iboss is highly stable with minimal issues; cloud transition improves performance, earning high stability ratings from users.
Sentiment score
8.5
Cisco Umbrella is highly praised for stability, reliability, seamless connectivity, and consistently delivering high performance with minimal downtime.
No sentiment score available
 

Valuable Features

Sentiment score
7.7
Iboss provides scalable cloud security with advanced features like content filtering, SSL inspection, and seamless integration, enhancing user protection.
Sentiment score
8.2
Cisco Umbrella offers comprehensive DNS security, web filtering, malware protection, and easy deployment, enhancing user protection and policy management.
No sentiment score available
The solution's mental health function can detect if someone needs help.
The DNS layer security provided by Cisco Umbrella is very effective for our security posture, offering us vast improvements in visibility over DNS queries and potential threats.
 

Categories and Ranking

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
13th
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 (13th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (10th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
110
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)
Cisco Web Security Appliance
Ranking in Secure Web Gateways (SWG)
9th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
30
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Featured Reviews

Jack Hamm - PeerSpot reviewer
We experienced benefits immediately but the report generation is lagging
iboss excels on the networking side but lags slightly behind competitors like Zscaler and Netskope in terms of security feature parity. I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention. Using iboss for DLP instead of traditional endpoint solutions is preferable, but its current feature set requires some clunky workarounds. I'd also like to see better integration of DLP into the platform. Additionally, while it's improving, reporting can be slow at times. This is problematic when generating reports for executives who expect them immediately. I'd like to see further improvements in reporting speed and efficiency.
Rohan Singh - PeerSpot reviewer
Protects endpoints wherever they are, always pushing people to the right locations to avoid malicious intent
The most valuable thing is how easy it is to deploy. We did it with 9,000 users at my last job, and it took a week to get to all the endpoints. Doing that without having to physically touch all those endpoints was very simple. The single pane of glass management makes it very easy to manage your rollout. We get a lot of "single panes of glass" and, eventually, you need a pane of panes of glass. But it's always good to have a clear and graphical view, and Umbrella's is nice and easy to read. Definitely, of the panes of glass that we do have, it's one of the easiest to use. The single pane of glass is good to group users together and separate people out. Some people need different types of security. Some people are more vulnerable. Some have more highly valuable assets, like C-suite people. It's really good to be able to have end-users defined inside of that. You don't have to jump around. You don't have to figure out who's who. It's all done through one pane of glass. What most people don't realize is that it's running in the background, which is a really nice aspect when it comes to security. Often, when you deploy a security tool, it takes up CPU performance. Everything slows to a grind. But Umbrella is so simple and easy and it doesn't affect the end-user experience. It's the best of all worlds. It's nice when people realize that they're being protected when they go to the wrong site. I think people are happy that they're protected, but it's nice that they rarely notice it. It's generally easy to maintain network connectivity, but with Umbrella, the nice part is that whichever connectivity you're on, you're always secure. With Umbrella, as long as you're online, you're going to be protected.
IgnitiusMolepo - PeerSpot reviewer
Ensures security for remote workers
The Cisco Web Security Appliance provides DLP to organizations. It helps prevent the unauthorized transmission of sensitive information by blocking such attempts. Additionally, it safeguards against malware attacks, particularly on websites not authorized by our company. Its role in protecting us from malware is pivotal. The organization itself handles the configuration and management of Cisco Web Security Appliance. Cisco assists in deploying and configuring the appliance and managing all associated services. Integrating the Cisco Web Security Appliance with other solutions is quite challenging. For instance, when we tried to integrate Netscape KSP, we encountered difficulties retrieving logs. Additionally, our solution failed to interact with the Web Security Appliance. Overall, the integration process remains problematic, hindering the effectiveness of our security infrastructure. We have both the cloud version and the on-premises version. For clients who require data sovereignty, we offer the on-premises version, which includes a data sovereignty tool. This allows them to enforce policies that prevent the transfer of logs to third-party data centres, ensuring compliance with their country's regulations. Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
13%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
22%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Non Profit
9%
Government
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...
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.
What do you like most about Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The most valuable features of the solution are the functions of proxy for the users who use the internet and the secu...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cisco Web Security Appliance?
Pricing is competitive and varies across sectors. Public sector clients receive good pricing, whereas enterprise or c...
What needs improvement with Cisco Web Security Appliance?
The product is great, however, incorporating features offered by competitors would be beneficial. Competitors sometim...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
Cisco WSA, Cisco Web Security
 

Learn More

 

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.
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
New South Wales Rural Fire Service, Caixa Seguradora
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. Cisco Web Security Appliance and other solutions. Updated: October 2024.
816,406 professionals have used our research since 2012.