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Cisco Umbrella vs Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall 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
7.5
Cisco Umbrella improves security, reduces costs, and enhances productivity, offering quick ROI and increased efficiency with threat prevention.
Sentiment score
7.0
Users report significant ROI with Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall due to cost reduction, improved security, enhanced performance, and easier management.
Cybersecurity ROI could be $1 or $100 million, depending on the risk of data behind it.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
8.0
Cisco Umbrella is praised for efficient support and extensive resources, with minor delays in email and purchasing processes.
Sentiment score
5.5
Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall support is skilled but slow, with calls for local support and improved response times.
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.
The support channel isn't like the usual Cisco support where I could call instantly for a hardware issue like a router or switch.
Unlike Fortinet where you can escalate an issue and quickly get responses from the development team, Forcepoint's process seems slow and challenging.
Technical support is sometimes slow to respond, and it takes longer to resolve issues.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
8.1
Cisco Umbrella offers scalable, cloud-based infrastructure, enabling easy deployment and management across diverse organizational sizes globally.
Sentiment score
7.4
Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall excels in scalability, though some users face challenges with large-scale and cloud deployments.
Cisco Umbrella is scalable for our company.
It is a scalable solution but requires improvement in specific areas.
There are restrictions in the firewall manager and limitations when deploying for cloud environments.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
8.3
Cisco Umbrella is praised for its excellent stability, high uptime, and reliability despite rare minor connectivity issues.
Sentiment score
7.9
Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall is stable and reliable, with praised detection and minor stability concerns in complex deployments.
I have not experienced any major stability issues with Cisco Umbrella.
I will give stability a score of seven, as there are some glitches from time to time.
 

Room For Improvement

Cisco Umbrella needs improved integration, user experience, reporting, and regional data centers for better security and network performance.
Forcepoint NGFW needs UI, policy management, and pricing enhancements, along with improved support, integration, and configuration flexibility.
Making it more flexible and easy to deploy, particularly when integrating with other technologies like Active Directory and proxies, would be beneficial.
I have to write an email to Umbrella support to get assistance, unlike the other products where I can call the Cisco technical assistance center and get an engineer.
The product can only shield a small area, making it less effective for larger spaces or multiple users.
Fast response and efficient handling of issues, similar to how Fortinet responds, would be great.
I recommend that additional features be included in a single license to avoid the need for extra licensing costs.
 

Setup Cost

Cisco Umbrella pricing is fair yet expensive, with flexible plans, negotiable discounts, and complex scalability for large enterprises.
Forcepoint NGFW pricing varies, with costs perceived as high due to licensing models and additional feature charges.
The prices need to be lower as the current pricing is exceedingly high.
The only cost associated is the license cost unless additional solutions need to be integrated with Umbrella, which would incur extra costs.
The costs can be high since additional features require separate licenses.
In terms of pricing, I would place Forcepoint in the middle when compared to other firewalls like Fortinet and Palo Alto.
 

Valuable Features

Cisco Umbrella offers DNS-based protection, web filtering, and integration, enhancing security and productivity for hybrid work environments.
Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall offers comprehensive security features and integration for effective network and systems application management.
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 most valuable feature of Cisco Umbrella is its DNS security.
If a machine is attempting to access compromised sites, it can pinpoint the machine to prevent it, thus narrowing down the attack surface.
The most valuable features of Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall are the advanced threat protection, including features like IPS and DDoS prevention, which help avoid internal DDoS attacks.
With Forcepoint, this process is simplified compared to others like Fortinet.
 

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Umbrella
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
113
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)
Forcepoint Next Generation ...
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
44
Ranking in other categories
Firewalls (27th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (11th), WAN Edge (12th)
 

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 22.4%, down 27.9% compared to last year.
Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall, on the other hand, focuses on Firewalls, holds 0.4% mindshare, up 0.4% since last year.
Domain Name System (DNS) Security
Firewalls
 

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.
OusaidAbaz - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides decent protection for the LAN but complicated interface
We had some licensing issues with its web filtering capabilities. That's why we migrated our web filtering to Cisco Umbrella. Moreover, the interface is complicated. It's difficult to locate all the necessary menus and functions. For example, one of the many issues is with SSH. Even now, we haven't successfully opened the port to connect using SSH mode when we want to change the configuration. It's like a black box—not very open to changes and customization. It's simply not easy to configure. There are other problems, too. For example regarding Forcepoint's Websense component. We had a lot of problems managing the web settings within Websense. That's why we migrated to Cisco Umbrella for cloud-based web filtering. It's not that Forcepoint is inherently bad. The issue is that it's not user-friendly. It is not easy to use. The developers need to redesign the interface (GUI) for better management. It is very difficult to manage. For example, simple actions require too many clicks compared to FortiGate or Palo Alto. That's the main problem.
report
Use our free recommendation engine to learn which Domain Name System (DNS) Security solutions are best for your needs.
849,190 professionals have used our research since 2012.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Educational Organization
25%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
18%
Financial Services Firm
10%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
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 is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall?
In terms of pricing, I would place Forcepoint in the middle when compared to other firewalls like Fortinet and Palo Alto.
What needs improvement with Forcepoint Next Generation Firewall?
There is a lot of technical stuff that could be improved. We've encountered scenarios that were really hard to set up and required support. It would be beneficial if the support and contact with th...
 

Also Known As

OpenDNS
Forcepoint NGFW, Stonesoft Next Generation Firewall, McAfee Network Security Platform, Intel Security Network Security Platform
 

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
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco, Infoblox, Palo Alto Networks and others in Domain Name System (DNS) Security. Updated: March 2025.
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