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Cisco Umbrella vs FortiSASE comparison

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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

iboss
Sponsored
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
10th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
14
Ranking in other categories
Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Internet Security (4th), Web Content Filtering (4th), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (8th), ZTNA as a Service (12th)
Cisco Umbrella
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
3rd
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), Domain Name System (DNS) Security (1st), Cisco Security Portfolio (2nd)
FortiSASE
Ranking in Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
11th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.6
Number of Reviews
10
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2025, in the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) category, the mindshare of iboss is 1.7%, up from 1.6% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Cisco Umbrella is 11.4%, down from 11.7% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of FortiSASE is 7.3%, up from 3.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
 

Featured Reviews

Matt Crockford - PeerSpot reviewer
It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless
One aspect we value about iboss is its simplicity. Their customer service is brilliant, and they are super responsive and knowledgeable. It's easy to roll out, and their understanding of our business made it seamless. We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times. The user interface is highly intuitive. Our IT team picked it up with minimal training. It's arranged so that it's easy to find where things are. Another advantage is the single pane of glass console, which gives you visibility into what's happening. We're not fully there yet because we haven't implemented zero trust, but we're excited about the possibilities from the demos we've seen. We launched a POC of iboss' ChatGPT Risk Protection feature two weeks ago. AI is a great tool, but you need to be careful what you put into it. My biggest fear is employees inputting sensitive corporate information or customer PII data into one of these chatbots. I was impressed by our trial of the feature. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, when a user goes to ChatGPT, there's a banner warning them not to share information, and we can block conversations containing customer data like bank details and email addresses. I don't want to stop people from using it, but we need visibility. We've only tried it on a test group of 15 people. You can configure it to look for specific keywords or integrate it with your DLP policy if you have that configured
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.
Peter VanDorp - PeerSpot reviewer
Improved our operational efficiency because we manage one system now that manages all the sub-pieces to it
Deep packet inspection is easier to deploy in the FortiSASE environment. It's much simpler to configure one-touch deployment. It was considerably more convoluted to get that to work using FortiClient. All that processing horsepower is happening in Fortinet's cloud infrastructure, reducing the load on our local routers and on-prem FortiGate firewalls. There wasn't much of a learning curve because we are already a Fortinet organization. We still use all the same pieces, but the interface is slightly different. Still, I don't think the average user would have difficulty picking the solution up. They've got some excellent documentation and support to help you through any questions you may have. FortiSASE lets us manage everything from one web interface. That's the most significant benefit. We also use FortiManager, but it could only do so much when we only used on-prem systems. We still need to touch the EMS server and a few other interfaces to make all the pieces work. FortiSASE puts everything in one place. If something doesn't work, you've got support there to help you out. Previously, we had local support, but it's more complicated because you needed to explain your environment. The SASE environment is under their control, so they know what it looks like and what they're dealing with.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"iboss has significantly lowered the number of security incidents. It is crazy how much it blocks and how much it is aware of the outside danger."
"The security aspect of the solution, particularly the malware behind it, is excellent. That's something that really helped us out. It's not just a simple proxy that just blocks the insights of potential threats that come on behind it. They do malware detection and that helps us a lot."
"Its initial setup was straightforward."
"The solution has massively improved our security posture, giving us full visibility into what our staff does online."
"We were impressed by the solution's mental health function, which can detect if someone needs help. It scans what users are browsing and flags warning signs so we can check to see if they are okay. We've had to use it a couple of times."
"iboss is easy to use despite its complexity. Multiple engineers manage it, but it's significantly more straightforward to administer than traditional VPNs and web proxies."
"The iboss system is highly reliable. The false positive rates are small compared to some other systems we've experienced through other partner agencies who use competing solutions."
"Our primary use case for this product is DLP,"
"Some clients only want DNS security, while others want more of the advanced features that it has available."
"The documentation is good, and we have been able to resolve any issues ourselves."
"The solution is very easy to manage. We found the initial setup, for example, to be quite simple."
"Overall, it is a very good solution. It is a simple solution and very easy to set up."
"It's very stable, reliable and does its job."
"Improves security through DNS visibility, which can block malware, phishing, C&C, etc."
"Stability-wise, it's good. I have never encountered any bugs."
"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."
"The integration with the company's existing security infrastructure enhanced our security posture since it was a straightforward process."
"It has AI-based detections for any signature-less virus or any unknown vulnerabilities."
"Deep packet inspection is easier to deploy in the FortiSASE environment. It's much simpler to configure one-touch deployment. It was considerably more convoluted to get that to work using FortiClient. All that processing horsepower is happening in Fortinet's cloud infrastructure, reducing the load on our local routers and on-prem FortiGate firewalls."
"The solution is easy to deploy and simple to manage."
"It is highly scalable."
"I feel that it is a stable solution...It is a scalable solution."
"Its function is related to the licensing framework."
"This advantage is having the ability to create an SPA unit of FortiGate."
 

Cons

"Iboss is growing so fast that it is often hard for them to keep up with the challenges."
"Fold that in with the risk intelligence they're getting from all of the different subscriptions they are a part of. Now, these security companies subscribe to things like emerging threats, databases, etc. You can fold all this intelligence to decide what's happening on an endpoint. I would love to see them start moving into that space. That would compete directly with Microsoft. Maybe that's why they haven't. Having that ability native within the solution would be great. The other area in which I would love to see improvement is more detailed descriptions of why they block websites."
"The reporting feature needs improvement."
"The solution could be stronger on the integration side and offer more cloud applications like G Suite or Oracle."
"The reporting feature needs improvement. It doesn't give you the expected results. It is quite difficult to get the specific reports needed, and it is not as intuitive as the rest of the platform."
"The dashboards for local use could be better."
"The area I would like to see improvement in is the ability with in the reporter to navigate directly to the content the user is traversing. It is kind of there, but it's not perfect. Quite frequently, I receive links that lead me to pages with error messages."
"I'd like to see them accelerate development on the security side, particularly around data loss prevention."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"If a hardware platform were provided for Umbrella, that would definitely improve the market for it... Especially when we are addressing governmental customers, they hesitate to connect to the cloud. That is where we need a hardware platform so that the solution can be used on-premises as well."
"The pricing could always be a little bit better."
"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."
"We need to work on integration as it is very complex."
"Although Cisco Umbrella has an excellent global network footprint, there is still room for improvement and growth in this area. Additionally, there are bandwidth limitations associated with the connectors that need to be addressed. To be a viable solution for larger offices, Cisco Umbrella must continue to expand and improve its capabilities in these areas."
"If the virtual appliances could also gather traffic bandwidth reports, that would be great."
"iOS devices and mobiles are huge in my environment right now, and I cannot run them on Cisco Umbrella 24/7."
"FortiSASE is a work in progress. One area where there is room for improvement is the ability to use FortiSASE on an endpoint that doesn't have the client on it. Other solutions do that by building a VPN tunnel from their on-prem router into the SASE environment. FortiSASE doesn't have that feature yet, but it is on the roadmap for Q3 of this year. I've seen it in their development environment."
"Some of the solution's back-end connectivity and visibility are not robust and could be improved."
"Security and support are two areas with certain shortcomings in the product where improvements are required."
"The main concern is that if the client is using another firewall, they cannot establish a private channel with the Cisco cloud."
"The GUI and connectivity, along with the support offered, are some of the areas of concern in the product where improvements are required."
"The current high-tech version of FortiSASE is not recommended due to its heavy loading."
"There are some issues at the agent level, and then we have to sign out and sign in."
"They need to have more concise or precise ways to come up with the return on investment for convincing or presenting this to customers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It is not expensive, and it is also not cheap. iboss is priced right in the sweet spot for the number of features it offers."
"It is probably in line with other solutions, but I do not deal with the financial side."
"The overall pricing for iboss is very competitive and transparent."
"It is expensive compared to one of its competitors."
"We have not priced the solution recently, but they were competitive with other vendors in the past."
"The price depends on the use case, and it's a bit linear. But it depends on the customer's strategy and how Cisco plans to optimize the costs."
"You get what you pay for if you break the solution up into tiers."
"It needs a better price point."
"Cisco has a set price for a single license up to 100, but whenever we get over 100, we have to ask for a quote."
"The price is fair, and the licensing cost is based on the number of users. We have seen a good ROI."
"It has a reasonable price. It is certainly not as expensive as it used to be. It is in line with other offerings on the market. There are a number of different flavors of Umbrella. They could bring Umbrella SIG down a bit because its price is a little bit high for what it does, but I also understand why its price is high."
"There is room for improvement when it comes to the cost."
"The pricing is pretty fair. It's good."
"I can only speak about the pricing for education users because we get discounts. Other users aren't going to get the same price, but FortiSASE is competitive with the other products out there. All the solutions came in at the same price, so it just came down to the product that works best for us."
"On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a three out of ten."
"I rate the product's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price and ten is high price."
"I rate the product price an eight on a scale of one to ten, where one is high price, and ten is low price."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
13%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
Educational Organization
24%
Computer Software Company
17%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Computer Software Company
22%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Construction Company
6%
 

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 FortiSASE ?
The integration with the company's existing security infrastructure enhanced our security posture since it was a stra...
What needs improvement with FortiSASE ?
If they had application segmentation, we could give secure access to applications. That is not there. I had security ...
 

Also Known As

iBoss Cloud Platform
OpenDNS
No data available
 

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
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Find out what your peers are saying about Cisco Umbrella vs. FortiSASE and other solutions. Updated: December 2024.
831,158 professionals have used our research since 2012.