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Cisco Umbrella vs F5 BIG-IP DNS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Nov 24, 2024

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 Umbrella
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
1st
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
111
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (1st), Internet Security (1st), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (2nd), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (3rd), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
F5 BIG-IP DNS
Ranking in Domain Name System (DNS) Security
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.0
Number of Reviews
20
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Domain Name System (DNS) Security category, the mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 22.8%, down from 29.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of F5 BIG-IP DNS is 6.7%, down from 7.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
A robust solution designed to inspect network and form an internal topology network with clients
While we haven't explored AI-driven features yet, it's part of our roadmap for future versions. I would recommend F5 BIG-IP DNS to others in the industry. Overall, I would rate it an eight out of 10 as it meets our current needs but it will always have room for improvement.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"We've found it to be stable and good for our customers."
"I have found the malware protection feature valuable. It is helpful and deliverable and is able to protect my entire organization from getting compromised. It also prevents us from visiting any malicious sites which are not visible to the users."
"My overall rating for Cisco Umbrella is ten out of ten."
"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 insight into what our users are doing via Cisco Umbrella is valuable. Knowing that we're protecting our users as they leave our network is also valuable now because we've got more hybrid working."
"When it comes to hybrid work it's pretty effective. We've got the agents. We can protect people inside our building and, when they're using their laptops out in the field, they're still protected. It's working well."
"The most valuable feature is its ability to detect if a URL has malware or is vulnerable."
"We are very new users of the solution and are still in the exploration stages, but we are happy with the product thus far."
"F5 provides us with a mechanism to accomplish complex product balancing."
"BIG-IP DNS's best features are DNS monitoring and global service load balancing."
"F5 BIG-IP DNS is useful, depending on how you use it."
"The main features valued in F5 BIG-IP include high availability, scalability, and protection of applications from attacks."
"F5 BIG-IP DNS is a stable solution."
"BIG-IP DNS effectively handled a traffic surge. For example, we have application forms replicated across our DCs. If our primary application becomes unavailable, BIG-IP automatically fails over to a client-unaware secondary application."
"It is easy to administer."
"The management is very easy."
 

Cons

"It could be more secure. It would be better if they provided a transferring proxy as an add-on and more integration."
"Security, overall, can always be improved."
"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."
"There are a couple of interface issues. I know that they say that there are feature enhancements that are noted. For example, we've got the Cisco Meraki security appliances, and there, we geofence our company to where we're allowed to send and receive traffic. So, in our case, by default, we only allow traffic to six different countries, which allows us to effectively prevent traffic for the majority of bad players in the world, but they don't give you an easy way to do that in Cisco Umbrella. With Cisco Meraki, I can specify or pick the countries. I can say that I want to only allow traffic from these six countries, and I'm done. With Cisco Umbrella, I have to rely on the fact that they're going to prevent traffic to other countries. They're going to decide if it's good or bad."
"The solution could be faster as the process is very slow."
"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."
"In the next release, I would like to see the integration of VDI NSX with Cisco Umbrella."
"Overall, I'm quite happy with Cisco products, but there could be one place where you can check what's going on. There could be one place where you get all the information about these products so that you don't need to look around. You get the status, information about what lately happened, and if there was anything on the machine in one single place."
"I would like to see deeper integration with VMware in the sense that F5 compliments VMware, in the context of application availability."
"It would be great to see a F5 BIG-IP DNS cloud version. What we within the Australian government are looking at doing is utilizing a secured DNS service much the same as the English GCHQ version of their protected DNS service."
"The analysis services needs improvement."
"Scalability is a concern, it could be improved."
"In the product, one of the shortcomings is related to its configuration part...Though you can find some manuals or F5 documents, in real life, it's very hard to understand this product."
"I would like to see the login facilities improved, as well as more troubleshooting."
"I sometimes encounter issues with the porting of F5 BIG-IP DNS."
"I would like to see more marketing documentation, rather than technical documentation."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"You can request an evaluation license​."
"I rate the tool's pricing a five out of ten."
"There is a subscription cost."
"There is a one-time cost of approximately $800 USD per user, and then a yearly support fee of about $50 per user."
"It needs a better price point."
"The licensing fee is paid on a yearly basis."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"The licensing part for Umbrella is really flexible."
"I would rate the pricing a three out of ten, with ten being a low price."
"The on-prem version is only available on a yearly license, but the cloud version can be paid for on a day-by-day basis."
"They are competitively priced."
"This product is quite pricey but if you compare the feature set and its compatibility with similar products on the market, you would understand why it's that price."
"BIG-IP DNS is more expensive than its competitors like Citrix, but it gives good value for money."
"In some cases, it is expensive."
"You cannot do much around DDoS protection without an additional license from F5."
"Cost is a factor. It is really costly."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
18%
Government
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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.
What do you like most about F5 BIG-IP DNS?
For one of our clients, F5 improved global server load balancing with an active-active site configuration for Disaster Recovery.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 BIG-IP DNS?
In terms of pricing, F5 BIG-IP is not cheaper compared to other solutions like Fortinet or Citrix. The cost can be high due to its comprehensive modules.
What needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP DNS?
The support response time could use improvement. In critical cases, such as in the big environment projects, faster support is needed to address critical issues promptly.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
F5 BIG-IP DNS, F5 DNS Delivery
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

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
Ricacorp Properties, Bangladesh Post Office, Shawbrook Bank, Shinsegae Internet Duty Free
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. F5 BIG-IP DNS and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,020 professionals have used our research since 2012.