Try our new research platform with insights from 80,000+ expert users

Cisco Umbrella vs F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jul 30, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

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

ROI

Sentiment score
7.6
Cisco Umbrella improves ROI through enhanced security, operational efficiency, cost savings, and increased satisfaction, driving continued license renewals.
Sentiment score
7.4
Users had mixed satisfaction with F5 BIG-IP LTM, praising performance and security but critiquing the new pricing model.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella's customer service is praised for efficiency, professionalism, and excellent technical support, with some room for response improvement.
No sentiment score available
I would rate customer support ten out of ten due to the excellent assistance throughout the POC process.
Cisco's support is fantastic, providing assistance when needed, especially during the initial installation process.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella offers seamless scalability and integration, supporting various organizational sizes and global user bases without infrastructure challenges.
No sentiment score available
Cisco Umbrella is scalable for our company.
It is a scalable solution but requires improvement in specific areas.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for strong stability, exceptional uptime, and minimal issues, earning high ratings from satisfied users.
No sentiment score available
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
 

Room For Improvement

Users seek improvements for Cisco Umbrella in integration, analytics, security features, user interface, IPv6 support, licensing, and compatibility.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Umbrella pricing is seen as mixed, offering flexible plans but sometimes considered costly compared to competitors.
F5 BIG-IP LTM is costly but valued for performance, with pricing options and potential discounts, especially on AWS Marketplace.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Umbrella provides DNS-based network security, blocking threats, enhancing productivity, and offering seamless integration and comprehensive threat protection.
F5 BIG-IP LTM provides flexible load balancing, SSL offloading, and security integration for efficient traffic management and improved uptime.
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.
The firewall and integration capability with other security solutions are valuable for effective security management.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
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), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Man...
Average Rating
8.2
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
120
Ranking in other categories
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC) (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Enterprise Networking solutions, they serve different purposes. Cisco Umbrella is designed for Domain Name System (DNS) Security and holds a mindshare of 24.7%, down 29.5% compared to last year.
F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM), on the other hand, focuses on Application Delivery Controllers (ADC), holds 15.1% mindshare, down 16.0% since last year.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Application Delivery Controllers (ADC)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Richard Polyak - PeerSpot reviewer
Reduces maintenance downtime and has a strong user community
The advice I would give to others who are looking to implement F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager is this: look at their user knowledge base first to see if the solution truly fits what you need. On a scale of one to 10, I would give F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager a nine.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
23%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
14%
Government
9%
Manufacturing Company
6%
 

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 needs improvement with F5 BIG-IP?
There are no specific areas for improvement as it is already well-resolved and doesn't require further enhancements.
What is your primary use case for F5 BIG-IP?
The primary use case includes load balancing to serve application servers and basic web application firewall solutions. Our customers use it for that purpose.
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
F5 BIG-IP, BIG-IP LTM, F5 ASM, Viprion, F5 BIG-IP Virtual Edition , Crescendo Networks Application Delivery Controller, BIG IP
 

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
Riken, TransUnion, Tepco Systems Administration, Daejeon University, G&T Bank, Danamon, CyberAgent Inc.
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: December 2024.
824,053 professionals have used our research since 2012.